50 Fun Facts About Magic Tree House

Which Magic Tree House book opened the whole series, with a Pteranodon rescuing Jack and Annie from a T. rex?

Dinosaurs Before Dark came out in July 1992 and planted the series' first puzzle: a gold medallion marked with the letter M that Jack finds in the Cretaceous.

The Magic Tree House stands in the woods of which made-up Pennsylvania town, where Jack and Annie live?

Frog Creek, Pennsylvania is invented, but the tree house was inspired by a real one Osborne and her husband spotted on a walk in the Pennsylvania woods.

In which Magic Tree House book do Caribbean buccaneers lead Jack and Annie to the identity of the mysterious 'M'?

Pirates Past Noon ends with 'M' revealed as Morgan le Fay, the enchantress from King Arthur's court who owns the tree house. It is book four and closes the opening story arc.

Magic Tree House Fact Trackers, the non-fiction companions first published in 2000, originally carried what name?

Research Guides was the original name, and by January 2022 the line had grown to 44 titles digging into the real history and science behind the stories.

Kathleen, the apprentice who joins Jack and Annie on several Merlin Missions, is what kind of magical creature?

A selkie is a seal who can take human form, and Kathleen first appears in Summer of the Sea Serpent, helping the kids turn into seals for an underwater quest.

By 2017, about how many copies of the Magic Tree House books had been sold worldwide?

134 million copies is the 2017 figure, and the series had already spent 132 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list by 2007.

Magic Tree House: The Musical, which premiered in 2007, is adapted from which book, the first Merlin Mission?

Christmas in Camelot became a touring musical written by Will Osborne and Randy Court, who hoped it would draw adults as well as kids the way The Lion King does.

A Big Day for Baseball, which restarted the main Magic Tree House series, shows which player's Major League debut?

Jackie Robinson's Brooklyn debut at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947 is the big day, and the book was the first new numbered adventure since 2003.

In which Magic Tree House book do Jack and Annie land in Elizabethan England and meet William Shakespeare?

Stage Fright on a Summer Night is also where Morgan tells the kids they are ready to learn magic themselves, setting up the Merlin Missions to come.

Mary Pope Osborne co-writes the Magic Tree House Fact Trackers with her husband Will and which other relative?

Her sister Natalie Pope Boyce shares the Fact Tracker bylines, and Osborne also grew up with a twin brother, Bill, and a younger brother, Michael.

Which illustrator drew the original Magic Tree House books for nearly 25 years, until handing over in 2016?

Sal Murdocca gave Jack his red glasses and Annie her double braids, the looks readers still picture, before AG Ford took over the art in 2016.

In which Magic Tree House book do Jack and Annie reach Pompeii the day before it is buried?

Vacation Under the Volcano was sold in Britain as Racing with Gladiators, one of many UK retitlings given to the early books.

In Mummies in the Morning, Jack and Annie help the ghost of which Egyptian queen find her lost Book of the Dead?

Hutepi is an invented queen, but the Book of the Dead she is missing was real: a collection of spells buried with Egyptians to guide them through the afterlife.

Midnight on the Moon sends Jack and Annie to a base on the Moon in which future year?

2031 was thirty-five years ahead of the book's 1996 release, and the fourth magical object the kids go for there is a moon rock — or so they think.

Day of the Dragon King drops Jack and Annie into a book burning 2,000 years ago in which country?

China's Dragon King was a real emperor who ordered the burning, and the companion Fact Tracker covers the Great Wall he is famous for.

Civil War on Sunday has Jack and Annie meeting which nurse, who later founded the American Red Cross?

Clara Barton is met on the battlefield, and the kids are there because Morgan needs four special pieces of writing for her library.

In Revolutionary War on Wednesday, Jack and Annie cross the icy Delaware River alongside which general?

George Washington leads the crossing, and the book's Fact Tracker companion is simply titled American Revolution.

Earthquake in the Early Morning drops Jack and Annie into which city's famous 1906 disaster?

San Francisco's 1906 quake is the setting, and what the kids learn there helps them inspire King Arthur to fight Mordred.

Thanksgiving on Thursday seats Jack and Annie at the 1621 Plymouth feast with the Pilgrims and which Native people?

The Wampanoag were the Pilgrims' neighbours at that first harvest feast, and the book is number 27 of the original run of 28.

How many years did fans wait between High Tide in Hawaii and the next main-series book, A Big Day for Baseball?

14 years separate 2003 and 2017, a gap filled by the Merlin Missions, which were numbered as Books 29 onward until the 25th-anniversary reprints split them off.

In Tonight on the Titanic, Jack and Annie are helped by Teddy, a young magician stuck in the form of which animal?

A dog is what Teddy became after one of his own spells backfired, and the kids spend four books collecting gifts to make him human again.

Which mouse rides along while Jack and Annie hunt four magical objects to free Morgan from a spell?

Peanut first shows up in Night of the Ninjas and keeps the kids company through the Amazon, the Ice Age and a trip to the Moon.

In Afternoon on the Amazon, which fruit is the second magical object Jack and Annie must find in the rainforest?

A mango is the second of the four objects that break the spell on Morgan, after a moonstone picked up among the ninjas of old Japan.

In Dragon of the Red Dawn, Jack and Annie seek the first secret of happiness with which haiku poet?

Matsuo Bashō hosts the kids for a day because Merlin has sunk into a deep sadness, and the four secrets of happiness are meant to cure him.

Monday with a Mad Genius has Jack and Annie spending a whole day in Renaissance Italy helping which inventor-painter?

Leonardo da Vinci keeps them busy 'morning, noon, and afternoon, till the night bird sings', and the book's Fact Tracker is devoted to him.

In Moonlight on the Magic Flute, Jack and Annie visit 18th-century Austria to help which composer?

Mozart is inspired to write The Magic Flute after hearing the kids play their own magic flute to round up escaped palace-zoo animals.

A Good Night for Ghosts takes Jack and Annie to New Orleans, where they meet which jazz legend as a boy?

Louis Armstrong's story later became A Night in New Orleans, a musical with a live jazz band co-written by composer Allen Toussaint.

Which Victorian novelist frees Jack and Annie from jail in a Magic Tree House story that then calls on three ghosts?

Charles Dickens has a secret the kids must uncover, and the companion Fact Tracker, Rags and Riches, covers what life was like for children of his era.

In Leprechaun in Late Winter, Jack and Annie cheer up a sad Irish girl who grows up to be which writer?

Lady Gregory is the girl, sad because she believes in leprechauns and faeries but cannot find any, and it is also the first trip made using Jack's own notes.

Stallion by Starlight has Jack and Annie in ancient Macedonia meeting which future conqueror and his horse Bucephalus?

Alexander the Great is still a boy here, and the book opens a four-book hunt for the secret of greatness, with the Fact Tracker Horse Heroes alongside.

High Time for Heroes sends Jack and Annie to Egypt to learn a secret of greatness from which nursing pioneer?

Florence Nightingale is met in Egypt rather than on a hospital ward, and the book's companion Fact Tracker is Heroes for All Times.

In Soccer on Sunday, Jack and Annie visit the 1970 World Cup in Mexico to ask which star about greatness?

Pelé closes the four-book greatness arc, and 1970 was the tournament that gave him a record third World Cup winner's medal.

Balto of the Blue Dawn takes Jack and Annie to Alaska to meet the famous sled team leader Balto in which year?

1925 was the winter of the serum run to Nome that made Balto famous, and the book's Fact Tracker is Dogsledding and Extreme Sports.

Night of the New Magicians sends Jack and Annie to which city's 1889 world's fair to protect four famous inventors?

Paris's 'magicians' are the inventors Bell, Pasteur, Edison and Eiffel, and the evil sorcerer supposedly threatening them turns out not to exist.

Carnival at Candlelight, Merlin's first test of using magic wisely, has Jack and Annie saving which city from a flood?

Venice is the test, and Merlin's instructions are so confusing that working them out is half the mission.

Which free Magic Tree House program did Osborne start for the 20th anniversary to help kids read at grade level?

Classroom Adventures, started in 2012, gives teachers free online resources and lets Title 1 schools apply for free books, hundreds of thousands of which have been donated.

In Blizzard of the Blue Moon, Jack and Annie must help which enchanted creature in Depression-era New York City?

Unicorn rescue is complicated by two rival sorcerers-in-training, Balor and Grinda, and this is the book where the kids gain a magic wand of their own.

In Dark Day in the Deep Sea, which 1870s ship full of scientists rescues Jack and Annie, then hunts a sea monster?

HMS Challenger lends its name to the deepest point in the ocean, and at 144 pages this is the longest of the Merlin Missions.

Danger in the Darkest Hour, the lone Super Edition, puts Jack and Annie behind enemy lines just before which event?

D-Day looms as the kids rescue Kathleen, and at 183 pages this 2015 book is the first adventure they must finish with no magic to help them.

In Summer of the Sea Serpent, Jack and Annie turn into seals to recover which object for Merlin?

The Sword of Light turns out to be Excalibur itself, fetched from long ago so that King Arthur can one day wield it.

In Night of the Ninth Dragon, Merlin, Morgan, Teddy and Kathleen are all trapped in which magical realm?

Avalon holds all four friends while invaders threaten King Arthur, in the 2016 book that closed out the Merlin Missions.

In Winter of the Ice Wizard, what must Jack and Annie retrieve for the Ice Wizard to win Merlin and Morgan's freedom?

His eye is the price, and the kids must also recover Merlin's Staff of Strength along the way, with Teddy and Kathleen helping.

What rank does Morgan give Jack and Annie after they solve four ancient riddles, before the trip to Pompeii?

Master Librarians is the title, and it licenses the kids to rescue lost stories, beginning with one that would otherwise vanish under Pompeii's ash.

At the end of Hour of the Olympics, Morgan reveals that the lost stories Jack and Annie rescued now live where?

In the stars is where the stories went, Pegasus among them, after the kids watched the very first Olympic Games in ancient Greece.

Mary Pope Osborne's post-college trip ended with weeks in a hospital in which country, reading The Lord of the Rings?

Nepal was where sepsis stopped the journey, and Osborne has said that trip 'planted seeds of the imagination' that made her a children's author.

In Dingoes at Dinnertime, which Outback animal hands over the last of the four gifts Jack and Annie collect for Teddy?

A kangaroo gives the final gift, and once home Morgan lifts Teddy's spell, revealing the young magician who had accidentally cast it on himself.

Narwhal on a Sunny Night sends Jack and Annie to which huge Arctic island to save a narwhal?

Greenland is the setting for Book 33, published in January 2020, with a Fact Tracker on narwhals and other whales alongside.

Time of the Turtle King has Jack and Annie rescuing a sea turtle from a volcanic eruption on which islands?

The Galápagos eruption happens in Book 38, from 2023, and its Fact Tracker partner is an older one, Snakes and Other Reptiles.

In Windy Night with Wild Horses, Jack and Annie protect rare little horses from wolves in which country?

Mongolia's little horses must be protected from wolves in Book 39, released in May 2024, with the Fact Tracker Horse Heroes as its partner.

Magic Tree House author Mary Pope Osborne was born in 1949 at Fort Sill, an Army post in which state?

Oklahoma's Fort Sill was her birthplace, and the Army kept the family moving, with childhood stops in Virginia and Salzburg, Austria.