Your child tore through the Magic Tree House books and now they're standing in front of you asking what's next. Here are six. Any single one can be the next thing for a child who loved the tree house. Start with Ranger in Time if you want the surest bet, then pick from the rest by what your child loved most: the two of them time-traveling together, the jokes, the true dinosaur facts, or a whole new flavor of adventure. Every one of these is light. Nobody here is going to keep your child up at night.
Magic Tree House worked because of a few things at once, and no single book copies all of them, so this shelf spreads them out. There's the time travel through an everyday object, a tree house instead of a wardrobe. There's the brother-and-sister team at the center. There's the short, illustrated, easy-to-finish shape. And there's the real history or science that sneaks in while your child thinks they're only having an adventure. Ranger in Time is the surest match and the place to start: a time-traveling dog, real history, short chapters, ten more books behind it. Time Jumpers is the closest to the heart of Magic Tree House, because it's a brother and sister traveling together the way Jack and Annie do. The Time Warp Trio is the same time-travel setup with the comedy turned way up. The Fact Tracker is the odd one and a lovely one: it's nonfiction, the true dinosaur facts behind the very first adventure, and it pairs with the story instead of replacing it. Then two steps sideways for a child who wants a new flavor of adventure: Geronimo Stilton is a funny treasure-hunt mystery, and The Magic School Bus chapter book is a science adventure with a bit more reading in it. Match the book to what your child loved most about the tree house, and you can't really go wrong.