I liked this. I often am not a fan of fantasy (although I generally do better with children‘s fantasy, as this is) and talking animals, this was cute, and I liked all the characters, including those talking animals. I gave it the extra ¼ star for the twist at the end. Max has mostly solved the mystery of where he came from, etc, but he learns more from the “wizard” and I thought that twist was very clever – I did love the twist!