Hello from Chicago! And from Boston and Detroit and Minneapolis and Cincinnati and Dayton and Washington, DC!
I’m on the road with my sister Natalie, meeting lots and lots of wonderful Magic Tree House readers all around the country. The latest Magic Tree House adventure, #39: Dark in the Deep Sea, just came out, along with the companion Research Guide, Sea Monsters. This is the first time a Jack and Annie adventure and Research Guide have come out at the same time, and Natalie
and I had a great time doing research together. We think kids will love traveling with Jack and Annie on their ocean adventure and then learning more facts about the amazing creatures that live in the sea!
I’m having a good time on the road, but I really miss Will and our two sweet bad funny doggies, Joey and Mr. Bezo! Will is home working very hard on plans for the National Tour of Magic Tree House: The Musical. The show will start traveling around the country in October and it’s going to be fantastic! Will has just hired Emily McArdle, an amazing championship Irish step dancer, to travel with the show. And our puppet designer, Mary Brehmer, is hard at work creating more amazing puppets – including an adorable little dog that looks remarkably like our Joey! We’ve just launched a new version of the website for the musical –check out www.MTHmusical.com <http://www.MTHmusical.com> for lots of photos and videos from the show, plus interviews with Will, me, and many of the other creative people who have helped bring Magic Tree House to life onstage. And be sure to sign up for email updates letting you know when the show will be coming to a theatre near you!
Happy Spring!

Guess what! Magic Tree House readers in Japan are just like Magic Tree House readers in the United States! Will and I have just returned from a book tour in Japan. We met teachers, booksellers, our Japanese book agents, and lots of wonderful people who work for our Japanese Publisher, Media Factory. We saw astonishing Magic Tree House displays in Japanese bookstores and we visited with lots of kids in schools. The kids we met reminded me so much of American kids — lively, warm, enthusiastic, and curious. They showed us their Magic Tree House notebooks and artwork. I showed them slides of our American Magic Tree House covers and compared them to their Japanese book covers (I’ll include a Japanese book cover of Dinosaurs Before Dark, so you, too can see the difference. Notice that Jack and Annie look like Japanese cartoon characters!) Will showed them slides of Magic Tree House: the Musical and gave them CDs of the music from the show. We answered their questions and asked for suggestions on more places Jack and Annie should visit in the Magic Tree House. (Their recommendations: Canada, Chili, and Brazil)
We loved wandering around Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. We visited Zen temples and an old Japanese villa, an incredible moss garden, a museum of old Japan, lots of restaurants and stores.
A particularly memorable experience took place in Kyoto. One late afternoon, our interpreter led us through the back streets to the shop of an Indigo dyer. Inside a small wooden house, we met the dyer and saw his beautiful wares: jackets, scarves, bags, and tablecloths dyed the color of deep Indigo blue. For thousands of years, indigo dye has been made from the leaves of different plants. The dyer showed us his vats of fermenting plants that smelled pretty awful. But as we held our noses and watched him dip cloth in and out of the dye substance, I felt for a moment that we’d stepped into the old Japan setting of MTH #37, Dragon of the Red Dawn.
Will and I are home now, but we brought bits of Japan home with us: fans, chopsticks, a miniature Japanese garden, and indigo blue jackets and scarves. Best of all, we have pictures of our new friends – grownups and kids we’ll never forget. In fact, we can’t wait to go back.

Hi! I just got some photographs from the play that I want to share with you. Magic Tree House: The Musical was written by my husband Will Osborne and composer Randy Courts. Their story was inspired by my book, Christmas in Camelot. They didn’t want to limit the show to just being presented during the holiday season, so they took references to “Christmas” and exchanged them with references to a banquet in Camelot. I think if you’ve read the book and you look at these pictures in the following order, you’ll recognize many moment. In these pictures, the story unfolds like this: (Click on the image for the full view.)

	Jack and Annie are in their bedrooms…
	They travel to the Great Hall of Camelot…
	The Red Knight barges in on his huge horse…
	The White Stag appears to take Jack and Annie to the Otherworld
	Jack and Annie have to get past two scary guards at the gate.
	Jack and Annie find the three missing knights of Camelot caught in the fairy dance.
	They enter the hidden cave and find the cauldron that holds the Water of Memory and Imagination…
	The dragons surprise them.
	They return to Camelot and restore magic and joy to the kingdom.

We’re planning a national tour, but the show won’t get on the road until a year from now. We’ll let you know where it’s going as soon as all the plans are made. For more info check out www.mthmusical.com

Well, the show is over. In just two weekends, over 8,000 people saw Magic Tree House: the Musical at the Warner Theatre here in Connecticut. One family came from Wisconsin. Another drove 12 hours from northwestern New York. I met kids from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington, DC.

And on opening night I sat with Evan Thomason and his mom, Melissa, who came all the way up from Alabama. I had never met Evan, though we’d talked to each other when he was at St. Jude’s hospital in Tennessee. It was a great joy to finally meet him and his mom! And it was a great joy to see so many kids who consider themselves friends of Jack and Annie.
The Annie and Jack on stage were perfect, I thought– even though in real life they are 17 and 26 years old! All the actors and singers and dancers were wonderful as they pulled us all into their world of Camelot – as well as the mysterious Otherworld, home of the cauldron that holds the magic waters of memory and imagination.

The play itself called on the members of the audience to use their powers of memory and imagination. Grownups needed to remember what it was like to be kids again; and kids needed to use their imaginations to experience the drama on the stage. There was magic in the theater as audience and actors worked together to make an enchanted world come alive.

I am truly grateful.

Oh wow, oh man. Magic Tree House: the Musical (by Will Osborne & Randy Courts, and directed by Joe Harmston) opened this past weekend at the Warner Theater in Torrington, Connecticut. Thousands of people came – and I think we all had a great time. It’s hard to describe how exciting it is for me to see a Magic Tree House adventure on the stage. Some of my favorite moments: when Jack and Annie recall all their past adventures in the opening song, How Far Can You See; the banquet scene in Camelot; the scary arrival of the Red Knight; and the wondrous appearance of a white stag. The stag flies out over the heads of the audience! I love the fairy dancers who capture Jack in their dance and I love the crystal cage and the HUGE monsters in the cave. I love the song that Jack and Annie sing to each other: What Would I Do Without you. And I love when Jack and Annie return with water from the Cauldron of Memory and Imagination and bring Camelot back to life. I cried at the curtain call because all 50 people on stage had done such a great job and I felt so thankful. Katie Brunetto and Matthew Martin as Annie and Jack were about as perfect as a real life Jack and Annie could be. Fortunately the show runs this coming weekend, too, so I can see it 4 more times. Then next year it will tour the country and I can fly different places and see it again and again…so it won’t go away – ever, I hope. As I wrote in my last blog, if you’re interested in learning more about it and seeing pictures and short videos, check out the website: MTHMusical.com.
Bye for now — I have to go to the theater!

Hi!
I know, I know, I know I said I would write a blog again soon. But it’s been crazy here. We’re producing a 50 person musical in five days in a huge theater in the town of Torrington, Connecticut. As I’ve explained before, it’s called Magic Tree House: The Musical, by my husband Will and good friend composer Randy Courts. It’s directed by another good friend and brilliant director from London Joe Harmston; and it stars the amazing Katie Brunetto and Matthew Martin as Jack and Annie, and Broadway star, Donna Bullock as Morgan le Fay. We have sets and costumes and lights designed by an award-winning team from New York City, and huge puppets that will knock your socks off, and a chorus of wonderful Irish dancers. We’re busy making arrangements for friends and family coming to town to see the show, and we’re daily rushing out to do radio spots and newspaper interviews and book signings. And Joey and Mr. Bezo don’t make things any easier with all their barking at our house guests and our comings and goings. So — let me catch my breath — do you get the idea why I haven’t written my blog lately? Will you forgive me? Oh, and I have to work daily on my new Magic Tree House book on Antarctica every day, too. So all this is my excuse for not writing my blogs on time. I’ll have lots more to tell you after the show opens next week. Next week??? Oh man, I feel faint. Wish us luck!

Hi! I didn’t mean to take such a long break from writing my blogs, but this summer has been so busy. It all started with my trip to Italy in June. Then in July we had lots of houseguests, and I also spent time with my mom down in North Carolina. For the last few weeks I’ve been gardening and spending time with Joey and Mr. Bezo, and researching and planning a new Magic Tree House adventure (which I’ll tell you about soon). And now our house is filled with more guests — they’ve come to town to start work on the musical of the Magic Tree House, which opens in Connecticut in September. In fact, rehearsals began this week! (I’ll write much more about the show in the days to come. Meanwhile, check out MTHMusical.com to learn more about the show.)

Anyway, right now I want to get back to you about my trip to the Amalfi coast in Italy in June. I traveled to the beautiful village of Ravello with my sister and two friends to take painting classes from an artist named Billy Papaleo. I wasn’t a very good painter, but with Billy’s help, I did learn to see a little better. I studied the sunlight moving over the sea and the mountains. I watched moving wisps of fog in the hills and the shifting shadows on tiled rooftops and villa gardens. I learned the difference between hot colors, such as red and yellow, and cool colors, such as blue and gray. I tried to create the color of a red pot faded from years of salty sea light. I not only learned how to see a little better, but I also learned how to listen better.

I paid attention to the whisper of the umbrella pines and palm fronds trembling in the wind. I heard roosters crowing, footsteps ringing on stone walkways, and wedding bells bonging. The memories of what I saw and heard are still strong in my mind. In fact, I imagine that the colorof that faded red pot will be with me forever.

So I’d say my trip to Italy was a great success. I love Italy. In fact, my next Magic Tree House book, Monday with a Mad Genius, (coming out in less than 2 weeks) is about a trip to Italy in the 1500’s. Jack and Annie travel to the time of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest geniuses of all time. So even though I’ve returned from Italy, I can still be there in an instant­ with my memories and my imagination.

Today I’m packing to go to Italy. I leave tomorrow! My sister and two friends and I are going to take a landscape painting class in the town of Ravello on the Amalfi coast. I don’t know if I’m going to be a very good painter. Probably not. But thats really not why I’m doing this. I’m going all the way to Italy to take a landscape painting class because I hope that it will help me see better. No, I’m not having trouble with my eyes. But I don’t think I see the world as clearly as I could, especially the wondrousness of the world around me. I get glimpses of beauty, such as the delicate wildflowers that border our driveway, the waves on our lake in a windstorm, a hawk gliding in the sky, but I know there are an infinite number of incredible things that I’m missing. I figure that if I’m forced to stop and study all the details in a landscape and try to paint them, then I will see better. And I will be more in awe of the world than I already am.

That was the secret of happiness that Jack and Annie learned in Magic Tree House #37, Dragon of the Red Dawn, from the Japanese poet Basho: Pay close attention to the wonders of nature all around you — whether it’s a banana tree growing in your front yard or a frog splashing into a pond, or a cricket chirping at twilight — and you might feel the happiness that comes from experiencing the beauty of the present moment. So maybe a painting class on the coast of Italy will help me do that. If nothing else, I’ll be away from TV, phones, the Internet and email for a few days, and that should be quite relaxing. Wish me luck. When I come home in 2 weeks, I look forward to telling you all the wondrous little things I saw.

Last week in New York City and yesterday in Cornwall, Connecticut, Will and I shared the first song from Magic Tree House: The Musical with kids. After almost 3 years of work and anticipation, we finally got to see large audiences respond to music from the show. It was so rewarding and exciting.

The first song of the show is titled: How Far Can You See? This song has the big job of telling the Magic Tree House story from the beginning. It shows Jack and Annie first stumbling upon the tree house in the Frog Creek Woods and later discovering that it belongs to Morgan Le Fay, the magical librarian of Camelot. The song tells about all the places Jack and Annie journey to in the Tree house that first summer, and it celebrates the magic of books and reading. Near the end of the song, Annie declares, “This is the best summer we’ve ever had!”

In my opinion, summer is the best time of year for reading. I remember one summer of lazy, hot days during which I read all the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I felt as if I were actually living in Victorian, England, wandering foggy moors and warming myself in a cozy fire-lit London flat. Another summer I read 19th century Russian novels and felt as I were attending balls in St. Petersburg and visiting farmhouses in the Russian countryside.

Jack and Annie’s summer of joyful adventures can belong to young readers everywhere ­ all they have to do is pick up a good book and let their imaginations take flight. As Jack, Annie, and Morgan sing in that first song:

Books about faraway places!
Pictures of wondrous sights to see!
To go there is all it takes is Wishing.
A wish to have an adventure,
A wish from the top of a tree,
A wish just to be there, and then you’re Flying!

We’ll soon be posting clips from the songs of MAGIC TREE HOUSE: THE MUSICAL on our website at MTHMusical.com. In the meantime, you can visit that site to learn more about bringing the musical to the stage.

When I was growing up, my favorite thing to do besides reading was acting. My sister Natalie and my brothers Mike and Bill and I often put on “shows” in the different neighborhoods we lived in. One summer, Natalie and I imagined we were a singing sister duo. At twilight, we’d sing under a street lamp near our house, pretending it was a spotlight. Another summer, we all became characters in Peter Pan, dashing around our house for days, pretending to have sword fights. We turned the picnic table in our backyard into a stage, and as I remember it, we almost never rode our bikes without imagining that we were riding horses in a Western movie. What’s funny to me now is that I loved to sing and dance then, and I imagined that I did both quite well. But growing up, I realized I really didn’t have a lot of musical talent—so I made up for that by marrying a man who did! I fell in love with my husband Will Osborne when I first saw him singing and playing the guitar on stage in a play about Jesse James. And for all the years of our marriage, while I’ve been writing books, Will has been involved with the theater in one way or another: playing music, singing, acting, directing or writing. So it seemed quite natural that Will would one day write a musical about Jack and Annie. He teamed up with Randy Courts, a wonderful composer, and Joe Harmston, a brilliant theater director—and Magic Tree House: the Musical was born.

Now, almost three years later, Will, Randy and Joe are preparing for the World Premiere of the show at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, CT, in September. And a CD of all the songs and many of the scenes will be available in a few weeks.

Reading and writing are about the magic of the imagination. This musical, in my opinion, multiplies that magic ten times. So when you listen to the CD or see the show on the stage, I hope you’ll joyfully travel in your imagination with Jack and Annie on their musical adventure—and come away singing a few tunes.