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A magical life
Together Mary Pope Osborne and Will Osborne oversee the Magic Tree House enterprise. A young reader once wrote to them, “If you didn’t [write] the Magic Tree House books, I would go nuts!” Thankfully for their fans, they don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. Photo by Wendy Carlson.
For 27 years, Carolina alumni Mary Pope Osborne and Will Osborne have taken children on journeys across time and space through The New York Times bestselling Magic Tree House chapter book series.
The real magic in the beloved Magic Tree House children’s book series doesn’t involve time travel with brother-sister protagonists Jack and Annie — it’s actually the connection that author Mary Pope Osborne and her husband, Will Osborne, an actor and playwright, have with young readers.
They’ve journeyed together to visit dinosaurs and pirates and mummies and even to the moon. They’ve met famous people like Jackie Robinson and William Shakespeare and Clara Barton.
Mary will publish the 60th book in The New York Times bestselling series next January on whales called narwhals.
The creative duo, who graduated from Carolina in 1971 and now live in Massachusetts, cherish the time they get to spend with their biggest fans. Mary said of her loyal 6- to-8-year-old followers, “We’re there at the sweet spot of life.”
