Carolina Alumni Review - January/February 2012

MARY POPE OSBORNE ’ 71

I f Lea Dardess could get a meeting with Mary Pope Osborne ’ 71, the two might make literary magic together.

She has an idea that she
thinks would be perfect for
Lea could write her own story about
the women’s suffragist, but she’s got
enough on her plate now that she has a
spelling test every Friday. And she needs to
reserve some time for dreaming about
becoming a dolphin trainer. Besides, once
the 6-year-old gets started, her imagination
could go on forever — and she has to
catch the school bus every morning at 8.

Good thing Osborne’s around. Her Magic Tree House chapter book series, which is celebrating its 20th year, boasts 47 (and counting) installments about Jack and Annie, who have saved characters from tsunamis and twisters and helped Mona Lisa smile just right for da Vinci across five generations of 6- to 10-year-olds.

There’s more than enough Magic Tree House to satiate the unabridged mind of young Lea, just as there was for Nicholas Mohorn, who first read the books as part of a second-grade classroom assignment. When the now-11-year-old heard his aunt (me) mention the author’s name … well, as Jack would say: “Oh, man!” He slip-slid his way in stocking feet from two rooms away.

BILL POPE
“Did you say Mary Pope Osborne?” he
asked, wide-eyed. “The Mary Pope
Osborne? As in, the Magic Tree House? I
know her!”
He doesn’t know her. But like hun-
dreds of thousands of other children who
have climbed that rope ladder into the big
oak tree with Osborne, he feels he does.
She gets kids, and they get her, and it’s a
rare and beautiful thing to behold in a
childhood landscape of glitter and gaming.

It may not matter to Lea or Nicholas that Osborne has sold almost 100 million Magic Tree House books worldwide since the first alliterative title, Dinosaurs Before Dark, debuted in 1992. Or that, among children’s book series, only one — a jug-

‘Jack and

They’re just

ordinary kids
who find
themselves
in extraordinary

Mary Pope Osborne ’ 71

gernaut about a boy with a lightning bolt scar — has spent more weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. Or that you can’t find a theme park, action figure, Lego set, video game, cereal bowl or bil-lion-dollar movie franchise bearing Jack and Annie’s images (Osborne’s choice).

What does matter is that they see themselves in the stories: Lea, as the brave Annie, who wouldn’t mind peeking at a mummy; and Nicholas, a careful Jack who looks before he leaps. Osborne, who receives such heartfelt fan mail from young readers that she can quote even many of the oldest ones verbatim, said that familiarity, mingled with excitement, is what has driven the series’ success.

“Jack and Annie have these great adventures,” says Osborne, “and every kid feels like them. They’re just ordinary kids who find themselves in extraordinary situ-

Osborne greets a fan at a book signing. “She really is a celebrity among children,” said her friend John Haber ’ 70. “It’s electric when she shows up at an event. She’s like a rock star.” Opposite page, covers of her 47 (and counting) Magic Tree House chapter book series.