Fablehaven

Dang. Not as good as I remembered.

The series does get better; I remember that. But the challenge here is that Mull is trying to convey his mental movie of the story, but can't quite land the words to make it flow naturally on the page. Seth, while not the best character at this point, is not the absolute moron most of the non-positive reviews claim. The man is young, and developing character. He is a little ambitiously reckless, but I know enough ten-year-old siblings of my friends to inform those kind reviewers that they need more experience with children. Seth is slightly annoying, but checks out.

What lands now is the sheer... absurdity of the world building. Not that it's bad, simply absurd. Things happen, or are world rules, for reasons that Mull capitalizes on in later entries, leaving their mystifying roots here. If this were standalone, I would not rank it so highly.

Two children are sent to their grandparents house in Connecticut, where they learn that drinking the milk from a magical cow will allow their “eyes to be opened” and they can suddenly see all the magical creatures surrounding their house. They learn that their grandfather is the curator of a place called Fablehaven, an area of protection for these mythical creatures.
The book is very well written and engaging. It kept my attention during the whole book (I even ended up reading the entire series afterward). However, it is essentially the same plot as another series, the Spiderwick Chronicles. That's not a bad thing, but it is very interesting to see Brandon Mull's approach to these fantastical ideas. Children would enjoy this book because they would relate to the two main characters and could easily imagine themselves in the amazing situations the characters find themselves in. Plus, there's dragons.