Mary Pope Osborne hooks kids with these mysterious, exciting words in her Magic Tree House book series. She puts a clever twist on learning and embeds factual information into each of her adventures. Children are so enthralled in the short bursts of adventure they don’t realize they are tackling challenging vocabulary and decoding difficult words. Meanwhile, they are learning about factual information from different time periods and geographical places as they travel all over the world with Jack and Annie. Jack and Annie are the two main characters in each Magic Tree House book. They climb into their tree house and with a few spins they are all over the world solving riddles and fulfilling missions. Young readers also learn about research because Jack and Annie have to read about the new areas and time periods to fulfill their mission and return back home to the tree house.
Osborne has also authored research guides to accompany some of her books. Kids embark on a fictitious adventure with Jack and Annie. Then the readers can learn even more factual information reading the kid-friendly research guides.
At the end of her books, Mary Pope Osborne includes a note from the author page explaining how she reads and researches time periods and places to inspire her ideas for more new books. She researched the ancient world of the British Isles and learned about a famous stone in Scotland called the Stone of Destiny. It inspired her to create Merlin’s “Diamond of Destiny.” Merlin is one of the characters that sends Jack and Annie on missions. In addition, she got the idea for a magic wand and riddle from from an Irish poem.
Osborne explains to her readers, “Old tales and poetry from around the world are a source of inspiration for storytellers. Creating something new from something old allows us to link hands with people of the past (2003, p. 113).”
This series is intended for young readers, but I learn something new every time I read one of her books. The reading lexile level may be low but don’t let that fool you. There is a lot of factual information about animals, inventors, history, and countries jammed into each of Mary Pope Osborne’s books.
Amazing — while all my children have enjoyed The Magic Tree House series, I have often turned my nose up. The writing seems predictible and rehearsed. Well, I say that, but I really don’t know.
You’ve out done yourself describing Mary Pope Osbourne’s techniques and depth of her pieces. You have convinced me to look deeper into her vast array of books that interest so many young children.
I think I’ll start right now!
Dearest PictureBookLover,
I will never forget the time my elder son (who was in first grade) and my younger son (who was four years old) were holed up in the far corner of their room on the floor with a Magic Tree House book between them. (Of course their back packs filled with “Jack and Annie” items [like nonfiction books, pads of paper, pencils, and dictionaries] were next to them.) My elder boy was reading along as my four-year-old boy sat enthralled, listening to the wondrous adventures unfold as his brother spoke them aloud. My sons would literally sit for hours (I am not exaggerating) whilst devouring those wonderful Mary Pope Osborne books. As soon as they would finish one book, they were on to the next. The moments that my older boy would stop and have my younger boy make predictions were priceless.
My younger boy, who is now in sixth grade, still makes me buy the new Magic Tree House editions because he simply cannot get the wonder out of his soul. (He, of course, reads immensely more difficult and complicated texts now, but there is just something about that whole “Jack and Annie” thing…I think it’s called nostalgia.) Even though he can read the books in just an hour or two, he deliberately reads his new Magic Tree House books slowly so that they can last longer.
Mary Pope Osborne accomplished something so important the moment she began writing that series. Children go on adventures wherein they learn about nonfiction as it happened. She did an equally important thing when she began writing the companion series because children could then take the adventure to a more expository text kind-of-reading.
I have every single Mary Pope Osborne book that I purchased for my own children in my seventh-grade classroom library because there are students who notice the books on the shelf, lovingly take one out, and with wondrous joy remark, “Oh, I remember this one…I loved this one!” They then take the book to their seats for a nostalgic read.
Thank you, dearest PictureBookLover, for this walk down Memory Lane…I had not thought of my boys reading together for quite some time…they’re just so old now and reading such diverse and complex books that I had quite forgotten they were little and loved to read books to each other.
Mary Pope Osborne needs to hire you as a publicist! You wrote a very nice review. I had no idea that her books were so well researched. I learned something!
When interviewing a second grade class to inventory their views of literature as part of my Capstone project, “Jack and Annie” were the names I heard most often. Magic Tree House books were the books they most often wanted to read and have read to them.
Most of the students I work with cannot read Magic Tree House books independently. However, when I go into their classrooms, they have them open and pretend that they can. Many times my Reading Recovery students have asked me, “When can I read a Magic Tree House Book.” Osborne has made a great contribution to children’s literacy. Thank you for highlighting her in your blog.
I concur! I believe you masterfully wrote about Mary Pope Osborne’s work. I, too, feel she sometimes writes with short, simple sentences that ruin my personal enjoyment, but then I am reminded that I am not her intended audience. She does masterfully wind in the vocabulary that allows difficult “locations” to be grasped by second and third grade readers. I have to appreciate that! Plus, the research companion books offer readers more nonfiction information directly related to their fiction counterparts. Well done review!
Dear Picturebooklover;
As an aspiring children’s book author and illustrator, (largely picture books), I recently came across the Merlin Mission series by Mary Pope Osborne. I was inspired to write about them, and recently, your post came up under mine as a suggested link, and here I am. Well done! I only have the first 3 stories under my belt so far, but look forward to reading more as I, too, love the intertwining of history and myth into her tales.
Jeanne