Buffalo Before Breakfast (Magic Tree House Series #18) Book

Osborne has largely steered clear of the history of the Americas in her series, and with good reason: the legacy of colonialism is an enormously difficult subject to approach for any age group.

In the latest story arc of the series, which includes books 17-20, Osborne has finally ventured into the relatively recent American past and the results'at least here'are mixed.

While she describes the mass slaughter of the bison unambiguously, even making the point that it was a military maneuver designed to weaken indigenous resistance to European powers, the larger issue of genocide is ignored completely. Although this doesn't really come as a surprise, I keep hoping that Osborne will sneak something really radical into her books some day.