'Run from ghosts or ride on dolphins'

 

“Withmy writing, I can still play inside an enchanted castle or live inside an oldfort. I can run from ghosts or ride dolphins any day of the week.”– Mary Pope Osborne

 

Almost every young reader know Jackand Annie, the brother-and-sister protagonists created by Osborne, who was bornat Ft. Sill, OK on this date in 1949.  Theduo are the stars of Osborne’s award-winning Magic Tree House series,now translated into some 30 languages with over 130 million copies in print worldwide. 

 

The daughter of a career militaryman, Osborne lived in 13 houses around the globe before age 15.   "Moving was never traumatic for me, butstaying in one place was. When my dad finally retired to a small town in NorthCarolina, I nearly went crazy with boredom."   That led her to try Community Theater torekindle that sense of adventure that she was missing.

 

“I continued to visit imaginaryplaces … whether I acted in a play or worked backstage, the world of TennesseeWilliams or Shakespeare always seemed more real to me than the dreary life ofhigh school,” Osborne said.

 

In her early 30s, “one day, out ofthe blue” she started writing a story that she had been thinking about.  “It just came to me,” she said.  The result was the semi-autobiographical Run, Run As Fast As You Can and she hasnever looked back.  The first of her MagicTree House books, Dinosaurs BeforeDark, followed.  In them Jack andAnnie are transported to different areas and eras for a series of cliffhangingadventures thanks to their titular magic treehouse.

  

While the duo’s adventures are at the heart of eachstory, readers also are subliminally introduced to events, animals and peopleworldwide and from throughout history. “I discovered writing children's bookswas a way to keep living in my imagination like a child,” Osborne said.  “ I could be somewhere different in everysingle book.”

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