Brief Factual Information:
Title: Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark
Author and Illustrator: Mary Pope Osborne
Publication Year: 1992
Title: Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark
Author and Illustrator: Mary Pope Osborne
Publication Year: 1992
Prompts: Series: Magic Tree House:
Plot Summary: Jack and Annie are brother and sister playing in the forest area by their house one day. While playing, Annie finds an abandoned tree house. She decides to go up in it and explore. Jack, the older of the two, doesn't think it is a good idea but after Annie says it is full of books he reluctantly goes up. The tree house is full of books, even a book about their hometown in Pennsylvania. Jack loves dinosaurs so he opens up a book about dinosaurs. While looking through the book he wishes he could see a real dinosaur. All of a sudden Plot Structure: This book has a climatic plot structure. That means each chapter has information pertaining to the next chapter(s). For example if the reader skipped the first chapter they would not know who Jack and Annie are. Or if the reader skipped the second or third chapters they would not understand how they got to this new place. Also the book ends with Jack and Annie wishing on a book about their hometown to get home, the reader gets that information from the second chapter when the Jack wishes he could see a real dinosaur. All of a sudden the tree house starts spinning and before the kids know it they are back in the time of the dinosaurs. They see Pteranodons, Triceratops, and Anatosauruses. Annie is loving all the exploring and even though Jack is a little less excited he is enjoying taking down some scientific notes. The kids are enjoying themselves until they meet an angry T-Rex. Now they must escape back to the treehouse to try to get home before they get eaten. With a little help from their new Pteranodon friend Henry they make it safely to the treehouse and wish on the Pennsylvania book to go home. When they get home no time has passed. The kids decide to keep this a secret and come back tomorrow for another adventure. Strong vocabulary: Some words in this text readers will have a hard time sounding out or knowing their definition (without the help of context clues) are disappeared, pteranodon, whistling, coasted, cretaceous, vanished, ancient, cautiously, mutant, triceratops, magnolia tree, medallion, engraved, bellowing, anatosauruses, enormous, tyrannosaurus rex, stampede, and teetered. | Character list and descriptions:
Conflicts:
In this book there is one picture for every chapter and each chapter is only about five pages long. The words in this book tell most of the story but the pictures work complementarily with the words to help readers visualize the story better. Themes/Central concepts:
Uses for this book:
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Pages from the text:
(originally not printed in color)
(originally not printed in color)