• Meet the Author •

Nick Glass of TeachingBooks.net Grades interviewed PK–6 Mary Pope Osborne in her Connecticut home on May 28, 2013.

MPO: My father only had lived on. It was a challenge for one overseas assignment me, suddenly being out of the when I was young. We were military lifestyle, because I had in Salzburg, , for three to find other ways to express years, and it was a place that myself and to feel that was elemental in the creation I belonged. of my imagination. I was four I found that sense of

Photo compliments of www.japantimes.co.jp or five at the time, and we lived belonging in a little local theater You are the author of the across the street from a castle. It within walking distance of bestselling Magic Tree seemed that everything around our house. My parents were House series and many us could have been in a book wonderful about letting me picture books and YA of fairy tales—which I was also go there after school and on novels besides. But long being exposed to for the first weekends, and all through the before you became an time then. My memories from summer to perform in plays or award-winning author that period all mingle in my work backstage. We were doing for children, you were a mind, and sometimes I have all these Tennessee Williams traveler. What was your trouble remembering whether and Arthur Miller plays— life like growing up? a recollection is an actual wonderful shows where the MPO: I grew up in a military experience I had, or whether it poetry of the language sort of family with two brothers and came from a book I read. took hold inside of me. I fell as a sister, and our family moved I think the mental ability to much in love with language as constantly. But we had each step into antique, atmospheric I did with performance. I think other and our imaginations, and environments developed that experience was the fuel I I think that combination made early in me, and it’s been needed to catapult myself into for a wonderful childhood. I continuously fed by a life of a life in the arts. It enriched my feel very blessed to have had writing children’s books. In imagination and gave me the all the travel experiences I had, fact, I think the blueprint for confidence to use it. but I’m not sure they would’ve writing was been so fantastic without our created by this childhood of The Magic Tree House series has exposed little posse, where we could moving so often and having to thousands of young be with each other and not create new realities for myself— readers to ideas and mind having to move and lose to believe that adventure was always around the corner. information about people friends. The moving brought and places across time. us closer together, because we How did this theme of could count on each other. My You grew up loving the theater as well as books. cultural exploration memories about the fun we used How did that come about? become important to you? to have are sublime. We’re all MPO: still very close. MPO: My dad retired from the I went to college to military just as I was entering study theater. But in the middle Did moving a lot as a child high school, and he did so in of my college years, I discovered in any way inspire your a small southern town near religion and philosophy. I’d writing down the road? the army post we had just never been exposed to that

1 • LibrarySparks • January 2014 Meet the Author kind of challenging thinking before, and I found Tolstoy and Freud and Reinhold Niebuhr so stimulating that I transferred my major to the religion department and started writing poetry, thinking of it as a creative adjunct to my philosophical studies. When I graduated, I was restless and I wanted to see the world. This was the early seventies, when you could day a friend called and said, literally put a pack on your “There’s a show playing called stick to our contract. Within back and a few hundred dollars Diamond Studs with some of a year or two, I sold my first in your pocket and go over to the people we went to school book, and he started getting Europe and beyond—and that’s with.” I hadn’t been planning commercials and parts in what I did. I spent about a year to attend, but I ended up going theaters. From the time we traveling through countries opening night. I don’t know were thirty on, we never had like, believe it or not, how to explain it, but I saw to do much else than be in and , and Will walk onstage and I was in the theater or write. It was not , and and . love by the end of the show. I without sacrifices—we lived I saw the world, and I later went backstage to meet him and in that tenement for seventeen saw the way that it changed found out we’d actually known years and climbed those six so drastically, because by the each other in college. flights of stairs. We never had end of the seventies there We started seeing each a family. We pretty much lived were revolutions and borders other there in Washington, and hand-to-mouth for many years. were closed. But before then, within a year, we married in We didn’t start to really prosper I was a part of this crusade of New York. And that was really until our late forties, and by young adults who were going the beginning of a whole new then, we had mapped out a life to the East, and that experience creative phase for me. I had so that was very enjoyable on a imprinted on me deeply and much emotional support from small budget. I wrote fifty other indelibly. It was fuel for poetry him and encouragement to start books besides Magic Tree House, when I returned to the States, writing. He loved my writing. and I would still be struggling and it fueled in me the need to He wanted to hear more of it today with the economics of write about faraway places. every day, and I give him the being a writer if I had not had credit for getting me to really this amazingly lucky success Your husband, Will, is start in earnest. with Magic Tree House. an artist, a frequent We lived in the Village in collaborator on the Magic a sixth-floor tenement walk-up What led you to write the Tree House series, and on Bleecker Street, and we used Magic Tree House series? a longtime champion to take walks in Washington MPO: Throughout my thirties, of your writing. Please Square at twilight and talk I was writing everything from talk a bit about your about what we wanted out of young adult novels to picture relationship and how life. And we made a decision books, retellings of mythology he has encouraged your the summer we were twenty- and medieval tales to American creative efforts. nine that we would never let tall tales and Norse tales. I was MPO: Our relationship was the other do anything but be an interested in everything, and I meant to be—it’s an example artist. Will was—and still is—a wanted to learn so much. I had of why people say timing is writer and musician and actor, a love for history—my historical everything. I’d been working and I was considering myself knowledge was all self-taught— in Washington, DC, and one a writer. And we managed to and I had a love for sibling

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relationships, because mine had of the Caribbean. I write the the concept behind them, meant so much to me. I loved books in quartets, and there were resonating with magic—the idea of some kind is a tremendous amount of readers on a large scale? of enchantment in our lives. I planning I have to do before MPO: After the first two wondered what would happen writing a new quartet to ensure or three books, I started if I combined these interests, so that one book is going to link getting letters. That had never I played with the idea. with another. There are clues happened to me before, where I had a young editor at throughout each quartet, so by I got these adorable letters Random House who was sort the time the reader reaches the from little kids telling me how of in the sandbox with me, but end of the fourth book, some much the books meant to them. nothing we talked about was great truth of life is revealed by Beyond that, I got letters from working. I tried a magic cellar a wise person. Jack and Annie’s parents and teachers saying and magic art studio, magic missions are determined by things like, “Sam couldn’t read whistles and a magic museum. these adult people who ask until he picked up this chapter I was floundering. I was really them to do things to help set the book,” or “Katie never liked to about to give up. But then my world right. So, without being read until she picked up this husband and I took a walk, didactic, I hope, the books give chapter book.” and we saw a tree house, and a strong sense of morals. At that point—not to sound we started batting around the too high-minded—but things idea of a magic tree house. I tell What are some of the really went from a commercial kids when I talk about this that reasons you think the venture to a calling. I had the simplest ideas can be the Magic Tree House series always thought this was not my hardest to find. appeals to young readers? most artistic expression; in my MPO: Jack and Annie, the early years, I’d wanted to be a Please explain the brother and sister in the stories, poet. I wanted to write offbeat premise of the Magic Tree started their adventures at only novels. To write a series that House stories. at seven and eight years old. was so consistent, and geared MPO: In the first book of the Now they’re about ten and toward such a young age group, Magic Tree House series, a eleven, and they are still going made me think, “This will be brother and sister live a quiet, on missions in all the quartets. fun … it may make money. It’s nice life in a small town in Even though they have aged, a good gig, but it’s temporary.” . One day they they still experience the world And then my whole life find a mysterious tree house in at a child’s eye-level. Their changed when I got these the Frog Creek Woods. They journeys are never so fantastical responses. They grew and grew climb the ladder, and find the that they’re not still just until thousands of letters were tree house is filled with books. children. I think that’s why kids coming in and lots of kids were The boy, especially, loves love Jack and Annie, because learning to read on the Magic books, and after picking up they feel they could be them. Tree House books. And then one about he kind of At the same time, these readers I said, “Okay, what could be offhandedly makes a wish that are solving little mysteries and better?” The creative challenge they could go to that place and accomplishing missions, too, so became really stimulating. time. The next thing you know, that by the end of each quartet, the wind starts to blow, the tree they’ve also put together a Now that you are more house is spinning, and it lands puzzle of sorts. than two decades and in the time of dinosaurs. The fifty Magic Tree House siblings have this scary and The Magic Tree House books into the mission, wondrous adventure. series has sold millions of can you reflect on how In the second book, they copies worldwide and has your writing process may go to a castle in medieval been translated into more have changed since you ; the third, they go to than thirty languages. first began the series? a pyramid in , and in the At what point did you MPO: Over time, I think I’ve fourth, they experience pirates realize the books, and gotten better at writing the

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Magic Tree House books. I’ve The Magic Tree House factual serendipity happens over gotten better at being more series introduces a great and over again. eloquent in a simple way— deal of factual information moving the action along with a to readers. How do you The Magic Tree House few strokes, almost like Japanese conduct research and books are told from the brushstrokes. I started asking work it into your books? boy’s point of view. How myself, “How can I say this MPO: There is definitely a lot does that influence the simply and swiftly, but deeply?” of research, and I bury myself way you portray his sister? I don’t analyze every sentence in it. That’s most of the work MPO: Telling the books like that, but it is always I do. I might get anywhere through the point of view of the satisfying to come up with the from ten to twenty books on boy kind of liberates me to brag right one- or two-syllable world a subject, and I do Internet about the girl. I didn’t want to that is alive, a living word. research, too. I take copious be a revisionist when writing I also play around a lot with notes, and I begin to craft a plot about historical places and the senses and weather and out of the research, because times, so I’m pretty honest about light. I try to pull readers down it’s almost as if there’s a hidden things like the way women into the reality I’m creating, story in every subject I explore. were treated during the ancient almost in a haiku kind of way, Sometimes I come across some Olympics or Victorian England. and then push them forward wonderful connections. The siblings run up against a with adventure and cliffhangers. One of the most magical lot of challenges where Annie Over time, I found a way to examples of this happened to has to disguise herself or take a make the stories even more me when I wanted to write backseat in a situation. meaningful to me because I about Jack and Annie attending But I always make sure it’s began to explore my love of a concert given by a six-year- clear that that’s what’s going on, language through the books, as old Mozart at the Palace of and I make sure the characters well as my love for hooking a Schönbrunn in Vienna. I discuss it, because I want readers reader and telling a story. needed an exciting cover for to really look at the situation the book, so I was reading and think about the fact that The twenty-ninth Magic about The Magic Flute for Annie is a strong, outgoing Tree House book is inspiration. The only childlike little girl who could meet any the start of the scene in the whole opera is challenge, but she’s often denied Missions. Please talk when a great herd of animals the opportunity unless she’s about this development in is led by a flute. So I said to disguising who she is. the series. my editor, “Somehow I’ve got Also, men tend to MPO: After twenty-eight of the to get wild animals into this outnumber women in the history first Magic Tree House books, palace, because I want them books, so it’s not always easy for my editor and I wondered if we on the cover, and I want them me to portray historical male could make things a little more to be led by Jack playing the and female figures evenly. But challenging. What if we bumped flute.” I thought I’d have to I’m hoping that the lopsided up the reading level, made the invent the animals through presence of historical male books twice as long with more some magic device, but as I heroes is compensated by Annie’s plot and depth, and increased kept researching, I found out heroism in every single story. Jack and Annie’s ages? Kids can that ten years before Mozart In the end, boy readers stay with the books longer, and was there, Schönbrunn Palace do not resist Annie. They love I can explore a wider subject housed the first private zoo in Annie. They roll their eyes range and have a little more fun. the world. Can you imagine about Annie. “Oh, boy, she’s That was more than ten years how blown away I was? I was a handful,” one little boy said ago, and I’ve been doing only able to write the zoo outside the to me once—which makes me Merlin Missions since—though palace, and have little Mozart, think these boys may see some it’s possible that I might bump because he’s in a tantrum, let of their own sisters in Annie. the series up yet one more level to the animals loose. Believe it or And the girls enjoy Annie too. be a little more challenging. not, this sort of historical and So even if the subjects the

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books cover lean a little more of twenty-eight books might but then Tree House kind of toward more masculine topics, make a real difference to a butted its way in and I never got I hope I’m giving credit both young person who doesn’t back to those bugs. to male and female characters. really have books. So we gave I also did a six-part series It’s something I’ve thought a a box of books to every third of The for kids, and lot about. grader in Newark. I learned so much from the More recently, we gave experience. It’s deep in my Please talk about your away a thousand boxes of bones now, that story. I took Classroom Adventures books in , which all the translations I could find Program. happened in conjunction with and put them side by side. I had MPO: In all the years of a show my husband wrote them in cookbook holders, and writing the Magic Tree House with the great jazz and blues I’d read the same page of each series, I have been helped musician Allen Toussaint, translation and find what spoke by phenomenal teachers and based on my Magic Tree House to me and then retell it for kids. educators, who, for me, were book about , A really responsible for the books’ Good Night for . The idea Between all your Magic success. They shared the books behind the show is to bring Tree House book writing, with each other. They bought jazz to inner-city kids, and to you’ve also written them for their classrooms. They make them feel that they can picture books, YA and identified the books’ value in make music as well as learn other middle-grade novels, such as Adaline terms of literacy and learning. to read. We had local kids, Falling Star. My husband and I were both in Newark and in New looking for a way to give Orleans, perform the show, MPO: Of all the books I’ve back, so for the twentieth and other school kids attended ever written, Adaline Falling anniversary of the series, free of charge and were given Star is closest to my heart. we formed the Classroom their books. You know, she’s still out there Adventures Program for Now that the Classroom somewhere with that , and teachers, which provides Adventures Program is taking I’m still mourning and loving teachers with lesson plans off, we feel we’ve got a really them both. and reading level guides with exciting future mapped out: I came across her story core curriculum tie-ins for while I keep writing, we’re going when I read a little footnote all the books, free of charge. to be giving away more and in history about Kit Carson And if you’re a Title I school, more materials to educators and having a half Arapaho we are giving books away. to kids in order to add some fun daughter, and how he sent We’ve recruited a great team to a teacher’s curriculum. That’s her to live with relatives in St. of educators to develop these our real mission now, and it Louis when her mother died. materials for us, many of seems like a perfect extension of She was always a wild girl, and whom are past winners of the the last twenty years of writing she died young at nineteen. Magic Tree House Teacher of the books. For some reason, her story the Year Award. spoke to me. And after a lot of In the year and a half The Magic Tree House is research, I started to enter her since we started, we’ve had not your only series. world, and I started to be able a phenomenal response, and MPO: Oh yes, there was also to imagine her experience of we’ve been able start going out Spider Kane and the Mystery of being caught in St. Louis—an into communities, ourselves. Under the May-Apple and Spider unwanted little “half-breed,” We went Newark last year, and Kane and the Mystery at Jumbo as they called them then—and we gave away four thousand Nightcrawler’s Supper Club. I had what it must have been like, boxed sets of twenty-eight an incredibly wonderful time trying to find the intersection books. I thought that giving with the Spider Kane mysteries, between the spiritual world just one book to a child might and at the time I thought I’d be of the Lakota and the western not change much, but a box writing a much longer series, world of her father.

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In many ways, that book language and work it into the MPO: That was a really was the most challenging story of a child going to bed. fun book. The language of and the most rewarding I’ve So those picture books, for me, the American tall tales is a ever written. One of the were poetry, plain and simple. beautiful and original way of Dear America books I wrote, One picture book that is speaking that found its way Standing in the Light, follows a especially close to my heart is onto the scene in the 1800s. similar paradigm in that I had New York’s Bravest. I had written Until then, we had more of a Quaker girl in the late 1700s about the 1800s tall tale , a European sensibility to our kidnapped by the Delaware Mose the volunteer fireman, in language. But in the 1800s, Indians, the Lenape. She falls a previous picture book called the woodsmen began talking in love with a young brave American Tall Tales. The week and telling stories, and these and must contend with her after 9/11, my editor called old, anonymously written conflicting emotions about her and asked if I could recast almanacs called the Davy old world and the new culture the story. So I did, and New Crockett Almanacs became more she’s learning to embrace. York’s Bravest is dedicated to all widespread, and a sort of crazy In writing these books, I found the firefighters who died on language full of bravado and myself wondering whether we September 11, 2001. Although exaggerated hyperbole found could have done it another Mose died, he’s resurrected in its way out of the American way when we settled—how a kind of mystical way through backwoods. could we have lived more New Yorkers’ imaginations. I found volumes of these harmoniously with the cultures New York’s Bravest was almanacs, and I began writing that were already established? illustrated by Steve Johnson words and phrases down. and Lou Fancher in the I immersed myself in their Please talk about some most magnificent way. It vernacular, and then I started of your more memorable was published the year after going back to the tall tales to picture book–writing 9/11, and I took it around the combine my own two cents experiences. country to various conferences. with the stories as they were MPO: Many of my picture I showed the entire book on first laid down. It was an books, like Moonhorse and big screens, and it was very exuberant process. Molly and the Prince, were really cathartic. I showed it to New written like poems. And A Visit York City librarians, and we With all the subjects to Sleep’s House was actually all wept together. Sometimes you cover in your inspired by a passage from it’s read at schools on the writing, do you ever Ovid’s Metamorphoses about the anniversary of 9/11. It remains get writer’s block? home of the God Sleep. The Visit a very meaningful book to me. MPO: I never ever think of it to Sleep’s House is so beautifully as writer’s block. And I tell kids written by Ovid that it inspired American Tall Tales to never say those words to me, me to take some of that features a lot of language because I feel like it becomes unique to America.

January 2014 • LibrarySparks • 6 Meet the Author

such an excuse—a condition— This In-depth Written Interview and it’s so self-involved. When is created by TeachingBooks.net I get stuck, I just take a break. for educational purposes and may You know, I make a cup of tea. be copied and distributed solely I roll on the floor with the dog. for these purposes for no charge as I take a walk outside. I just long as the copyright information take tons of breaks, and when I remains on all copies. come back, I’m unstuck. For more information about Do you have a typical Mary Pope Osborne and her workday? books, go to http://teachingbooks. MPO: No two days of my life net/. Questions regarding this have been the same in 64 years. program should be directed to Every day is different. Somehow [email protected]. I keep deadlines in my mind, and they get met. Some days, Copyright © 2014 no work gets done; some days, TeachingBooks.net LLC. All I put in hours and hours. I’ve rights reserved. never disciplined myself by saying, It’s now or never. I just ❖ ❖ ❖ listen to my internal clock. TeachingBooks.net is an You get to talk to kids easy-to-use website that adds a lot. Is there something a multimedia dimension to the in particular you like to reading experiences of children’s tell them? and young adult books, including lesson plans, video book trailers, MPO: I like to ask kids and original movies and audio questions about themselves. recordings with exceptional authors They’re usually shy at first, revealing their writing, illustration, and then they just open up. It’s and research craft. For more almost inevitable. I talked to information, contact Nick Glass, a little boy the other day who Founder & Executive Director, at happened to be homeless, and [email protected]. at first, he was quite shy. Then suddenly, when he realized that I wasn’t someone to fear, he started telling me about a story he’d like to write about a cow named Frank. And he could not stop talking about the cow named Frank. It was a sublime moment. I feel that if I can elicit from a child a story from their innermost creative selves, I get so much more from that interaction than I could ever give. And I’m telling you, every seven- and eight-year-old out there has something original to say.

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