Magic Tree House: The Other Time-Traveling Observers

I realized this week that I had seen the time-traveling dynamics of Kindred before. In Magic Tree House, wholesome white 8-and-7-year-old protagonists Jack and Annie are summoned to their tree house when there's a mission to be done. They frequently get to their new time period just in time to save someone, and only go back once their "mission" is finished (not when they're in mortal danger, like Dana.) They are in a similar situation to Dana, although 1) they sometimes have other missions than saving someone and 2) they never go to the same place more than once for a mission.

As for being observers, their position is complicated. First off, they can take things with them both ways when they go on treehouse trips. Second, unlike Dana they can do some magic (to help Da Vinci's machine fly, inspire The Magic Flute, etc.) Third: some of the historical missions have a basis in history but little effect on it; they meet real historical figures mixed with convenient fictitious ones. I seem to remember Jack (the one who researches everything before and after they go, in order to sneakily teach readers something) finding a poem/document from someone they met that describes the two kids, meaning they made a mark on the historical record. But as we discussed in class, metaphorically it doesn't really matter. Fourth, it's canonical that their clothes and language change in order to fit in wherever they are, and we can see that in the cover illustrations; however, we don't see their race change, and it might take more than wardrobe for two white kids to fit in when they go to, say, Qin dynasty China. (to be fair, changing race would probably be more problematic.) They do their mission and leave, so individual missions don't have as much effect on them as Dana's. Finally, in keeping with the whole "3rd-5th grade reading level" thing the kids don't see anything remotely traumatizing like the race violence Dana sees and experiences.

 I drudged through the Wikipedia page to see if Jack and Annie ever actually did go to the reconstruction/antebellum South. I suspected they didn't, and I was right. They approach the time period when they go out west (like Kevin wanted to, neatly avoiding the nasty stuff going down in the South. They meet a nice white cowboy named Slim, and no black people if I remember correctly!)  They go to the Civil War, and the only mentioned characters they interact with are white. (If I had the book I would do further research. Maybe to be continued on my next post?) Many of the American-history stories are pretty okay even though parts are definitely sugarcoated and simplified for younger readers. Thanksgiving on Thursday gives a pretty realistic retelling of the first Thanksgiving, with minimal Pilgrim-Wampanoag buddy-buddyism. Blizzard of the Blue Moon, set during the Depression, doesn't focus on the depression as much as finding a unicorn. Yes, really.

It turns out, someone already wrote their Educational Studies thesis on the historical inaccuracies of the books, and why it's almost as important to give kids a gut-level link to those time periods through someone their own age. I personally find the results a little off, seeing as the author of the thesis "collected a total of 86 facts" from 28 books (seems a little small, for the supposedly historically immersive books) and at least partially verified 62 of those facts only through the World Book Encyclopedia 2010.

But back to Kindred: what if Magic Tree House decided to take Jack and Annie on an eye-opening, probably traumatizing romp to the Weylin plantation? Well, seeing as the two didn't hang with the slaves when they went to Pompeii (Book #13) or the civil war (Book #21), or with the lowest class at any time of racial/class divide, they would probably find themselves living with the Weylins, become friends with Rufus and spend a lot of time inside the house.They might meet Nigel or Alice in a nice, pleasant way. If Mary Pope Osborne were feeling rated-R Jack and Annie might watch a whipping or walk through the slave quarters, or maybe see them working in the field.

Now, I totally haven't done as much research as Octavia Butler on what would really happen. But we see in the book that Kevin is (obviously) treated differently than Dana is on the plantation, and sees different aspects while completely missing others. We can only assume that Annie and Jack would be the same, and would, like Kevin, get a warped view because of it.

This book would never happen, but there are some interesting ties to stuff we've seen before: Mumbo-Jumbo-Atonistically declaring a certain narrative "the truth," and putting characters in that narrative to teach kids "History," or Kindred's putting historians literally into the story to create more visceral truth, and how when you're actually participating in the story, you can't just be an observer, black or white.