My son has been reading The Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne for some months, now. He is what is termed a reluctant reader, so we take his reading interest where we can find it, even with comic books or the Jack Stalwart series (see previous review). I’m not super fond of the Magic Treehouse, but my son is determined to read his way through the entire 57 (and counting)-book series, and it has been a favorite with elementary-age kids and new readers for years.

My main issues with the series are the stripped-down nature of the writing and the complete lack of plot. Maybe I should say complete lack of plot sophistication. Even for a new reader, I think that a story with some twists and turns is needed. Even fairy tales involve some complexity. These stories? Let’s just say that Osborne reuses whole phrases and paragraphs at the beginning and end of each and every book because, yes, they all start and end exactly the same. That wouldn’t be so horrible, but the middle part is also shamelessly predictable. Jack and Annie go in the treehouse and through a book to a new place and time (from the dinosaur age to the Revolutionary War). They have to retrieve something determined by the magical Morgan le Fey, and they encounter one or two simply-cast obstacles on the way back to the treehouse. As far as I could pay attention (I often slide out of consciousness), this is all there is to every book. We are on number eleven.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: if you think that these books will help your children with grammar, you are sorely mistaken. Osborne is very fond of writing in sentence fragments and of too-short paragraphs, which drives a homeschool mother crazy. I spend half the day reminding my son to capitalize, punctuate, and complete his thoughts, and then hand him a grammatically farcical book before bed? Oi.

And the illustrations. Not a fan. Simply okay, but not great and definitely nothing special. (See what I did with the sentence fragments there?)

I suppose that one of the up-sides to this series are the information books that you can get to supplement the fiction books. Although not tremendously deep with knowledge, these books seem to be easy to access and interesting for children and would be a great resource for a project or paper. However, my son—and I am sure plenty of other kids—refuses to read the Fact Tracker series in lieu of reading yet another Magic Treehouse adventure. I think he does glean some history and maybe even science from the books, but I’m not sure it’s completely worth it.

At any rate, I’m not going to stop my son, or other children, from devouring these books like I did The Babysitters’ Club. Many children love them, and they have only increased literacy, even for “reluctant readers” (which does make me reluctant to be harsh in my review). But although extremely popular, they are not literary classics, and I would recommend trying Beverly Cleary or E.B. White first to see what happens.

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My son has read out to me the first twelve, around-75-page books from Random House. The series is listed here. (Note: The official Magic Treehouse website’s list of books was down, so I looked to fan lists.):

1. Dinosaurs Before Dark
2. The Knight at Dawn
3. Mummies in the Morning
4. Pirates Past Noon
5. Night of the Ninjas
6. Afternoon on the Amazon
7. Sunset of the Sabertooth
8. Midnight on the Moon
9. Dolphins at Daybreak
10. Ghost Town at Sundown
11. Lions at Lunchtime
12. Polar Bears Past Bedtime
13. Vacation Under the Volcano
14. Day of the Dragon King
15. Viking Ships at Sunrise
16. Hour of the Olympics
17. Tonight on the Titanic
18. Buffalo Before Breakfast
19. Tigers at Twilight
20. Dingoes at Dinnertime
21. Civil War on Sunday
22. Revolutionary War on Wednesday
23. Twister on Tuesday
24. Earthquake in the Early Morning
25. Stage Fright on a Summer Night
26. Good Morning, Gorillas
27. Thanksgiving on Thursday
28. High Tide in Hawaii

Merlin Mission Books (Advanced series)

29. Christmas in Camelot
30. Haunted Castle on Hallow’s Eve
31. Summer of the Sea Serpent
32. Winter of the Ice Wizard
33. Carnival at Candlelight
34. Season of the Sandstorms
35. Night of the New Magicians
36. Blizzard of the Blue Moon
37. Dragon of the Red Dawn
38. Monday with a Mad Genius
39. Dark Day in the Deep Sea
40. Eve of the Emperor Penguin
41. Moonlight on the Magic Flute
42. A Good Night for Ghosts
43. Leprechaun in Late Winter
44. A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time
45. A Crazy Day with Cobras
46. Dogs in the Dead of Night
47. Abe Lincoln At Last
48. A Perfect Time for Pandas
49. Stallion at Starlight
50. Hurry Up Houdini!
51. High Time for Heroes
52. Soccer on Sunday
53. Shadow of the Shark
54. Balto of the Blue Dawn
55. Danger in the Darkest Hour
56. Night of the Ninth Dragon
57. A Big Day for Baseball

Fact Trackers (formally called Research Guides)

1. Dinosaurs
2. Knights and Castles
3. Mummies and Pyramids
4. Pirates
5. Rain Forests
6. Space
7. Titanic
8. Twisters and Other Terrible Storms
9. Dolphins and Sharks
10. Ancient Greece and the Olympics
11. American Revolution
12. Sabertooths and the Ice Age
13. Pilgrims
14. Ancient Rome and Pompeii
15. Tsunamis and Other Natural Disasters
16. Polar Bears and the Arctic
17. Sea Monsters
18. Penguins and Antarctica
19. Leonardo da Vinci
20. Ghosts
21. Leprechauns and Folklore (or Auguste Bartholdi, unsure)
22. Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens
23. Snakes and Other Reptiles
24. Dog Heroes
25. Abraham Lincoln
26. Pandas and Other Endangered Species
27. Horse Heroes
28. Heroes for All Times
29. Soccer
30. Ninjas and Samurai
31. China: Land of the Emperor’s Great Wall
32. Sharks and Other Predators
33. Vikings
34. Dogsledding and Extreme Sports
35. Dragons and Mythical Creatures