That was a good idea! My mother gave me this volume for Christmas when I was ten, but not the other two (she hasn't read them, and had no idea it's a continuous story), so I reread this volume over and over for a while before I could get the others.
I would have been dying to know what happened next. Although it still would have been fun to read the first over and over because I don't think that could ever get boring. I wish I would have read this much earlier on. But I am glad that I finally did.