10/26/2019
Series Stats
Author: Mary Pope Osborne.
Ages 5-10.
60 Books in original series.
Fun Facts
- Osborne says that Jack and Annie are inspired by her own siblings.
- Osborne and Sal Murdocca collaborate on research for each book. Murdocca finishes sketches before Osborne begins to write, so most of the time she’s writing to fit the illustrations into the story.
- The idea for a magic tree house came to Osborne when she was walking through the woods with her husband. They saw a tree house, and Osborne instantly felt it would be the perfect setting for a time-traveling children’s story.
When Mary Pope Osborne first started writing the Magic Tree House children’s book series in 1992, she had one goal in mind: to help kids explore the wonders of the world and of the past through the power of reading.
“I feel as if these kids and I are all exploring the creative process together,” said Osborne, “Using our imaginations plus our reading and writing skills to take us wherever we want to go. This is true magic.’”
After 60 fiction books and 42 nonfiction companion books, referred to as Fact Trackers, The Magic Tree House has become an extremely popular, bestselling children’s book series. Osborne’s time-travelling tales have sold over 134 million copies around the world, and even been adapted into a jazz-themed musical and a Japanese animated film.
Osborne was born in 1949 and grew up in a military family, reading books and playing with her siblings as the family moved from city to city. During this formative time, Osborne developed a love for adventure and exploring, becoming comfortable with moving every so often.
“When my dad finally retired to a small town in North Carolina,” Osborne said, “I nearly went crazy with boredom. I craved the adventure and changing scenery of our military life.”
After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1971, Osborne and a friend went traveling across Europe and Asia. She spent six weeks living in a cave in Crete, and explored Middle Eastern countries like Iran and Nepal. The trip abruptly ended when Osborne experienced blood poisoning, where she was forced to recover in a hospital for a few weeks.
During this time, she was comforted by J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings book trilogy. “To this day, my journey to ‘The East’ is tangled up in my mind with Frodo’s adventures,” said Osborne.
Osborne spent the next few years trying out different side jobs while traveling with her husband, actor Will Osborne. After the two settled down in the early eighties, Osborne discovered a love for writing and, in 1982, became a published author with the novel Run, Run As Fast As You Can.
Ten years later, the first Magic Tree House story was published, and the rest is history. Merging her love for adventure with her desire to encourage children to learn and read, Osborne created a book series which equally celebrates reading and learning through experiences.
The series follows brother and sister Jack and Annie. In the first story, Dinosaurs Before Dark, the two siblings discover a tree house in the woods filled with books. After Jack looks through a book on dinosaurs, he wishes he could see one in real life. Just as soon as he says this out loud, the two are magically transported back in time to the Cretaceous period.
They soon encounter a wide variety of prehistoric creatures, ranging from a friendly Pteranodon to a ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex. All the while, Jack keeps notes about these animals and Annie tries to befriend them, all in an effort to learn more about these awe-inspiring creatures.
During the adventure, Jack finds a medallion with the “M” engraved in it, starting a mystery that would be explored over the next few books. The two narrowly return home after a run-in with a T-Rex, wishing on a book about their hometown of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Thus began the long-running series, promising more historical adventures and intriguing mysteries to be solved.
Each book in the series is written with a young audience in mind, ensuring the material is as exciting as it is educational. Every chapter or encounter has an equal amount of action and learning tied into it.
In Dinosaurs Before Dark, Annie comes face to face with an Anatosaurus, who’s protecting a number of nests of babies. Jack uses the dinosaur book to find a way to help his sister, learning in the process that these dinosaurs lived in colonies and usually left one of them to protect the nests while the others hunted for food.
The Magic Tree House series has maintained this balance between exciting adventure and fact-based learning throughout its 60 books. Whether the subject be the Wild West like in Ghost Town at Sundown or exploring the jungles of India in Tigers at Twilight, these stories always aim to educate as much as they entertain.
The books are also written in a simple and descriptive style, with Osborne ensuring that the language is clear and easy to read for new or younger readers. The plotlines and actions are not difficult to follow, and the short chapter structure make it perfect for a beginners children book.
Each book also features illustrations from Sal Murdocca, who illustrates the eye-catching covers and accompanying pictures within the books. According to Osborne, many of the most popular titles are ones with interesting or exciting covers.
“We spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about covers and titles and sort of trying to get the kids over the bridge into some meaty subject matter, but still sensationalize the covers a little bit to try to bring them in.”
After the 24th Magic Tree House book, Earthquake in the Early Morning, Osborne began to write a new series of stories that retroactively became known as the Merlin’s Missions series. These books are designed for more advanced readers, and as such deal with more complex topics and written with a more sophisticated language.
These children’s stories deal with fantasy worlds and scenarios, like Christmas in Camelot, or with specific historical figures, like Leonardo Da Vinci in Monday with a Mad Genius. While these chapter books have become the main focus of Osborne, she still occasionally writes stories in the vein of the original series, with one titled Narwhal on a Sunny Night scheduled to come out in January 2020.
In 2000, Osborne, along with her husband and sister, began to write the non-fiction companion book series Fact Trackers, formerly known as Magic Tree House Research Guides. These books serve as sources of extra information for kids who are interested in the topics explored in each book.
For example, Dinosaurs Before Dark has a companion book simply titled Dinosaurs, which goes into further depth about the prehistoric period and the creatures roaming the Earth at that time.
Osborne wants these children’s stories to not only entertain, but to also educate its young audience.
“My ideal is they read our fiction, read our nonfiction, and then, if they still are interested, they go and read more difficult books about the subject,” said Osborne. “When they really hear about Shakespeare when they get to their teens, they'll feel they're already friends with Shakespeare...That imprints so much when you're seven and eight.”
According to Osborne, teachers have been some of the biggest inspirations for her work. “I owe everything to teachers, the ones who really got this series off the ground years ago by using it in classrooms,” Osborne said.
In order to give back to the teachers and students that have inspired her throughout the years, Osborne has started various educational programs. The Classroom Adventure program offers resources for teachers to incorporate Osborne’s series into their curriculum, mixing fun reading assignments with effective learning opportunities.
Osborne also started the Gift of Books program, where teachers from across the country can submit proposals to receive Magic Tree House and Fact Checker books for their classroom.
Just as Mary Pope Osborne helps to give kids the magic of reading, so too does The Book Bundler. On The Book Bundler website, you can purchase a box of books in a variety of genres and age ranges, including books from the Magic Tree House series.
List of Entries in the Series:
The Magic Tree House Book Series
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Dinosaurs Before Dark
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The Knight of Dawn
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Mummies in the Morning
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Pirates Past Noon
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Night of the Ninjas
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Adventure on the Amazon
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Sunset of the Sabertooth
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Midnight on the Moon
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Dolphins at Daybreak
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Ghost Town at Sundown
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Lions at Lunchtime
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Polar Bears Past Bedtime
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Vacation Under The Volcano
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Day of the Dragon King
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Viking Ships at Sunrise
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Hour of the Olympics
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Tonight on the Titanic
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Buffalo Before Breakfast
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Tigers at Twilight
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Dingoes at Dinnertime
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Civil War on Sunday
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Revolutionary War on Wednesday
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Twister on Tuesday
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Earthquake in the Early Morning
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Stage Fright on a Summer Night
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Good Morning Gorillas
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Thanksgiving on Thursday
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High Tide in Hawaii
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A Big Day For Baseball
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Hurricane Heroes in Texas
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Warriors in Winter
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To the Future, Ben Franklin
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Narwhal on a Sunny Night (TBR)
- Merlin Mission Book Series
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Christmas in Camelot
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Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve
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Summer of the Sea Serpent
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Winter of the Ice Wizard
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Carnival at Candlelight
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Season of the Sandstorms
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Night of the New Magicians
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Blizzard of the Blue Moon
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Dragon of the Red Dawn
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Monday with a Mad Genius
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Dark Day in the Deep Sea
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Eve of the Emperor Penguin
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Moonlight on the Magic Flute
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A Good Night for Ghosts
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Leprechaun in Late Winter
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A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time
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A Crazy Day with Cobras
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Dogs in the Dead of Night
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Abe Lincoln At Last!
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A Perfect Time For Pandas
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Stallion by Starlight
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Hurry Up Houdini!
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High Time for Heroes
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Soccer on Sunday
- Shadow of the Shark
- Balto of the Blue Dawn
- Night of the Ninth Dragon
Sources:
https://ew.com/books/2017/02/21/magic-tree-house-25th-anniversary/
http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/pdf/AuthorBioMPOsborne.pdf
https://www.mthclassroomadventures.org/
Author Bio:
Sam Goodrich grew up reading to pass the time in school, seeing it as a way to entertain himself after a test. Now he's become a writer himself, hoping to expose the positive sides of media. When he's not writing about books, Sam is watching every movie, playing a few games, and trying to find ways to talk about them with anyone who will listen. His other work can be found on his portfolio website: https://goodrichsamuel.
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