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When Mary Pope Osborne wrote the first set of stories in the Magic Tree House series in 1992, she had a contract for four books and she figured that would be it. But then she began getting letters from teachers, parents and kids:

"Those letters are priceless," she says. "I've memorized so many of them like: 'Dear Mrs. Osborne, Your books almost made me smart!' or: 'Dear Mrs. Osborne I'm working on my own novel ... it's not finished yet, it's scary, it's called The Septic System.'"

None of the 20 books Osborne had written before had gotten that kind of reaction.

"I was stunned and I realized I was reaching an audience I'd never reached before," she says. "There was something about these rather simple, books that was catching fire with young readers."

Now millions of copies of the books have been sold all over the world. The stories — there are more than 50 of them — follow the adventures of Jack and Annie, a brother and sister whose tree house is a jumping off point for magical missions that take them around the world and traveling through time and space.

For many young readers, The Magic Tree House books are their first exposure to "chapter books." They use simple language to introduce kids to literature, history and science with fanciful stories like Dinosaurs Before Dark or Abe Lincoln at Last. A companion series, the Magic Tree House Fact Trackers, provides a nonfiction version of these stories.