Morgan Le Fay – Page 2

Caramel reviews Afternoon on the Amazon (Magic Tree House #6) by Mary Pope Osborne

Caramel has already reviewed two Magic Tree House books for the book bunnies blog: Night of the Ninjas (Magic Tree House #5) and Knights and Castles (Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #2). Today he shares with us his thoughts on Book #6: Afternoon on the Amazon. As usual Sprinkles is taking notes and asking questions.

Sprinkles: So what do you want to tell us about this book Caramel?

Caramel: In all the books in this series, Jack and Annie travel around the world with a magical tree house. This time we go to the Amazon with them. The Amazon is a big river in South America. It is longer than 100 miles!

S: Wikipedia says it is over 4000 miles! And it is the second longest river in the world (after the Nile in Africa).

C: Yes, that is right. The book says so too. I forgot.

S: The Amazon river is also, according to Wikipedia., “the largest river by discharge volume of water”. So what are Jack and Annie doing near the Amazon?

C: Just like in The Night of the Ninjas, they are trying to help their friend Morgan Le Fay.

S: In many of the other books, they meet people or animals in the places they go to. What happens here?

C: They find themselves on a tree in the rain forest. There are millions of army ants, a jaguar, a monkey, some vampire bats, and all sorts of animals. They also get on a canoe and travel in the river.

S: Do they find what they are looking for?

C: Yes! It turns out it is a mango! And then they go back home.

Caramel is reading Afternoon on the Amazon (Magic Tree House #6) by Mary Pope Osborne. — Caramel is reading *Afternoon on the Amazon* (Magic Tree House #6) by Mary Pope Osborne.

S: So did you learn anything new reading this book?

C: Yes. I learned about army ants and what they sound like:

“When animals hear a crackling sound, they flee in panic. The sound means that 30 million flesh eating army ants are marching through the dead leaves.”

S: So now you know that if you hear such a sound when you are in the rain forest, you might want to watch out!

C: They’re flesh-eating! That’s scary!

S: But the rain forest sounds fascinating, right?

C: Yes, so I am going to read the fact checker book on rain forests next.

S: I know you liked the fact checker book you read before. Maybe you can review the next one here, too.

C: Yep. I most likely will.

S: And we still don’t know what is wrong with Morgan, right?

C: No we don’t. Maybe she got transformed into the mouse, Peanut.

S: That would be interesting!

C: Yes, then their friend would be with them all along. Hmm…

S: Hmm, I guess that means you will need to read the next couple books as well.

C: Yes… But for now, stay tuned for more book bunnies reviews!

Caramel has enjoyed reading Afternoon on the Amazon (Magic Tree House #6) by Mary Pope Osborne, and is looking forward to reading more of the series. — Caramel has enjoyed reading *Afternoon on the Amazon* (Magic Tree House #6) by Mary Pope Osborne, and is looking forward to reading more of the series.

Caramel reviews Night of the Ninjas (Magic Tree House #5) by Mary Pope Osborne

A while ago Caramel reviewed a fact checker book from Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House series: Knights and Castles. Today he shares his thoughts on the fifth book of the main series: Night of the Ninjas. As usual Sprinkles is taking notes and asking followup questions.

Sprinkles: So tell us a bit about this book Caramel.

Caramel: It’s a book about ninjas. You probably already know that from the title.

S: That’s true. But how do the ninjas come into the story? Why don’t you start by telling us about the main idea of the magic tree house books?

C: They are about two siblings, Jack and Annie. They find a tree house in the woods near their home. They then find out that the tree house is magical.

S: How so?

C: There are many books in the tree house and when the kids look into one and wish they were in the place the book is talking about, they go there.

S: That is a neat idea! So the magic tree house takes them anywhere.

C: And any time too! So it is like the TARDIS of Doctor Who, a time machine and space travel machine. Except I don’t know if it goes into space. Oh wait, there is the eighth book, which is Midnight on the Moon, so they do go into space too.

S: That sounds exciting. And in this fifth book you wanted to talk about, they go to …

C: The time of the ninjas. And the samurai.

S: So that is in Japan, a few centuries ago probably, right?

C: Right. In an earlier book they even went to the time of the dinosaurs.

S: That’s cool! So in the time of the ninjas and the samurai, Jack and Annie have an adventure?

C: Yep. They are trying to help their friend Morgan Le Fay.

S: And you learn something about ninjas in this book too, right?

C: Yes, I learned the three ways of the ninja: Use nature. Be nature. Follow nature.

S: Hmm, those sound kind of cryptic. But the kids make good use of these three rules in the book, right?

C: Right.

S: There are some samurai in this book, besides the ninjas, right? You have read and reviewed a book about samurai before. How do the samurai in this book differ from the ones in your earlier reading?

C: Yes, in that book I learned that samurai are honorable warriors. But in this book, the samurai are the enemies of the ninja, who are helping Jack and Annie. So here, samurai are scarier. There is even a picture of a samurai on one of the first pages and he looks scary.

Caramel is looking at the page in Mary Pope Osborne's Night of the Ninjas (Magic Tree House #5) with the scary ninja picture. — Caramel is looking at the page in Mary Pope Osborne’s *Night of the Ninjas* (Magic Tree House #5) with the scary ninja picture.

S: Yes, I guess there are different ways to think about many historical events and groups of people. So did you enjoy reading about Jack and Annie’s adventures in old Japan?

C: Yes.

S: And we should probably continue reading the next few Magic Tree House books, right? I know Marshmallow really enjoyed reading them all.

C: Yes. I am going to read book 6 next: Afternoon on the Amazon.

S: Hmm, that sounds intriguing. But for now, we can stop here. What do you want to tell our readers?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunnies adventures!

Caramel enjoyed reading Night of the Ninjas (Magic Tree House #5) by Mary Pope Osborne, and would recommend it to all other young bunnies. — Caramel enjoyed reading *Night of the Ninjas* (Magic Tree House #5) by Mary Pope Osborne, and would recommend it to all other young bunnies.

Marshmallow reviews Half Magic by Edward Eager

This week Marshmallow reviews a 1954 classic, Half Magic by Edward Eager, the first book in his Tales of Magic series.

Marshmallow’s quick take: If you like books about magical charms, and adventure stories about a handful of siblings, then this might be the book for you.

Marshmallow’s Summary (with spoilers): The four siblings Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha are expecting to have a very boring summer. That is until they find the charm. The charm that works by halves. If you made a wish while touching the charm, then half of your wish would come true. So in order to get your whole wish you would have to say it in this fashion. Let’s say you wish is to have a dog appear then you would say that you wanted two dogs to appear because if you wished that one dog would appear then one half of a dog would appear. (You probably wouldn’t want to have half of a dog.)

Wishing for two times some things is a cinch, but other doubled wishes only cause twice as much trouble. What is half of twice a talking cat? Or to be half-again twice not-here? And how do you double your most heartfelt wish, the one you care about so much that it has to be perfect?

The children decide that they will take turns to use the charm. It turns out that other people have knowledge of the charm that grants wishes and they happen to want the charm. In a desert, which they travel to on Mark’s wish — he wants a desert island but the charmed coin takes them to a desert –. a man tries to abduct Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha. When he realizes that they have the charm, he says that they stole it from his people.

On Katharine’s turn to make a wish, they travel into the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. They help stop Morgan Le Fay, an evil sorceress in this retelling of the myth, from kidnapping and killing the Knights of the Round Table.

Marshmallow is pointing toward one of her favorite parts of the book, where Jane makes a foolish decision. Here Jane is wishing that she belonged to a different family.

They have some problems though, before they figure out how to use the charm. For instance, Martha wishes that she was not at the place she was and since she didn’t say it the way you need to, she became half there and half not there. The children eventually learn how to use it, and in the end, they have a very exciting summer, not at all the one they thought lay ahead.

Marshmallow’s Review: Half Magic is a classic and I think a great read for all ages. Written in 1954, it successfully entertained children for many years and probably will do the same for many to come. I enjoyed Half Magic very much and look forward to reading more about these characters in Edward Eager’s other novels.

Marshmallow’s rating: 100%

Marshmallow rates Half Magic by Edward Eager 100%. And she adds: "May the Fourth Be With You!" — Marshmallow rates *Half Magic* by Edward Eager 100%. And she adds: “May the Fourth Be With You!”