Another reason aloud for my 5th grade class! We used it as a mentor text to teach fantasy. They loved it! They were begging for "one more chapter" every day and they were diligent notetakers because they loved the story. It also encouraged them to inquire about the vocabulary words they didn't know, which had been like pulling teeth all year when reading other books. They also really liked the art. It was helpful for making predictions and inferences whole reading.

The only thing that was difficult about it was that, having been published in 92, students struggled to relate to the characters at some points. But it was a great exercise to broaden their horizons.