The Knight at Dawn (Magic Tree House Series #2) by Mary Pope Osborne, Salvatore Murdocca

Synopsis

Illus. in black-and-white. Jack and Annie travel back in time to medieval England for an adventure inside a storybook castle, from feasting hall to dreadful dungeon.  

Annotation

Eight-year-old Jack and his younger sister Annie use the magic treehouse to travel back to the Middle Ages, where they explore a castle and are helped by a mysterious knight.

Children's Literature

This is a book for beginning readers who want to escape into the world of fantasy and science fiction. The Knight at Dawn is the second in Mary Pope Osborne's "Magic Tree House" series about fact-seeking Jack and his impetuous sister Annie who travel to the time of knights and castles. History and customs of the era come alive against a foreground of adventure, mystery and suspense.

Biography

Mary Pope Osborne grew up in the military, and by the time she was fifteen had lived in Oklahoma, Austria, Florida and four different army posts in Virginia and North Carolina.  After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1970's, Mary traveled all over Europe, and spent the first six weeks of her trip living in a cave on the island of Crete.  She then joined up with a group of European young people and traveled in rickety vans through sixteen Asian countries, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal.  She was a bartender, an acting teacher, a waitress, a travel agent, a window dresser, and a medical assistant -- all before becoming an author!  Now she is the author of many highly acclaimed picture books, early chapter books, middle-grade biographies, and young adult novels.  In February 1993, Mary was elected the 27th president of the Author's Guild, the oldest, most established organization for writers in the United States.

Mary her husband Will spilt their time between an apartment in Greenwich Village, New York and a cabin in Pennsylvania.  They own a terrier named Bailey, who sleeps on the top of Mary's desk every day while she writes!