Save the Tiger! Tigers at Twilight (Magic Tree House) by Mary Pope Osborne

Jack and Annie walked past the Frog Creek Woods on the way back from the library.

"I miss Teddy!" said Annie."He is a really smart dog."

Jack agreed.

"And here!" said Annie.

"ARF! ARF!" The small dog barked from behind a bush. "Is it time to get our third gift?" asked Jack.

Teddy sneezed, as if to say "YES!"

Teddy leads them into the woods where inside their tree house they find a note from Morgan Le Fay.

"Now we have to get a gift from a faraway forest," Annie reads.

And with a tap of Morgan's magic book, the tree house rises above the trees and spins away, finally coming down to rest in what is indeed a forest, with two langur monkeys, Kah and Ko, waiting in the tree to guide them. Kah places his little paw in Jack's hand and leads him into the beautiful forest. Jack and Annie are amazed at the bright birds and flowers, but frightened by a giant python and a tree marked by the deep scratches left by a huge tiger. And then they spot a real tiger, unconscious with his foot caught in a steel trap. Jack and Annie spring the trap, and dash up a tree, afraid of the tiger.

Kah and Ko show them how to swing from the vines in the tree to the back of a patient elephant. Safe for the moment, they meet a hermit seated by a blue pool who asks Annie to pick him a lily from the pond. It's a beautiful bloom, but its stem ends in a muddy smelly root. Annie wonders how can anything as beautiful as the lily and the tiger can be so ugly at the same time?

"When you saved the tiger, you saved all of him, his graceful beauty and his fierce nature. This perfect lotus blossom grows from dark, thick mud," said the wise man. "It's beauty cannot live without its ugliness. Do you understand?

Take this lotus." he said.

"A gift from a faraway forest.... Our third gift," said Annie, thoughtfully.

Their task is complete and with a tap of the magic book the Magic Tree House returns them to its place in Frog Creek Woods, with only more task and gift left to free Teddy from his spell, in Mary Pope Osborne's book from her best-selling series, Tigers at Twilight (Magic Tree House, No. 19) (Random House). As she always does, Osborne also includes an appendix which explains much about the folklore and animals of India's tropical forest

Jack and Annie have only one last task to perform to free Teddy from his spell. For that transformation, see Osborne's Magic Tree House #20, Dingoes at Dinnertime (Magic Tree House, No. 20)