Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark

Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark

Written by: Mary Pope Osborne

Illustrated by: Sal Murdocca

Age Group: 2^nd Grade

Published: 1992

This book is the fist in a large series of Magic Tree House books. The main characters Jack and Annie find a mysterious tree house filled with lot of books. Jack really wants to see a Pteranodon in real life after looking at all the pictures, so him and Annie travel through time to the land of dinosaurs. They see so many dinosaurs like a T-Rex and Triceratops. They travel through and learn all about dinosaurs.

This book has lessons for students. Especially since this book about Dinosaurs, it has great vocabulary that the students in the class can learn about and memorize. Information about dinosaurs are so interesting to children, because no one has actually seen dinosaurs before or have footage of them, it is such a slightly unknown thing. The ways we discover dinosaurs are so cool for students to learn about. They have great websites and museums where students can really get into the

The pictures in this book are very realistic. They are beautifully drawn with pencil and have excellent detail; it makes you feel like you are actually in the book itself. The pictures in the book aren’t just on one page, they continue on some pages back to back The font and writing on the pages fit around the pictures so make the book more fun for students to read.

I would love to have a bunch of the Magic Tree House book series in my classroom. The Magic Tree House website has so many options for students to work on with each chapter and vocabulary that they learn for each. The vocabulary in each is so great and relates to what the students enjoy. At the end I would love to have the students in my classroom create their own dinosaurs either making them all up on their own, or taking many different parts of dinosaurs and creating a whole new one with an original name.