Buffalo Before Breakfast

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Dear Readers,
    For several years I’ve wanted Jack and Annie to visit Native American people in the 1800s. I wasn’t sure which tribe they should visit, for there are many different Native American tribes, and each is unique with its own customs, language, and way of life.
    Finally, I settled on the Lakota, a tribe of the Great Plains. My research was a bit difficult, though, because I discovered that there are several groups of Lakota Indians, each different from the other. Also, many Lakota customs and beliefs have never been written down, so no one can say for sure what their way of life was actually like over a century ago.
    But in Buffalo Before Breakfast , I have tried to share with you the most basic information I’ve learned about the traditional ways of the Lakota people. Jack, Annie, and I feel privileged to have spent a short “visit” with these interesting people. And we hope that you will, too.
    All my best,
    Â 

Text copyright © 1999 by Mary Pope Osborne.
Illustrations copyright © 1999 by Sal Murdocca.
    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultane- ously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
    www.randomhouse.com/kids
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Osborne, Mary Pope.
Buffalo before breakfast / by Mary Pope Osborne ; illustrated by Sal Murdocca.
p. cm. — (Magic tree house ; #18) “A stepping stone book.”
SUMMARY: The magic tree house takes Jack and his sister Annie into the Great Plains, where they learn about the life of the Lakota Indians.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89475-6
[1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Tree houses—Fiction. 4. Dakota Indians—Fiction. 5. Indians of North America—Great Plains—Fiction.]
I. Murdocca, Sal, ill. II. Title. III. Series: Osborne, Mary Pope. Magic tree house series ; 18. PZ7.O81167Bu 1999 [Fic] 21 98-37089
    Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland
    A STEPPING STONE BOOK and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
    v3.0

For Natalie,
kind and funny grandmother
of Andrew and Peter



One summer day in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, a mysterious tree house appeared in the woods.
    Eight-year-old Jack and his seven-year-old sister, Annie, climbed into the tree house. They found it was filled with books.
    Jack