Magic Tree House

After graduating college, Osborne and a friend went traveling.[1] Osborne spent time in Crete and traveled through Iraq, Iran, India, Afghanistan, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, and Pakistan.[2] The trip came to an end when Osborne experienced blood poisoning in Nepal requiring her to stay in a hospital for a couple of weeks where she read The Lord of the Rings.[1] Remarking on her travels Osborne said, "That journey irrevocably changed me. Experience was gathered that serves as a reference point every day of my life. I encountered worlds of light and worlds of darkness — and planted seeds of the imagination that led directly to my being an author of children's books."[2]

Osborne's travels and experiences have factored largely into her own writing, while her writing has allowed her to experience some of the thrills of traveling. As she said, "Without even leaving my home, I’ve traveled around the globe, learning about the religions of the world."[3]

Osborne's writing career began "one day, out of the blue"[3] when she wrote Run, Run As Fast As You Can in 1982. The book itself is semi-autobiographical in nature, according to Osborne: "The girl was a lot like me and many of the incidents in the story were similar to happenings in my childhood."[3] The book served as the starting point for Osborne's writing career. Her early work received mixed reviews.[4][5] Her work includes young adult novels, picture books, retellings of mythology and fairy tales, biographies, mysteries, a six part series of the Odyssey, a book of American Tall Tales, and a book for young readers about the major world religions.

Osborne says that she can work on Magic Tree House up to 12 hours a day and seven days a week[6] and has used space at shared office space, The Writer's Room.[7] She has modeled her writing after Hemingway by trying to be simple and direct[6] and is "noted for writing clear, lively, well-paced prose in both her stories and her informational books."[2]

According to its official website, Magic Tree House Books are for beginning chapter book readers.[8]

Magic Tree House Merlin Mission Books 1-27 were written for more advanced readers. They are more challenging adventures for readers ages 7–10.[8] The Magic Tree House Merlin Missions were originally ordered sequentially, starting at Book #29 (Christmas in Camelot). With the 25th anniversary re-prints, the books have been separated into their own distinct series and re-numbered starting at Merlin Mission #1.[8]

On January 6, 2015, the first Magic Tree House Super Edition was released. It is 183 pages long. The super editions are longer than the original Magic Tree House books and the Magic Tree House Merlin Missions.

The Magic Tree House Fact Trackers (formerly called Magic Tree House Research Guides) are non-fiction companions to the fiction books, written by Mary Pope Osborne, Will Osborne, and Natalie Pope Boyce. They were first released in 2000 by Scholastic and Random House. They provide more in-depth follow-up information on the topics in the series than already covered.[13] As of July 2020, 43 have been published. The first two Fact Trackers were published in August 2000 as companions for the first two stories, then 7 to 8 years old. In 2008 story #39, Dark Day in the Deep Sea and its fact tracker #17, Sea Monsters were the first story and fact tracker to be published simultaneously.

Mary Pope Osborne's books have been named to a number of the Best Books of the Year Lists, including, School Library Journal, Parents’ Magazine, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and Bank Street College.[2] She has received honors from such organizations as the National Council of Teachers of English, The Children's Book Council, and the International Reading Association.[2] She received the 1992 Diamond State Reading Association Award,[2] 2005 Ludington Memorial Award from the Educational Paperback Association[16] and the 2010 Heidelberger Leander Award.[17] She has also received awards from the Carolina Alumni Association,[18] the Virginia Library Association[2] and in spring 2013 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[19]

Ms. Osborne served two separate terms as president of the Authors Guild and also chaired its Children's Book Committee.[2] She has since traveled extensively in the states and throughout the world, visiting schools and speaking on issues related to reading and books. In 2011, she attended the International Tokyo Film Festival for the premier of the Magic Tree House anime file and visited schools in the tsunami-hit area of Japan.[20] The film grossed 5.7 million dollars; Osborne donated all her proceeds into her educational works.[21]

She was profiled on NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams for her continued efforts to get books into the hands of underserved children on a Magic Tree House themed tour bus.[21] She spoke of the pressure she feels as an author that children look up to, "for a child to value someone who writes books is so extraordinary."[21]

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Magic Tree House series in 2012, Ms. Osborne created a Magic Tree House Classroom Adventures Program. Ms. Osborne's mission with Classroom Adventures is to inspire children to read and to love reading[22] while simultaneously helping kids to read at grade level by the end of 3rd grade.[21] Free of charge, the program provides a set of online educational resources for teachers and allows for Title 1 schools to apply for free Magic Tree House books.[22] Under Classroom Adventures, Ms. Osborne, in partnership with the First Book organization in Washington, DC, has donated hundreds of thousands of Magic Tree House books to underserved schools.[23]

• Official website
• Magic Tree House at Mediafactory (in Japanese)
• Mary Pope Osborne blog
• Magic Tree House series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database