Jack and Annie are a brother and sister who live in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Jack is eight years old, and Annie is seven.  One day, Jack and Annie discover an old tree house in the woods that is filled with books. It’s a magical tree house filled with books that can transport them to other countries and other time periods whenever they open one and wish they were in the place the book shows.  Wherever they go, the kids use information from the books they find in the tree house to help them in their adventures, and Jack makes notes about things that they learn. 

Eventually, they discover that the tree house belongs to Morgan Le Fay, a sorceress from the King Arthur legends. She uses its time-traveling abilities to search for more books for the library at Camelot. Under her guidance, the children begin to take on the roles of librarians, searching for particular books and pieces of writing across history. In later books, Merlin sends the kids on special time travel adventures. These books later became a separate series called Merlin Missions.

I’ve read books in this series out of order, although I don’t really recommend doing that for new readers. The books in the Magic Tree House series are very linear, and there are story arcs that extend over multiple books. If you skip around too much, it can spoil some surprises or disrupt the thread of the story.

The author of the series is Mary Pope Osborne. There are companion books to this series called Research Guides with factual information about the different places and time periods the kids visit and other aspects of history, such as knights and pirates.

Books in the Series:

#1 Dinosaurs Before Dark (1992)

Jack and Annie discover a magical tree house full of books. Looking at one of the books takes them back in time to the days of the dinosaurs.

#2 The Knight at Dawn (1993)

Jack and Annie use the magic tree house to go back in time to the Middle Ages.

#3 Mummies in the Morning (1993)

Jack and Annie help the ghost of an Ancient Egyptian queen to find her lost scroll so she can reach the afterlife.

#4 Pirates Past Noon (1994)

Jack and Annie have an adventure with pirates and discover the true owner of the magic tree house.

#5 Night of the Ninjas (1995)

#6 Afternoon on the Amazon (1995)

#7 Sunset of the Sabertooth

#8 Midnight on the Moon

#9 Dolphins at Daybreak

#10 Ghost Town at Sundown

#11 Lions at Lunchtime

#12 Polar Bears Past Bedtime

#13 Vacation Under the Volcano

#14 Day of the Dragon King (1998)

Jack and Annie go back in time to save a book from the Imperial Library in China from being burned.

#15 Viking Ships at Sunrise

#16 Hour of the Olympics

#17 Tonight on the Titanic

#18 Buffalo Before Breakfast

#19 Tigers at Twilight

#20 Dingoes at Dinnertime

#21 Civil War on Sunday

#22 Revolutionary War on Wednesday (2000)

Jack and Annie search for a piece of writing that represents “something to send”, and they witness Washington’s crossing of the Delaware.

#23 Twister on Tuesday

#24 Earthquake in the Early Morning

#25 Stage Fright on a Summer Night (2002)

#26 Good Morning, Gorillas (2002)

#27 Thanksgiving on Thursday (2002)

Jack and Annie travel back in time to the first Thanksgiving.

#28 High Tide in Hawaii (2003)

#29 A Big Day for Baseball

#30 Hurricane Heroes in Texas (2018)

Merlin Missions

These are the books when Merlin sends the kids on special missions. According to Goodreads, the books that are considered “Merlin Missions” were originally part of the main series, but were reissued as a separate series. The first Merlin Mission book was #29 on the original series, and the others were numbered accordingly. After the split from the main series, Christmas in Camelot became #1 in the Merlin Missions series, and a new #29 and others were added to the main series. Because of this, you may see older editions of the books with a different numbering system, and some numbers that seem to overlap both series. This Wiki explains the series well.

#1 Christmas in Camelot (2009)

#2 Haunted Castle on Hallows Eve

#3 Summer of the Sea Serpent

#4 Winter of the Ice Wizard

#5 Carnival at Candlelight

#6 Season of the Sandstorms

#7 Night of the New Magicians

#8 Blizzard of the Blue Moon

#9 Dragon of the Red Dawn

#10 Monday with a Mad Genius

#11 Dark Day in the Deep Sea

#12 Eve of the Emperor Penguin

#13 Moonlight on the Magic Flute

#14 A Good Night for Ghosts

#15 Leprechaun in Late Winter

#16 A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time

#17 A Crazy Day with Cobras

#18 Dogs in the Dead of Night

#19 Abe Lincoln at Last

#20 A Perfect Time for Pandas

#21 Stallion at Starlight

#22 Hurry Up Houdini!

#23 High Time for Heroes

#24 Soccer on Sunday

#25 Shadow of the Shark

#26 Balto of the Blue Dawn

#27 Danger in the Darkest Hour

#28 Night of the Ninth Dragon

Research Guides

The Research Guides contain factual information about the different places and time periods the kids visit and other aspects of history, such as knights and pirates. They were written by Mary Pope Osborne and different co-authors.

#1 Dinosaurs

Available through Internet Archive.

#2 Knights and Castles

#3 Mummies and Pyramids

Available through Internet Archive.

#4 Pirates

#5 Rain Forests

#6 Space

#7 Titanic

#8 Twisters and Other Terrible Storms

#9 Dolphins and Sharks

#10 Ancient Greece and the Olympics

#11 American Revolution

#12 Sabertooths and the Ice Age

#13 Pilgrims

#14 Ancient Rome and Pompeii

#15 Tsunamis and Other Natural Disasters

#16 Polar Bears and the Arctic

#17 Sea Monsters

#18 Penguins and Antarctica

#19 Leonardo da Vinci

#20 Ghosts

#21 Leprechauns and Irish Folklore

#22 Rags and Riches: Kids in the Time of Charles Dickens

#23 Snakes and Other Reptiles

#24 Dog Heroes

#25 Abraham Lincoln

#26 Pandas and Other Endangered Species

#27 Horse Heroes

#28 Heroes for All Times

#29 Soccer

#30 Ninjas and Samurai

#31 China: Land of the Emperor’s Great Wall

#32 Sharks and Other Predators

#33 Vikings

#34 Dogsledding and Extreme Sports

#35 Dragons and Mythical Creatures

#36 World War II

#37 Baseball

#38 Wild West