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rainbow_reader's review against another edition
4.0
still holds up even though I'm not reading this as a kid anymore
laura_mcloughlin's review against another edition
3.0
As an adult it is fairly confusing reading these out of order. But I'm a firm believer in letting the 6 year old pick out her own books at the library. (Plus she has read some at school so she is more familiar with the characters/situations)
ricksilva's review against another edition
4.0
This story from Jack and Annie's "Merlin Missions" sends them to modern China, right into the midst of the Sichuan Earthquake of 2008. This is book concludes a four-book story arc involving a quest to retrieve four components needed to undo a spell placed on Merlin's pet penguin.
But the real stars here are pandas, not penguins. Annie insists on visiting the panda research center in Wolong and when the earthquake strikes, the center needs all the help it can get to get the pandas to safety.
This is one of the longer books in the Magic Treehouse series, and it started off a bit slow with an awkward scene of the kids being grossed out by the unfamiliar food in a Wolong street café. They also had to do a bit o finagling to get into the Panda Center, which felt like a drag on the plot.
Once the pandas were introduced, the pace picked up nicely, and the earthquake provided a real sense of danger, plus a chance to use a bit of magic they'd been gifted with.
The extended epilogue, bringing Jack and Annie back to Camelot to try to undo the curse on Penny the Penguin, was very good.
I read this with my son (age 7), and he loved the pandas (and greatly enjoyed Sal Murdocca's illustrations). He was in rapt attention for the drama of the climactic scene back in Camelot.
I was left wondering how the kids can speak the languages of everyone they run into. They didn't seem to have this ability early in the series. I am assuming they picked this up somewhere in their apprentice wizard/librarian training, but Osborne is usually good about recapping these kinds of details (like the fact that no time passes back home when they travel via the treehouse) in every book.
Still a very good entry in this series in spite of the slow start.
But the real stars here are pandas, not penguins. Annie insists on visiting the panda research center in Wolong and when the earthquake strikes, the center needs all the help it can get to get the pandas to safety.
This is one of the longer books in the Magic Treehouse series, and it started off a bit slow with an awkward scene of the kids being grossed out by the unfamiliar food in a Wolong street café. They also had to do a bit o finagling to get into the Panda Center, which felt like a drag on the plot.
Once the pandas were introduced, the pace picked up nicely, and the earthquake provided a real sense of danger, plus a chance to use a bit of magic they'd been gifted with.
The extended epilogue, bringing Jack and Annie back to Camelot to try to undo the curse on Penny the Penguin, was very good.
I read this with my son (age 7), and he loved the pandas (and greatly enjoyed Sal Murdocca's illustrations). He was in rapt attention for the drama of the climactic scene back in Camelot.
I was left wondering how the kids can speak the languages of everyone they run into. They didn't seem to have this ability early in the series. I am assuming they picked this up somewhere in their apprentice wizard/librarian training, but Osborne is usually good about recapping these kinds of details (like the fact that no time passes back home when they travel via the treehouse) in every book.
Still a very good entry in this series in spite of the slow start.
rynfrances's review against another edition
4.0
A great educational series for elementary schoolers. This is wonderful for teaching culture history, and vocabulary.
meredith_gayle's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more in the series.