A twelve-year-old criminal genius kidnaps a fairy officer and demands gold, and the fun lies in how gleefully the book sides with its schemer. Artemis is an unusual lead for a children’s series, cold, clever and oddly relatable, and the dry jokes land well. It is a quick, light read written for younger readers, so some adults will find it too young; as a first volume it also opens a long series.

The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.

About the book

Artemis Fowl is a young adult fantasy novel written by Irish author Eoin Colfer. It is the first book in the Artemis Fowl series, followed by Artemis Fowl and the Arctic Incident. Pitched by its author as "Die Hard with fairies", the novel follows fairy LEP reconnaissance officer Holly Short after she is kidnapped by twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl II for a large ransom of gold.

Description: Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Reading order · Artemis Fowl

Full order & progress →

On screen

This book has been adapted for the screen once.

FilmArtemis Fowl2020dir. Kenneth BranaghIMDb

Adaptation data: Wikidata · On screen →

Where the score comes from

The sources average 7.5 across 1,298 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 7.6 — the Middle grade average of 8.0 barely moves it.

Source	Average	Ratings	Weight
Open Library	7.7	58	5%
Hardcover	7.5	1.2K	96%

Frequently asked

What age is Artemis Fowl for?

Artemis Fowl sits on the Children shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 5–10. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 288 pages — shorter than 94% of the ranked books in Middle grade.