Dragon of the Red Dawn (Magic Tree House (R) Merlin Mission) (U)

Merlin the Magician will not eat or sleep or speak to anyone in Camelot. What can be done? The enchantress Morgan knows who to ask for help young Jack and Annie of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania! The brother-and-sister team quickly head off in the magic tree house on another magical and historical adventure.Their mission discover one of the four secrets of happiness.Their journey to a land of fierce samurai and great beauty, the capital city of Edo (now the city of Tokyo), in ancient Japan in the 1600s.Their tools a research book to guide them and a magic wand with three special rules.In Dragon of the Red Dawn, Mary Pope Osborne transports readers back to the splendor, rich culture, and magic of traditional Japan.Children's LiteratureJack and Annie are back, and this time Merlin is in trouble. He is not eating or drinking. He is not speaking to anyone in Camelot. Morgan turns to the siblings for help. Their quest is to find the four secrets of happiness. Using the magic tree house the children are off to 1600s Japan. There in the city of Edo (modern-day Tokyo) the children must use their research book and a magic wand to find the secrets of happiness. I have never had the opportunity to read any of the other books in the series, but I did not feel a need to read any of them in order to understand the characters or follow the story. The story is sweet and the children are likable, if not bland, but if you are looking for a deeply engrossing story, you are not going to find it here. This book, however, serves as a good reading exercise for beginning to intermediate readers, and is number thirty-seven in the "Magic Treehouse Series."