If you've read my reviews of Sunset of the Sabertooth and Afternoon on the Amazon, you know my feelings about this series, which I consider to be poorly written and insubstantial in terms of information. After reading a few, I figured I'd go back to well-written books and when Logan could read, he could read all the Magic Tree House books he wanted. But then he found this one at a used-book store and what with his current passion for ninja, we couldn't pass it up. "That's okay," I thought. "I'll just edit as I go, replacing all of Annie's "yikes!' and Jack's 'Oh man!' interjections with an entertaining variety of other words. Maybe I'll even have Jack say 'yikes!' and Annie say 'Oh man!' Really live on the edge, you know?" I even thought I might give Jack (whose sad little one-dimensional persona never changes or matures throughout the series) a little more courage and a little less sarcasm, although honestly for us, sarcasm begins at home (as you may have guessed from my writing). Anyhoo. I had big plans. But what I didn't plan for was having to cope with the misrepresentation of both samurai and ninja culture. For books that have so few facts, you'd think the author could have done a little research to present something based at least vaguely on what we know about ancient Japanese culture and warriors.The true things in the book:--Ninja often wore clothing to blend into their surroundings. --Ninja were secretive and good at keeping under the radar.--Ninja were sometimes women.--Both ninja and samurai were from "old Japan" (no era given)Untrue things in the book:--Ninja were not some sort of nature-loving Zen Buddhist folk who said things like "use nature, be nature, follow nature." They were mercenaries hired from amongst struggling farmers and vallagers and paid well to do heinous things that the strict code of honor and loyalty prevented the samurai from doing. These included espionage, assassination, and infiltration. If anyone would say something poetic about nature, it would be a samurai. It would be more literary though, more haiku-ish, I imagine. Being able to write poetry was a valued samurai skill. "By the 12th century, upper-class samurai were highly literate due to the general introduction of Confucianism from China during the 7th to 9th centuries...The philosophies of Buddhism and Zen, and to a lesser extent Confucianism and Shinto, influenced the samurai culture." -from Wikipedia--Ninja did not wear the black clothes and headscarves popularized by comics and movies. They might wear dark colors for night work (more likely brown or dark blue), but usually they just wore whatever they needed to to blend in, like any spy or assassin would. Women, for example, often dressed as dancers, courtesans, or servants to gain access to or seduce their victims. A man might disguise himself as a flute player and then use the flute to blow a poison dart or to whack someone over the head. Anything to get the job done, baby.--Samurai were not evil, as portrayed in the book. They were like western knights: aristocracy taught to fight in precise and ridiculously formal ways and kept to a strict code of honor that required them to battle one adversary at a time in full view of others. I very much doubt that samurai coming upon two children would "show them no mercy."--Samurai did not wear armor of bamboo. What a ridiculous idea! Their armor was usually a combination of iron and leather, which could actually protect them from sword blows. There's a lot more, but I'll stop there. How do I know all this? Well, initially all I knew about ninja was that they were mercenaries and spies. But the book presented them in such a friendly, "take this pebble from my hand, grasshopper" way, I felt compelled to research to see if I had been wrong about ninja culture. I'm sorry to go on and on, but after what I learned, I then felt equally compelled to set the record straight, especially since so many people regard this series as educational. This book would have been better if the samurai and ninja roles were reversed because really, it was the ninja you couldn't trust. My advice is that when you read these books, make sure you also do some subsequent research with your kids, because even when Osborne isn't wrong, she's pretty stingy with the facts. And by the way, I would have given this no stars left to my own devices. But since Logan ejoyed it and it did lead to some fun fact-finding afterward, I was generous. I'm like that.
Okay, so I have a new least favorite... I suppose it's a good thing I started with the books I did or I would never have given this series this much of a chance.My biggest issues here are that Morgan's note is written in cursive and then never repeated in print. Even my 3rd graders didn't start learning cursive until September... and from what I understand this series is directed at children even younger than that. It's incomprehensible to me that they'd make a book designed to encourage children to read longer books independently and then put a major plot point in a way that's inaccessaible to them.There also didn't really seem to be a plot in this one. They arrive, they're carried by the ninjas to meet the ninja master (and, btw, just reading "ninja" and writing it there, I couldn't help but grin sarcastically... :P) who immediately sends them on their own back to the treehouse. And later this "master" tells them that they couldn't find the book because they had a mission to complete. What mission? Pretending to be ninjas is a mission now?Ugh. This one was just silly. And the illustrations, while still beautiful, just served to remind me I was reading about ninjas, and therefore enhanced the silliness.
What do You think about Night Of The Ninjas (1995)?
This is fifht in the series of books the Magic Tree House. Although it is a chapter book my son and I sat and read it for about 30 minutes or so. Very interesting, keeping our attention. Just enough 'Science' to keep it educational but yet enough imagination in it to keep it fun too. Looking forward to reading some more.This was wasn't disappointing after enjoying the first one as much as we did. Each book apparently will have a 'guide' to the two children in the book but to the reader-listener it will give History lesson or a Science lesson to the time frame of where the children are. A really neat series of books!This fifth book in the series was very good. It's starting to wrap the series together although you CAN read them individually, it's just nicer to read them in order to understand what is really going on. At the beginning of this book is a prologue that kind of summarizes the stories up till now so if you haven't read those before you can kind of catch up. In this one the kids go in search of their friend Morgan and adventure to a land with ninjas. The beginning of the book seemed a bit slow and seemed like it was repeating itself but about halfway through it finally started getting our attention and became better. I was at first disappointed but then was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. We look forward to continuing reading this series
—Rosa Cline
This was a good book. I recommend this book to elementary kids and for all genders. This book isn't a chick-flick and is an easy read. There were two kids in this book, their names were Jack and Annie. Their tree house was a magic tree house. The tree house took them back to the ancient Japan. They had to find something that started with a “M”. The thing they found that started with a “M” was moonstones. I really like these book. Reading this books bring back memories when I use to read these books in elementary.
—Stephanie Sykes
Summary: In this book, Annie and Jack are out on a mission to find Morgan. They find a mysterious note from her and it gives her a hint of where she might be. They find a book that was opened and go back in time where there were ninjas and samurais. The ninjas guide them to their ninja master to help them find their friend but when they get to the master they are disappointed because he does not have time to help them. Jack and Annie then take the ninja advice they received to get back to the treehouse where an unexpected guest is waiting for them with a clue to help them find Morgan.Discussion Questions: 1.) Think of another character and tell me how they could fit into this story.2.) Think of a situation that happened to a character and tell me how you might of handled it if it was you in the story?3.) How are Jack and Annie different? How are they similar?4.) Distinguish what could happen in real life in the story and what couldn't happen.5.) If you could spend a day with one the characters which one and why?Citation: Osborne, M. (1995). Magic Tree House #5: Night of the Ninjas. New York: Random House.
—Sara C
