By Mary Pope Osborne
One box, twenty-eight adventures: a brother and sister find a magic tree house that whisks them to dinosaurs, pirates, and ancient Egypt, and it's the set that turns a new reader into a chapter-book reader.
Jack and Annie find a tree house in the woods packed with books, and when they point at a picture and wish, the tree house spins them right into that place and time. One book they're dodging a dinosaur, the next they're on a pirate's island, in a castle, under the sea, or on the first trip to the moon. Each adventure is short, fast, and solved by the end, and then the tree house carries them safely home. This box holds the first twenty-eight, so a child who catches the bug has months of them lined up, with dozens more waiting after that.
If you want the one gift that turns a child who's just cracking chapter books into a child who reads on their own, this is the reliable pick. The chapters are short, the print is big, and there's a picture every few pages, so a new reader never feels stranded, and because every book drops them somewhere brand new, they never get bored of the same setting. Twenty-eight books is the real gift here: hand over the box and you've bought months of settled bedtimes, with a child who keeps saying one more chapter.