Mary Pope Osborne
| Mary Pope Osborne | |
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The Osbornes read from American Tall Tales at the White House Easter Egg Roll, April 2007
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| Born | Mary Pope May 20, 1949 Fort Sill, Oklahoma, USA |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1982–present |
| Genre | Children's picture books, fantasy, myths and fairy tales retold, American biography and fictional diary |
| Notable works | Magic Tree House series |
| Spouse | Will Osborne |
| Website | |
| mthclassroomadventures |
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Mary Pope Osborne (born May 20, 1949) is an American author of children's books. She is best known for the award-winning and bestselling Magic Tree House series, which has been translated into more than 30 languages and has sold more than 130 million copies worldwide.
Mary Pope Osborne has written over a hundred books for children. Her books have been named to a number of the Best Books of the Year Lists, including, School Library Journal, Parents’ Magazine, Publishers Weekly, the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Book and Bank Street College. She has received honors from such organizations as the National Council of Teachers of English, the Parents Choice Foundation, The American Bookseller Association, The Children’s Book Council, and the International Reading Association. She received the Ludington Memorial Award from the Educational Paperback Association, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Random House Sales Force, and the Heidelberger Leander Award, Germany, 2010, and the Minion Academy Global Literature Award, Japan, 2011, the 2015 Books-Ago-Go Literacy Award, and the 2015 Jupiter Award for Science Education. She has also received awards from the Boston Public Library, the Atlanta Public Library, The Carolina Alumni Association, the Virginia Library Association, and the Delaware Library Association; and in spring 2013 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ms. Osborne is a former twice-elected president of the Authors Guild, the country’s oldest and most established organization for published authors. She has since traveled extensively in the states and throughout the world, visiting schools and speaking on issues related to reading and books. She has spoken at a UN event regarding worldwide literacy; and she has visited schools in the tsunami-hit area of Japan. In 2011, she attended the International Tokyo Film Festival for the premier of a Japanese anime based on the Magic Tree House series, which was the #1 children’s book series in Japan.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Magic Tree House series, Ms. Osborne created a Magic Tree House Classroom Adventures Program, as a gift to all the teachers who have inspired her for the last 20 years. Free of charge, the program is designed to energize a teacher’s entire curriculum and help raise reading scores. As part of the program, Ms. Osborne, in partnership with the First Book organization in Washington, DC, has donated hundreds of thousands of Magic Tree House books to underserved schools.
Ms. Osborne is also a strong supporter of children having access to theater arts. She herself benefited greatly performing onstage as a child and a young adult. “My imagination was set on fire by becoming involved with theater at a young age. The joy of “putting on a show” later extended itself into writing my own stories. To bring these two passions together has been a life-long dream.”
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