Thalia Kids' Book Club: Mary Pope Osborne's Magic Tree House

The bestselling creator of the wildly popular award-winning series that travels back in time and to distant lands talks about her books with kids ages 6 and up. The event includes a discussion with the audience. Special guest Natalie Pope Boyce author of the Magic Tree House Research Guides. Khris Lewin performs an excerpt.

Performance playlist:

Reading
Khris Lewin

Conversation
Mary Pope Osborne, Natalie Pope Boyce, and Madeline Cohen

A Conversation with the Audience

Natalie Pope Boyce is the author of the highly regarded nonfiction companion research guides to The Magic Tree House series, which she has been writing for seven years. Growing up in a military family, Ms. Boyce went to elementary school in Salzburg, Austria and Virginia. Ms. Boyce is a seasoned traveler, as she lived in Ireland and Germany for several years before moving to Mexico, where she lived for ten years. She now lives in Stockbridge, MA in a 175 year-old house where she spends her time reading, writing, gardening, listening to music, and visiting with her sister Mary who lives nearby.

Madeline Cohen has been Symphony Space's Education Director since 1989. She directs the Curriculum Arts Project (CAP) Program, which gives thousands of students insight into the social studies curriculum through interaction with the arts and artists in the classroom, at museums, and at Peter Norton Symphony Space. She co-organizes Symphony Space's All Write! program for adult literacy students modeled after Symphony Space's series, Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story, and is the co-director of the Thalia Kids Book Club Camp and director of the Global Arts Camp.

Khris Lewin is very pleased to be working again with Symphony Space, where he has appeared on Selected Shorts, the Thalia Kids Book Club, and Bloomsday on Broadway. He just closed Charles Mee's Fêtes de la Nuit at the Ohio Theatre in SoHo. His work in New York includes world premieres such as Deb Margolin's Time Is the Mercy of Eternity, with Lisa Kron, at the West End Theatre; the critically acclaimed Stomp and Shout! at the 45th Street Theatre; the American premiere of Robin Soan's Talking to Terrorists for the Culture Project; Richard Caliban's Teatro Slovak at HERE and Galapagos; a new translation of Brecht's Private Life of the Master Race with Roust Theatre Company; and Happy Endings with Blue Coyote Theater Group. His television work includes the recurring character Jim Cramer on CBS' wallstrip.com. His website is khrislewin.com

Mary Pope Osborne is the author of many novels, picture books, story collections, and nonfiction books. Her bestselling Magic Tree House series has been translated into numerous languages around the world. Highly recommended by parents and educators everywhere (and kid-approved!), the series introduces young readers to different cultures and times in history, as well as to the world's legacy of ancient myth and storytelling. She and her husband, writer Will Osborne, live in northwestern Connecticut with their dogs. The Osbornes are excited about their latest project, Magic Tree House: The Musical, a full-scale theatrical adaptation of Jack and Annie's adventures, which is touring throughout the United States. She has served two terms as president of the Author's Guild, the leading organization for professional writers in the United States.