Mary Pope Osbourne – The Magic Tree House

The Children’s Book Review | April 6, 2008

On April 2, 2008, Mary Pope Osbourne and her sister Natalie Pope Boyce, came to in Mclean, VA. The sisters had come to a special book signing event of Mary’s Dark Day in the Deep Sea –book #39 in her phenomenal series, The Magic Tree House, and Natalie’s research guide, Sea Monsters.

For those of you who are not familiarwith The Magic Tree House series – who am I kidding here -the books are about two siblings, Annie and Jack. They take adventures around the world—to far off places and through the ages—in their magic tree house. The books are a perfect blend of fiction and non-fiction, and make learning history a blast. The chapters are short, there are a few illustrations throughout, and there is always a mystery to be solved. The research guides perfectly complement each story with the wonderful non-fiction facts, adding to the learning experience of The Magic Tree House.

An interesting fact thanks to wikipedia:

…The series is translated into Japanese up to Book #36 and sold over 2 million copies as of March 2008. The Japanese version has anime-like illustrations and Osborne commented “Jack and Annie look like Japanese cartoon characters!” …

Before the book signing began, Mary Pope Osbourne talked briefly with her very captive audience. She engaged her audience by involving them in the decision making process of choosing the next topic for more books in the series. The families were also able to vote on titles for the books. This is such an amazing opportunity that she gives to her readers – how cool for a child to be reading one of their favourite novels knowing that they had something to do with the content and title – a sure way to keep kids motivated to read. Watch out for books on penguins, pandas, and rescue dogs. Thank you Mary and Natalie for inspiring and motivating children to read.