Caught out in the rain in the most dangerous Magic Tree House mission yet!

By my count, this is number 16 in my bingo journey and The Last in a Series!

The Magic Treehouse series is an interesting one. Ever since I have heard about it, I wanted to read one. However, I have only read some of the non-fiction companions to the fiction stories and some of her non-Treehouse books. When the read the last in a series came up on the bingo board, I figured why not? Well, the problem is, there are series within the series! There is the main story, the Merlin series and a couple others, plus the non-fiction ones! I am hoping that Hurricane Heroes in Texas #30 by Mary Pope Osborne is the most recent in the main series.

I had forgotten that you cannot just start with book thirty. Because one) the characters are already established and two) they will reference past stories you have no idea about and third) I had forgotten that each book is part of a four-book “group” of books. Numbers 29 to 32 are part of this story arc.

I am not sure what I was expecting, as this is a book geared for high first grade to low third grade. Perhaps more action. Perhaps Jack and Annie (the brother and sister duo who are our heroes) being less “kid like” and doing “extra ordinary things” (like magic or doing things kids probably are not necessarily capable of doing, but in fiction anything is possible). However, the realism is refreshing. They do things because they can: they can swim, they can help the baby, they can find the husband of the woman who befriends them. Would I have liked to have seen more actual history of the 1900 flood? Yes. However, Osborne does mix in fact with the fiction, so you are getting a story without being bogged down.

I am now interested in reading Texas: A Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #30: Hurricane Heroes in Texas and would love to see Osborne work her magic on a longer book on the subject.