Twister on Tuesday

Teachers and librarians love
Magic Tree House ® books, too!
    Thank you for opening faraway places and times to my class through your books. They have given me the chance to bring in additional books, materials, and videos to share with the class.
—J. Cameron
    It excites me to see how involved [my fourth-grade reading class] is in your books … I would do anything to get my students more involved, and this has done it.
—C. Rutz
    I discovered your books last year … WOW! Our students have gone crazy over them. I can’t order enough copies! … Thanks for contributing so much to children’s literature!
—C. Kendziora
    I first came across your Magic Tree House series when my son brought one home … I have since introduced this great series to my class. They have absolutely fallen in love with these books! … My students are now asking me for more independent reading time to read them. Your stories have inspired even my most struggling readers.
—M. Payne
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—R. Gale
    We have enjoyed your books all year long. We check your Web site to find new information. We pull our map down to find the areas where the adventures take place. My class always chimes in at key parts of the story. It feels good to hear my students ask for a book and cheer when a new book comes out.
—J. Korinek
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—J. Rafferty
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—S. Smith
    The children in the fourth grade even hide the [Magic Tree House] books in the library so that they will be able to find them when they are ready to check them out.
—K. Mortensen
    My Magic Tree House books are never on the bookshelf because they are always being read by my students. Thank you for creating such a wonderful series.
—K. Mahoney

Dear Readers,
    After I finished Magic Tree House ® #22, Revolutionary War on Wednesday , I decided I wanted to write about pioneer times on the prairie frontier. As I always do, I went to the library for research. I read many nonfiction books about prairie pioneers. One day, I found a collection of true stories about women who had lived on the Kansas frontier in the late 1800s. When I read a passage about a tornado roaring toward a prairie schoolhouse, I got very excited. I’d always wanted to write about a tornado—and I’d been thinking about setting my new book in a prairie schoolhouse! Now I could combine these two ideas—and be true to real life.
    I hope you’ll enjoy your journey with Jack and Annie to the Kansas frontier. But when the wind starts to blow—watch out!
    All my best,
    Â Â Â Â Â 



Text copyright © 2001 by Mary Pope Osborne
Illustrations copyright © 2001 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 simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
    www.randomhouse.com/magictreehouse
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Osborne, Mary Pope.
Twister on Tuesday / by Mary Pope Osborne ;
illustrated by Sal Murdocca.
p. cm. — (Magic tree house ; #23) “A Stepping stone book.”
SUMMARY: When Jack and Annie travel back to the Kansas prairie in search of “something to learn,” they gain an understanding of how hard life was for pioneers and they experience the terror of a tornado.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89480-0
[1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Frontier and pioneer life—Kansas—Fiction. 3. Tornadoes—Fiction. 4. Kansas—Fiction. 5. Magic—Fiction. 6. Tree houses—Fiction.] I. Murdocca, Sal, ill. II. Title. PZ7.O81167 Tw 2001 [Fic]—dc21 00-044535
    Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland
    RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks and A STEPPING STONE BOOK and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc. MAGIC TREE HOUSE is a registered trademark of Mary Pope Osborne; used under license.
    v3.0

For Peter Boyce,
who likes to read about twisters



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