If you check out James Patterson’s website, you’ll see an intro of him talking about his Maximum Ride series. It’s a great little clip, with a great message about once kids get started reading, it gets harder for them to stop. I recently reviewed book 4 (coming out in 4 days!) and previously reviewed the first 3 books, and I have to agree with him that it is an awesome series. Incredibly engrossing, and it includes compelling characters and plots, along with short chapters, so it’s easy for kids to read, and easy for adults to read to kids.

We have just finished reading book 2, Maximum Ride: School’s Out Forever, and are about to start book 3, Maximum Ride #3: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports. My kids have passed on their fascination to some of their friends, who have gobbled up series. The large scale imaginative play that I saw last year centered around Harry Potter. This year, it’s Maximum Ride. I’m (currently) preferring the Maximum Ride obsession because of the 6 characters, 3 are boys and 3 are girls; it was hard for my 3 girls to have active characters in Harry Potter without inventing characters. Plus, Max, Nudge, and Angel are either just as awesome as the boys (Fang, Iggy, Gazzy), or possibly more awesome. There’s nothing a mom of 3 girls likes more than a strong female character than 3 strong female characters!

Meanwhile, I have gone over the edge into “softie mom” world, buying Barbies off eBay so the girls will have 6 dolls with the right skin/hair colors for all 6 characters. I’m also brainstorming how to make wings that fold back, because the Flock has raptor wings, not fairy or butterfly wings.

This is a 4 paragraph way of recommending that if your kids are looking for the “next Harry Potter”, I can say that my kids have found it with Maximum Ride.

We’re also loving the Artemis Fowl audio books, but that isn’t being pulled into imaginative play as much. We’ve only heard 3/5 of those novels, though. I’m sure excitement will increase when the new Artemis Fowl book comes out, though!