Climb the ladder to the Magic Tree House. There’s a world of adventure inside!
The tree house comes to land in lots of snow and ice – and it’s freezing! Will anybody help?
Jack and Annie manage to get warm with the help of a friendly seal hunter and his huskies, and some playful polar-bear cubs. But their arctic adventure turns dangerous when they find themselves stuck on very thin ice. Can they get back to the tree house without being caught in a snowstorm? And can they solve the final riddle that will send them home?
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First published Red Fox, 2009
Published in the US as Polar Bears Past Bedtime by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House Inc, 1998
This ebook edition published 2011
Text copyright © Mary Pope Osborne, 1998
Magic Tree House™ is a trademark of Mary Pope Osborne, used under licence
The moral right of the author has been asserted
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978–1–446–49519–3
All correspondence to:
RHCP Digital
Penguin Random House Children’s
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
Also by Mary Pope Osborne
1. Valley of the Dinosaurs
2. Castle of Mystery
3. Secret of the Pyramid
4. Pirates’ Treasure!
5. Night of the Ninjas
Mary Pope Osborne is the author of over forty books for young people, including novels, picture books, biographies, mysteries, and retellings of fairy tales and myths. Mary was the president of the Author's Guild, the leading organization for professional writers in the United States for two years, and has won many different awards for her books.
She lives in New York City with her husband, Will, and their Norfolk terrier, Bailey – who sleeps on the top of Mary's desk every day while she writes.
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Author’s Note
1. Are You Serious?
2. The Howling
3. Mush!
4. Snow House
5. You’re It!
6. Flying Bears
7. Spirit Lights
8. Riddle Solved
9. Oh, No, One More!
10. Master Librarians
About the Author
Also by Mary Pope Osborne
Copyright
For Mallory Loehr
with gratitude for taking the journey
twelve times
Dear Readers,
A while ago, I began researching the Arctic because so many of you wanted Jack and Annie to go there. When I came across a certain astonishing fact, I got very excited about writing the story. The fact was this: Even though polar bears can weigh as much as 450 kilograms, they can walk on ice that is too thin to hold a person! How do they do this? They lie flat on the ice and perfectly balance their weight so that the ice won’t crack. Then they move forward by pulling with their claws, all the while maintaining their perfect balance.
As you’ll see, this particular fact, combined with my imagination, helped me plot the story.
So if you were to ask me where I get the inspiration for my Magic Tree House books, I’d have to say: readers, research and my imagination. And I get further inspiration from my editor, Mallory Loehr, who has worked on all the books with me. She and I have fun meetings in which we go over and over the ideas for each book.
I hope you enjoy reading Icy Escape! as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it. And I hope it will inspire you to try researching and writing your own book.
All best,
Mary Pope Osborne