Book Review: Tonight on the Titanic

A Fair Trade Book

Title: Tonight on the Titanic

Author: Mary Pope Osborne

Author's web site for this series: https://www.mthclassroomadventures.org/gift-time/marys-story

Date: 1999

Publisher: Scholastic

ISBN: 0-439-08672-8

Length: 71 pages of text plus forewords and afterwords

Illustrations: drawings by Sal Murdocca

Quote: "Carrying 2,200 passengers, the ship was four city blocks long. Most people believed the ship was unsinkable."

But it sank. In this book for primary school readers, Annie and Jack get to watch people filling up the insufficient number of lifeboats before the Magic Tree House whisks them back to their own time.

Mary Pope Osborne says in the foreword, "At first I thought the story was too sad," but "more and more requests came in...I tried to think of a way that Jack and Annie might actually be helpful."

After reading it, I'm still bewildered. Who requested a time travel story about the wreck of the Titanic, and why? Of all the time travel fantasies I've read I think this one is the strangest. Going back to the Titanic in order to get into an "alternative history," maybe...but just to watch the ship sink? ??? That's the kind of situation that makes me think "If we can't do anything for those people, at least we don't have to look!" I don't imagine that's a problem for primary school readers, who have seldom developed much sense of empathy, but it may be a problem for parents and teachers.

Anyway, it's history, presented in a picture-book-story format that appeals to primary school readers, and adults who want to teach children about the early twentieth century may appreciate this way of presenting the Titanic story. It's part of a series that's become quite long by now, and since Mary Pope Osborne is still alive (and active on Twitter) the older books in the series are available as Fair Trade Books. Regular readers know what that means: send $5 per book, plus $5 per package (you could get eight or ten Magic Tree House books in one package) and $1 per online payment, to the appropriate address at the very bottom of the screen, and Osborne or a charity of her choice gets $1 per book. For this book alone, you'd send $10 to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, or $11 to the correct e-mail address you'd get by e-mailing salolianigodagewi. For ten early Magic Tree House book, you'd send $55 or $56, and we'd send $10 to Osborne or her charity.