I have not read these books personally, but my friend's son loves them! I intend to get the set for my classroom as they appear to be great for my hard-to-motivate readers. (I teach fifth grade.) I think this might be a little easy for a read-aloud, but if you buy the series, it might be neat to read the first aloud (a quick read... only 128 pages) and encourage students to read the rest from your library.
I'd love to hear more from others who have actually read the books.