Storms Always End: Hurricane Heroes in Texas (Magic Tree House) by Mary Pope Osborne

Jack and were waiting for Mom to take them the baseball practice. A few raindrops spattered on the porch. "Sorry, kids! called Mom. Coach Don just emailed. No practice today. Annie smiled at Jack. "We can go to the woods... "Really? Do you think...?" he asked. "I woke up with a feeling.... Something really important is going to happen today," said Annie.

The date is September 8, the same date as the Great Galveston Hurricane, as the kids learn when they reach the magic tree house and find a book about the most deadly storm of the century which occurred on that date in 1900. The magical librarian Morgan le Fay has left a message for them on their destination: To help the people in Galveston they must learn important truths from a hero. And there is another message:

"DO NOT DELAY! SEEK HIGH GROUND NOW!"

The magic tree house rises and spins, taking them through time to come to rest in a large oak tree in the yard of a large blue house. It's breezy and rainy, but the street is bustling with people with umbrellas going about their business. Jack and Annie discover themselves dressed in old-fashioned clothes and high lace-up shoes and walk away, trying to blend in with the crowd in what seems to be a large, prosperous city. Turning a corner they spot the Lone Star Cafe and hurry inside, taking a small table beside a well-dressed elderly couple who give them friendly smiles.

Annie turned the gray-haired woman. "Excuse me. We're tourists from Pennsylvania. Where is the high ground in Galveston?" The old man pointed to the right. "We call it 'uptown.' The lowest ground is the Strand, the street beside the Gulf," he said, pointing left.

Then Jack has a frightening thought. He looks at Annie. She looks back, her eyes wide.

"Excuse me again, but do you know what is today's date?" she asked the couple. "You don't know that?" said the man. "It's September 8, 1900."

Jack and Annie thank the couple and hurry outside into the rain.

"We got here just in time... said Annie. ....for the worse disaster in U.S. history," said Jack.

Jack and Annie know what they must do. Rushing down the street toward the Strand to warn the kids gawking at the big waves, they shout to them to run for high ground, when a huge wave and ocean surge begins to flood the beach. The waters rise swiftly and Jack and Annie find themselves splashing and swimming down the main street, borne on the flood. They spot their tree house ahead in the backyard tree of the big blue house. A woman holding a baby is on the porch looking fearfully down the street. She beckons Jack and Annie inside and tells them that she's watching for her husband to come home from downtown. Jack and Annie try to warn her that she must get to higher ground, but the flood waters are already rising around them. and they flee first to the second floor, then to the attic, and finally to the roof, which breaks away and carries them, clinging to it. Jack spots a tall building in the distance--the Ursuline Academy, a school run by nuns.

"That's the safe place in our Texas book!" cried Annie. "People survived the hurricane there!"

Paddling with a broom and fence picket, Jack and Annie manage to get the woman and her baby and themselves to a window and inside, where they are welcomed by the Mother Superior, Sister Mary Joseph, helped along to a large room near the top of the building, and given blankets and dry clothes. Jack and Annie watch in awe as Sister Mary Joseph hurries about, making sure that the frightened and injured people are cared for and everyone has a place to warm up and sleep, calming them with her wise words:

"Deadly storms are terrible, but they always end. Then we start over and look at the world a little differently."

Sister Mary Joseph is indeed known as the hero of the Great Galveston Hurricane, and with her wise words, Jack and Annie know this mission is complete, in Mary Pope Osborne's Hurricane Heroes in Texas (Magic Tree House (R)) (Random House, 2018). In what is surely one of the most genuinely exciting stories in Pope's many Magic Tree House books, this one is solidly based on the history of what is still the most deadly hurricane in American history, taking 8,000 to 12,000 lives, and obliterating the then most populous and prosperous port on the Gulf of Mexico. For young readers just moving into chapter books, this one has it all--historical facts and fantasy adventures with likable main characters who definitely have the coolest tree house ever.

On, You Huskies! Balto of the Blue Dawn (Magic Tree House #54 by Mary Pope Osborne

"It's going to be all right, Oki," Nurse Morgan said.

"Don't worry," said a man in a white coat. "I promise you, everyone is working night and day to fight this epidemic."

"Dr. Welch, my sister and mother need the medicine now, or they will die!" said Oki. "Even in a blizzard, I know Gunnar Kaasen can keep running."

"That's it!" Annie whispered to Jack.

"What?" Jack said.

"Our mission! Help save the lives of these sick people!" Annie said. "That's why Merlin sent us here!"

It's warm summertime back in Frog Creek, but when Annie and Jack spot the Magic Tree House in the woods, their magical friend Teddy tells them they must hurry back to snowy Alaska in 1925 and, remaining incognito, make sure that serum arrives from Anchorage to Nome to stop the epidemic of diphtheria there. Teddy gives Jack a box with magical gold dust that will give them great skill with dog teams, but then he does something new:

"One more thing," said Teddy. "Merlin wants those you help to be the heroes. He does not wish his magic to be part of their story."

Teddy handed Annie a shimmering blue box. "It holds a bit of stardust. If you toss the stardust into the air, any memory of your visit will instantly be erased."

Jack and Annie climb down from the tree house just outside the Alaskan village of Nome in the midst of an oncoming blizzard. Oki offers them his uncle's sled and dogs to try to find the Klaasen's dog team and help them make it to Nome, and using the gold dust from the box to grant them expert powers, Jack and Annie take turns mushing along the trail. The storm closes in, and when Jack's boots break through the ice, they have to make a stop at a way station for dry socks and a warm up. With less than eight hours of their magic left to find Klaasen's team and return to Nome, they push on desperately down the trail. At last they find his sled overturned and his dogs' tug lines tangled. But there is another, even worse, problem.

"The package is missing!" Gunnar yelled. "It was tied to the sled. This is a catastrophe!"

Annie released Balto. "Find the medicine! Find it now," Annie yelled to the big lead dog.

In her latest, Magic Tree House #54: Balto of the Blue Dawn (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) (Random House, 2016), Mary Pope Osborne takes her time-traveling young adventurers back to the heroic mushers and dogs who brought the diphtheria antitoxin over 1000 miles from Anchorage to Nome in 1925.  In her Author's Note, Osborne scrupulously gives another lead dog, Togo, and his driver Leonhard Seppala their due credit for making the hardest lap in the great sled race against death along the Arctic Ocean, with Balto and Klaasen taking the victory lap into Nome. Osborne's historical fiction makes one of the great stories of heroism from the twentieth century, the genesis of the annual Iditarod sled race, accessible to young readers.

For more information about this real-life adventure story, see Mary Pope Osborne's and Natalie Pope Boyce's companion book, Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #34: Dogsledding and Extreme Sports: A nonfiction companion to Magic Tree House #54: Balto of the Blue Dawn (A Stepping Stone Book(TM)) (Random House, 2016).

For more stories of heroic animals, including Togo and Balto, pair this one with Jeff Campbell's Daisy to the Rescue: True Stories of Daring Dogs, Paramedic Parrots, and Other Animal Heroes. Read (review here).