Another Holiday Story Involving Charles Dickens
A Ghost Tale for Christmas Time is a holiday story combining history, magic, compassion, and ghostly encounters. It will delight your child this holiday season.
Jack and Annie have been doing missions for Merlin from a treehouse near their home in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. The magic tree house belongs to Morgan le Fay, the Librarian who comes from Camelot, but that’s another story. When Kathleen and Teddy, the young enchanters arrive, Jack and Annie know it’s time for another mission. They’ve already helped Mozart with a magic flute and Louis Armstrong with a magic trumpet, but they’re not quite sure who they’re being dispatched to help this time.
The kids find themselves in Victorian London armed with nothing but a few coins in their pockets, a violin, a bow, and a book on Victorian England. Their challenge is none other than Charles Dickens, and they’re anxious to find him and complete another mission. What they’re not prepared for is the crossroads Mr. Dickens has reached in his life and the danger in the foggy streets of London.
This charming prequel to A Christmas Carol is well-written and will inspire your child’s imagination. They’ll want to read Dickens’ holiday story next.
There’s a great little quiz on Goodreads for your kids after they read the book.
About the Author
Mary Pope Osborne was born on May 20th, 1949, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. She grew up in a military family. When Ms. Osborne was only five-years-old, her family moved to Virginia. By her fifteenth birthday, she had lived in Oklahoma, Austria, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina. She has a twin brother, younger brother, and older sister.
She attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied drama until she discovered her love for mythology, religion, culture, and beliefs from around the world. During the early 1970’s she camped in a cave on the island of Crete and traveled in a van through 16 Asian countries. Following her college experience, she moved to New York City, where she met and married her husband, Will Osborne.
Her change in majors is what encouraged her to write the Magic Tree House series of books, which are her most famous. Mary Pope Osborne has held numerous positions over her lifetime, including window dresser, a medical assistant in California, a Russian travel consultant in Washington D.C., a waitress in Greenwich Village, an acting coach in the Bronx, a bartender in Broadway theaters, and an assistant editor for a children’s magazine.
The Magic Tree House books are a perfect blend of her memories, research, and imagination. She has also written Young Adult literature, picture books, biographies, and bible stories. Her Magic Tree House books are easy to read and very imaginative. There are 52 Magic Tree House books within the series. She had initially planned to write four books. She has also written 30 Magic Tree House fact tracker books, which are informational and connect to one of the fictional Magic Tree House books. This idea came from teachers who wrote to her and expressed that they wanted these resources within their classrooms.
Connect with Mary Pope Osborne
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