I read this one aloud to my fourth grader (I read to him every night and I hope this tradition will continue for a long time!) and a. Irish accents are incredibly difficult and I'm so glad no one recorded me butchering their beautiful lilt and cadence and b. it took us forever to get through the book because SOMEBODY kept falling asleep within the page! The last 20 pages had him enraptured though and we managed to finish the story during the start of our family vacation. This was such a great book for young readers, plenty of adventure, snippets of humor, a twisty little mystery that had my guy's jaw hanging at the reveal, it was a lot of fun. But I think I may have enjoyed it more than the 9 year old.