The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne is about the space/time travels of a tree house and Jack and Annie, siblings. The pair stumble upon the tree house, a most excellent tree house, during their romp in the woods one day. Being curious, they climb up into the house and find books. Every book has a page marked. The first book they open is the dinosaur book. Jack looks at the picture on the marked page, points, and says, "I wish I was there!" Then, with a dizzying whir, there he (and she) are.
The adventures are simple, not too dangerous, and simple enough for a young child to follow.
I have a major problem with this series, however. The grammar is awful. I think perhaps they go beyond awful to downright terrifying and teaching the children some very bad habits. It is full of sentence fragments posing as sentences. The writing style is nothing more than extremely simple declarative sentences. The style leaves me wondering if they are written for 3 year olds instead of 5-8 year olds.
As I read these books aloud to Sarah at bedtime, I find it painful. In order to reduce the pain, I've begun rewording sentences to add some variety. She can handle variety. She doesn't need choppy anymore. The good news is that I can read a book in about three nights to her. We will read the entire series, but I will continue editing to make it easier.
