The 20th Anniversary of the Magic Tree House Series

Celebrating 20 Years of The Magic Tree House in 2012

In the 20 years since the Magic Tree House series began, the series has been translated into 32 languages in more than 100 countries and more than 100 million copies have been sold. Wow! That’s quite an achievement. After my interview with author Mary Pope Osborne about the Magic Tree House books and reading about how Mary and Random House are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the series, I was anxious to learn more, particularly about the donations to school children and teachers, and Mary's new Magic Tree House Web site for teachers.

You made a big donation to third graders and their teachers in the Newark public schools. What and why?

My husband Will has written a show based on my book about Louis Armstrong which will premiere at the New Jersey Performing Arts Theater in Newark, NJ this October; and NJPAC plans to have every 4th grader in the city see the show.

A few months ago, I accidentally came across a study that said that only 32 percent of Newark third-graders can read at grade level. The study went on to say that if a child can’t read at grade level by the end of third grade, he or she will have a great deal of trouble ever catching up – and is four times more likely to drop out of high school. I thought that maybe I could help the third-graders by giving each of them a set of the first 28 books. So, in April, with help from NJPAC, the Newark School system and First Book, we handed over 120,000 books to the third-graders. They kept their sets in the classroom until the end of the school year; and then each child took his home to keep forever and hopefully share with siblings. I’m looking forward to checking in with the 4th grade teachers in the fall to see if the books have helped improve the kids’ reading skills.

You spent two years working with educators on a Magic Tree House Web site just for teachers. Why? What’s the URL and what will they find there?

For 20 years, as I’ve visited over a hundred schools and seen countless MTH projects, teachers have been sharing their classroom MTH projects with me.

Their great work eventually inspired our Magic Tree House team at Random House to create a Magic Tree House Teacher of the Year award. So about two years ago, eager to share our teachers’ ideas with others, I hired a team to create a website free-of charge so that all teachers who use the books in the classroom can learn from their colleagues. The site features lesson plans, an extensive curriculum guide, and reading level charts. It also includes a MTH Gift of Books component for teachers who teach in Title I schools. The URL is: MTHClassroomAdventures.org

Your husband is in theater and you also have a back ground in theater so Magic Tree House theatrical productions make sense. Are you doing something special for your anniversary?

Our big theatrical event this year will be Will’s musical of A Night in New Orleans based on MTH #32, A Good Night for Ghosts. Will’s collaborators are Murray Horwitz and the great New Orleans composer Allen Toussaint. The show will publicly premiere at the James Moody Jazz Festival at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on October 22nd. We’ll also be touring to schools to perform for all the 4th graders in Newark. Our aim is [to] teach kids about the joy and wonder of jazz, through the adventures [of] Jack and Annie and a young Louis Armstrong in New Orleans, 1915.

I understand that as part of your anniversary celebration your publisher, Random House, is publishing a special edition of the first Magic Tree House book, Dinosaurs Before Dark. How is it different from the original and when will it be published?

Dinosaurs Before Dark is the number one selling book in the series, because everyone wants to start with the first book – and because so many kids love dinosaurs. So we decided that a beautiful hardback version of that book was in order. As an extra bonus, Sal Murdocca colorized and reworked his illustrations, and I edited my text. (No matter how long ago a book might have been published, an author can never stop fiddling with it.)

Are any other Magic Tree House books coming out this anniversary year?

On July 24th, A Perfect Time with Pandas came out, as well as its companion non-fiction book, Pandas and Other Endangered Species. In the fiction adventure, Jack and Annie help save some pandas after the 2008 earthquake in southwest China.

Is there anything else you or Random House is doing to celebrate your anniversary?

Well, one day in May, my sister and I drove back to my home in Connecticut from the Berkshires. When I walked into the house, over 50 people shouted surprise. The children’s division of Random House had hired a giant bus to bring them all up here to celebrate the 20th anniversary. Our house had been magically transformed into a fabulous party scene with caterers, flowers, a bar, a GIGANTIC bottle of champagne, and music. We celebrated all afternoon, dancing to Will’s band, eating, drinking, and toasting the series. I can shamelessly say it was the best party I ever attended.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I think the secret of MTH’s success is that a huge, wonderful team works closely and happily together to create the series. For twenty years, I’ve had the same editor – Mallory Loehr; the same brilliant artist: Sal Murdocca; the same brilliant art director: Cathy Goldsmith. The non-fiction books exist only because of the tireless work of my husband Will and my sister Natalie Pope Boyce and their editors. The theatrical presentations come from Will and composer, Randy Courts; and jazz composer, Allen Toussaint. Dozens of other good-hearted participate daily in the production of these books. I might be the only one who writes the adventures of Jack and Annie, but that’s just the first step in a much longer journey.