Narwhal on a Sunny Night

Mary Pope Osborne's Narwhal on a Sunny Night is a Magic Tree House adventure for 7 year olds about saving a trapped whale in Greenland and making a very surprising friend.

What happens

Jack and Annie spot a glowing cloud over the Frog Creek woods one summer evening. The tree house is back, with a book about Greenland and a rhyme from Morgan le Fay. It talks about a day with no dark of night and a word that will glow.

Greenland turns out to be ice, icebergs and seals. Then a whole herd of narwhals swims into the bay.

Annie is thrilled. She wrote a report on whales, so she knows they're called the unicorns of the sea. That long horn is really a tooth!

But a pod of killer whales chases one young narwhal into a shallow pool, and the ice shuts him in. Then a red-haired boy with a heavy spear turns up. He wants the tusk, because it's worth a fortune.

Annie is having none of it. And somehow she talks him round, so the three of them work together to break the narwhal out.

The boy is called Erikson and he's a bit odd. He calls himself a seafarer and says eleven ships were lost on his family's voyage from Iceland. When Jack sees the dragon heads carved on the boats in the cove, he finally works out where (and when) they are.

It's a gentle, curious sort of adventure. There's a danger or two, but it's mostly about noticing things. Jack keeps reading bits out of their book and Annie keeps knowing more than the book does. Why does the sun still shine at midnight? You find out at the same moment they do.

The glowing word at the end is a lovely surprise, and it gives Annie a chance to explain why it matters. There's also an author's note sorting out which bits are true and which are made up, plus some extra whale facts.

If you've got a reader who loves animals and a mystery to solve, this is a very good one to pick up.

What to read next

If the sea is what they love, Shadow of the Shark takes Jack and Annie snorkelling on a coral reef.