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A Quaker girl's diary reflects her experiences growing up in the Delaware River Valley of Pennsylvania and her capture by Lenape Indians in 1763.
Mary Pope Osborne is the acclaimed author of many books for children. She is best known for her Magic Tree House series as well as her titles in the Dear America and My America series. She lives with her husband in New York City.
Osborne was brought up in a military family, and her parents' work led to a lifestyle marked by constant change. "By the time I was 15," she says on randomhouse.com, "I had lived in Oklahoma, Austria, Florida, and four different army posts in Virginia and North Carolina." While many kids would probably feel disoriented by such constant change, Osborne wouldn't have had it any other way. "Moving was never traumatic for me, but staying in one place was. When my dad finally retired to a small town in North Carolina, I nearly went crazy with boredom. I craved the adventure and changing scenery of our military life."
And adventure is exactly what Osborne got! After college, she embarked on a series of daring treks across the globe that would surely give Jack and Annie a run for their money. "For a while I camped in a cave on the island of Crete," she said. "Then I joined up with a small band of European young people heading to 'The East.' We traveled through 11 Asian countries and nearly lost our lives, first in an earthquake in northern Afghanistan and then in a riot in Kabul."
Following an illness she contracted in Katmandu, Osborne returned home to the U.S. trying her hand at a vast variety of jobs: window dresser, medical assistant, Russian travel consultant, waitress, bartender, and an assistant editor at a children's magazine. Although Osborne had unconsciously moved closer toward her ultimate career, she says that her first attempts at writing seemed to come without warning. "One day, out of the blue, I began writing a story about an 11-year-old girl in the South," she recalls. "The girl was a lot like me, and many of the incidents in the story were similar to happenings in my childhood...it became a young adult novel called Run, Run Fast as You Can. Finally, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up."
She sure did! Since then, Osborne has penned a slew of stories, including picture books, chapter books, middle-grade biographies, and young adult novels; but she is indisputably best known for her wonderful Magic Tree House books, a happy hodge-podge of history and mystery with a time travel theme kids find irresistible. No doubt inspired by Osborne's own highly adventurous life, these exiting expeditions have attracted droves of children and pleased educators by combining compulsively readable storytelling with useful facts about geography and history.
As was written of the series in Children's Literature, "Mary Pope Osborne provides nicely paced excitement for young readers, and there's just enough information mixed in so that children will take away some historical fact along with a sense of accomplishment at having completed a chapter book." As much as Osborne has certainly pleased her readers (not to mention their parents and teachers), perhaps no one is quite as pleased as she. "I'm one of those very lucky people who absolutely loves what they do for a living," she explained. "There is no career better suited to my eccentricities, strengths, and passions than that of a children's book author."
"One of the most defining experiences of my life was traveling overland in an old van through the Middle East and Asia in the early 1970's. One day, when a small group of us were camped in a remote part of northern Afghanistan, we saw a woman riding horseback over the sloping plain. Her long brown hair floated on the wind and she wore a bright gypsy-style dress. When she got closer, I realized she was one of my roommates from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill! Though I didn't even know she'd left the U.S.—and she didn't know I was in Afghanistan, we weren't that surprised to come upon each other. That says a lot about the times we were living in then."
"After 26 years of living in New York City, my husband Will and I now spend most of our time in Northwestern Connecticut, living in a house that overlooks a lake. We kayak and hike with our two Norfolk terriers, Joey and Mr. Bezo. Will's learning Italian, and I've been working with a tutor for two years trying to understand Dante's Divine Comedy. One of my biggest hobbies is reading philosophy and theology. We spend lots of time, of course, on our work. After writing three shows for the Morehead Planetarium in North Carolina, Will's writing a musical based on the Magic Tree House series. I'm writing book # 38 in the series. I also spend a lot of time with my sister Natalie Pope Boyce who works on the Magic Tree House Research Guides. Natalie and our nephews and some of our best friends live nearby in the Berkshires Hills of Massachusetts, so we're up there a lot, too. My only complaint is there is not enough time to do all I want to do. For instance, I'd love to take drawing classes and I'd love to paint the lake we're living on. And I'd love to bird watch and become a better cook and learn about classical music. Maybe sometime in the future...."
I read this book many years ago, and recently read it again. I never get tired of reading this book. It's for all ages and it's very touching. An adult version of this book is "The Red Heart" by James Alexander Thom. I actually bought the movie of this and it was really good. The book is about a young Quaker girl who was kidnapped with her brother walking to school. They live with the Native for many months until they are recovered. She finds love with a Native American and they were supposed to marry, but he was murdered. She never does find love after "Snow Hunter" but instead fighting for rights for Native Americans. She eventually with intense research discovers the young brave who she was going to wed, was a white settler taken when he was very young.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 19, 2012
I love it so good
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Posted May 5, 2012
This is such a great book!!!!!! I loved it from beginning to start!
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Posted February 21, 2012
I like the part where she falls in love with snow hunter
But its realy sad that snow hunter gets killd:(-sigh
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 17, 2012
It is great
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted January 3, 2012
Geat a snack and sit down to read this book you will never stop! It was really sad when hang on a second i need a tissue--- Okay now where was I oh yes this a exelent book recomended for anyone
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Posted December 29, 2011
This is an amazing book though it ends on such suspense ahhh READ IT!!!
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Posted November 25, 2011
Poor snowhunter
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted September 13, 2009
I Also Recommend:
Thid book is captivating, funny, sweet, and sad all in one! Great lessons, facts and character plot and development! So far, A Coal Miner's Bride, Hear My Sorrow, Land of the Buffalo Bones, and sooo many of the others are my favorites!
Read this wonderful book!
P.S. I wish she could have married Snow Hunter, but I guess it was not to be...
kaitlyn97
Posted April 15, 2009
I've reread this book a lot (also A Coal miner's bride) because I loved i so much!! I read it almost a year ago, and finished it in less then one hour. It gives you a great point of view of what it could of been like to be a captive with the Indians almost 200 years ago. A great read for!! I think it would be better if kids 9 and up read it. A must-read Dear America book!!!
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Posted September 28, 2008
It was on the better side of books I've read. It was a really good book and I reccomend it.
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Posted May 22, 2008
This book has been one of the complete and total best books i have EVER read in my whole dang entire life!!! When i read it, my heart started pounding a million miles an hour and there was NO WAY i was EVER going to put it down!!! This book is OUTSTANDING!!! READ IT!!! You'll be happy you did!!!
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Posted March 5, 2008
This book was such a great read. I actually learned something, but i enjoyed learning it. The charicters are well described. I would recomend anything from this series.
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Posted January 3, 2008
Mary Pope Osborne, author of Magic Tree house wrote this diary, which was why I read it. Excellent! Worth five stars!! The beginning before she is captured is slow. Will her father shut the door or close it? Won't he just make up his mind! But after she is captured is very interesting. She convinces the Indians to return her brother to her, adapts to the culture, falls in love this Indian who is actually a captured boy like herself, and is rescued. I felt like crying when she finds out that her guy was killed. So sad when he doesn't return to her. Then when she gets rescued she has to adapt to her culture and life all over again. Very, very good diary, could not put it down. You must read it if you haven't already.
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Posted October 14, 2007
i loved it!!!!
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Posted May 30, 2007
the book is kind of boring at the beginning but the middle was Perfect! I loved the indians. It felt like I was living with them. I would let you read but it might not be what you thought. HISTORY LOVERS MUST READ IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted February 20, 2007
This book is good but it can get sorta borring. Its really cool. I don't wana give out any good information about the book so ill leave ya with this. Check it out of the library and see how good it is 4 your self. It has a lot of good info on the indians and how they were misunderstood and treated badly.
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Posted November 1, 2006
Evertime I could, I get the book out of the library and when I got it I just couldn't put it down, it was so good! You have to read it and if you don't you are missing out on a good (great, perfect, undescribible, exellent , ect ,I think you get the picture)book!
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Posted May 24, 2006
Standing in the Light was an was an outstanding book because it tells you about the life of a quaker girl and how she was captured by indians ( Native Americans). The book tells how the Native Americans hunted for food and made clothing. Even though the book is fiction some parts are true. Which I think that if your studing Native Amirecans this would be a good book to read.
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Posted December 31, 2005
I read this book (I also own it) and I think that it was a really interesting book. I could feel along with Catherine. It is a little sad though.
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Overview
One of the most popular Dear America diaries of all time, bestselling author Mary Pope Osborne's STANDING IN THE LIGHT is now back in print with a gorgeous new cover!Catharine Carey Logan and her family have enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous life as the Quakers and Delaware Indians share a mutually trusting relationship. Recently, however, this friendship has been threatened by violence against the Indians. Then, Catharine and her brother are taken captive by the Lenape in retaliation. At first, Catharine is afraid of her captors. But when a handsome brave begins to teach her about the ways of the Lenape, she comes to see that all people share the same...