Free Printable: Magic Tree House Reading Checklist for Young Readers
This site is mostly about data, but being a dad is a big part of who I am — and this project sits right at the intersection of the two: a kid, a book series, and a tracking system.
My son is deep into the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne. Every night it's another adventure with Jack and Annie — dinosaurs, ninjas, the Titanic, the moon. And like any reader chasing a long series, he wanted to know: how many have we read? Which one is next?
So I made him a checklist. And the checkbox turned out to be magic of its own — he's now more excited to finish books because he gets to check them off. (Turns out the dopamine loop of completing a tracker doesn't care if you're 6 or 36.)
Download it free
⬇ Download the checklist (PDF, 3 pages)
What's inside
- All 67 Jack & Annie adventures — the original Magic Tree House series (#1–40) and the Merlin Missions
- Full-color cover art for every book, so pre-readers can find titles by picture
- A checkbox on every book — the whole point
- 3 pages, standard letter size, prints nicely in color
How we use it
- Print it (color is worth it — the covers are how my son navigates the list).
- Stick it somewhere visible. Ours lives on the fridge at kid height.
- Let them do the checking. That's the ritual. Don't take the ritual.
- When a page fills up, it's a genuinely big deal. Plan accordingly (we owe an ice cream at #40).
Why checklists work for young readers
I spend my working life building funnels and trackers, so maybe I'm biased — but a checklist gives a young reader three things:
- Progress they can see. Sixty-seven books is an abstraction; forty checked boxes is not.
- Autonomy. He picks the next adventure himself off the list.
- Identity. Somewhere around box #15, "we're reading Magic Tree House" became "I'm a kid who reads Magic Tree House." That's the real win.
If your kid loves Jack and Annie, grab the PDF, print it, and enjoy the checkbox ceremony. And if it makes bedtime reading a little more exciting in your house, I'd love to hear about it — email me.
Cover art belongs to the publisher and illustrators of the Magic Tree House series; this checklist is a free fan-made printable for personal use.