Mary Pope Osborne
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Mary Pope Osborne (born 20 May 1949) is a children's author who wrote the Magic Tree House book series for children. She has written more than fifty books for children and teenagers.
Mary Pope Osborne grew up in a military family. Her father, William Pope, was a Colonel in the United States Army, and as such his family frequently moved from one military base to another. By the time she was fifteen, Mary had lived in Oklahoma, Austria, Florida and four different army posts in Virginia and North Carolina. After retiring from the military, Mary's father served as the President of Oak Ridge Military Academy in North Carolina. Mary attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1970's and earned a bachelor's degree. She then traveled all over Europe, and spent the first six weeks of her trip living in a cave on the island of Crete. She then joined up with a group of European young people and traveled in rickety vans through sixteen Asian countries, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal.
She was an acting teacher, a waitress, a travel agent, a window dresser, and a medical assistant before deciding to become an author. She is now the author of many highly acclaimed picture books, early chapter books, middle-grade biographies, and young adult novels.
In February 1993, Mary was elected the 27th president of the Author's Guild, the oldest, most established organization for writers in the United States.
Mary and her husband Will split their time between an apartment in Greenwich Village, New York and a cabin in Pennsylvania. They own a terrier named Bailey.
