Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Danger in the Darkest Hour (Magic Treehouse Super Edition #1) by Mary Osborne Pope –OPTIONAL

Osborne, Mary Pope  Danger in the Darkest Hour (Magic Treehouse Super Edition #1) Random House, 2015. $14.99  Content: Language: G (0 swears); Mature Content: PG Violence: PG
Jack and Annie find themselves deep in the heart of occupied France during World War II. They need to rescue a friend, but must find her first, so they must hide from Nazi’s. Luckily they find members of the Resistance to help them along. But danger only increases as the battle of D-Day looms.
Wow, I don’t even know how to rate this. Its undeniable that Magic Treehouse is wildly popular, at my school mostly with first graders and some second graders. However sometimes I question the content, such as a prisoner hanging in Knight at Dawn, and this is the case I don’t think I would want a student checking this out unless they had some sort of context to fall back on. By this I mean a parent or teacher who has provided some foundation and can keep the horror of this war from falling so heavily on the child. While the author does a decent job of keeping it more of a sneaking around type of feeling, it can’t help but being a bit confusing just because of the complexity of the war itself. I don’t imagine many second grade teachers doing a unit on World War II however, I could be wrong, so it might be a good resource.

EL (K-3)  -OPTIONAL  Reviewer: Stephanie Elementary School Librarian & Author.

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