The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids

By Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones

Chapter Book Series Published in the 1990s and early 2000s

Age range: 7 to 9

Backstory: (You can skip this part if you want) I never reviewed chapter books before but I have to say something about the Bailey School Kids books. I have a 12 year old son and an 8 year old daughter. My 12 year old has always been a good reader and has interest in several genres. My 8 year old, however, is a very reluctant reader. She loses interest in books and can never seem to get hooked and engrossed the way my son and I do. For a while I thought maybe reading just wasn’t her thing, and I was going to be okay with that. She tried the Magic Tree House books, Ivy and Bean, Scholastic readers, and dozens of others. One day a cousin of hers gave her a Bailey School Kids book called Ghosts Don’t Eat Potato Chips and my daughter read the entire book in a couple of days without any prompting. For the first time, she actually looked forward to reading. She checked out a couple more of these books from the library and read those quickly and in earnest. I couldn’t believe it! For that reason, I need to write this review.

Review: Since this is a chapter book series, it’s not something I would normally choose to read on my own and it’s not something I would necessarily consider a book trek. However, these are really great little stories. I love that they have the same four main characters in each book but each book is a stand-alone story. Something that always frustrated me about the Magic Tree House books was that you had to read each one in order so you could follow along the over-arching story. But with the Bailey School Kids books, each one is a separate mystery and can be read in any order. Certain adults in the neighborhood appear to be characters from mythology or fairy tales, like vampires or Santa Claus. These four friends take it upon themselves to find out.

What Jane Says: Directly from the mouth of my 8 year-old, “Other kids should read these books because they’re interesting and it’s kind of a mystery. Four kids are trying to find out if some grown-ups are really from fairy tales or legends. My favorite was Wizards Don’t Use Computers which had a man named Merlin who worked at the library and with a snap of his fingers the library became a kingdom of reading. My second favorite so far is the one I’m reading now called Angels Don’t Know Karate.

Rating: Jane says 5 Boots!