Magic Tree House #20: Dingoes at Dinnertime

Jack and Annie get the final thing to turn "teddy" the dog back into what he really is (which we find out is a small boy helping Morgan Le Fay). Naturally they almost die in a fire, which is stopped by the Australian aboriginal legend of the rainbow serpent. Thus ends this little mini-story, but

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I'm sure there will be a new one going with the next four books.

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Jack and Annie, of the Magic Tree House books, are off on another adventure, part four in gathering items to lift a curse off dog Teddy. This time they are Australia bound where they meet lots of animals, get a gift from a kangaroo and learn about the Rainbow Serpent. I see the kid appeal and the

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"mom" appeal. This book is secretly full of facts and learning. Plus it's an adventure where the kids can be unsupervised. As an adult reader, this story is rather flat, and as a reader in general I was disbelieving that the kids would be able to walk up to and interact with wild animals. I'm not ruling it out, I'd definitely keep this series on hand for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders, but I'm not going to nominate the series for awards either. Unless there is an award for series that get kids read lots of books or something.

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This was our first Magic Tree House book. I chose it because many of my six year old's friends love the Magic Tree House series. Even though we started with a book from the middle of the series, we didn’t have any trouble following the story. There is a short recap of the previous books in the

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prologue of this book.

In Dingoes at Dinnertime, Annie and Jack head to Australia in search of a gift from a kangaroo. This book is packed with educational information about Australia and Australian animals. Whenever Jack and Annie encounter something new, Jack looks it up in a book and reads information about whatever it is out loud to Annie. I found this method of incorporating educational facts into the story really dry and boring but my sons (six and four years old) didn’t seem to mind. Because of that, I’ll try and let my son read the rest of the Magic Tree House books when he can read independently and try to find books for us to read together that we can both enjoy.

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I had good feelings about this book after reading it. I liked this book because of the illustrations. Sometimes chapter books can be a bit boring to read but with these illustrations they definitely enhance the story a bit. The author doesn't include many illustrations but does include a few in

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between chapters. The illustrations highlight different aspects of the chapter. For example, in chapter 4 , Jack and Annie found a baby Kangaroo. The illustration shows Annie petting the Kangaroo while Jack looked up the baby Kangaroo in the Australia book that he had. The second thing that I liked about the book was the language and writing. The author uses many high level vocabulary words that lower grade level students wouldn't know but explains them through Jacks character. For example, Jack read about what "aborigines" were in his Australian book. The author includes a snippet of what the definition is and what how the Australian book defines it. Having a different font was also a great way for the author to distinguish that the information was coming from Jack's book.
Overall, this book is full of the adventure that Jack and Annie had when they end up in Australia. They learn a lot about the different Kangaroos and the environment of Australia.

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The magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie away to Australia, where they must save some animals from a wildfire. Book #20