Magic Tree House #13: Vacation Under the Volcano

Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Lexile measure: 410
Bottom line:   Formulaic historical fiction, pretty good for the Lexile.  Some may have issues with use of magic.
Language:  No swear words, no potty language.
Violence:  Main characters nearly killed by erupting Mount Vesuvius, the concept of gladiators is introduced, though no actual fighting is included.
Big Kid Mature Topics:  Morgan Le Fay (a sorceress in Arthurian legend) presented as a protagonist.  Magic (see below for details).  Soothsayer is presented as actually being able to predict the future, not as just being believed to predict the future.
Illustrations:  black and white shaded drawings every several pages.
Plot: moderately complex.

This book surprised me.  I was expecting very bad writing, but it is not really that bad at all.  For the audience it is geared toward, Osborne accomplishes a lot with a limited vocabulary and simple sentences.  I was actually impressed.

However, I do have a big issue with the use of magic in these books.  First, this book seems to tout how fun it is to go off and nearly get killed at the behest of a sorceress who is in some legends quite evil.  At the end of the story, Morgan even says that she's so glad they came back, and that they risked their lives, as if she were in doubt that they would have returned.  That's just inappropriate for kids this age.  Second, as a consumer of fiction, it just seems unimaginative that the book they retrieve is magic and saves them from getting killed.

There are a lot of other books in this Lexile range.  I'm just not sure this is a good choice.  I think the Usborne Great History Search would be a more benign and just as rigorous  introduction to ancient cultures.  DD would think this was too short for her anyway, so we'll be skipping it.