Megan Ryder is one of the founding members of the Magic Attic Club.
Megan was introduced through Georgetown Collection in 1994 with the first soft launch, and debuted in The Secret of the Attic by Sheri Cooper Sinykin and remained through the full run of the line. She was initially planned to be debuted in the unpublished book The Secret of the Mirror by Elizabeth Kelly.
Appearance, Personality, Interests, and Background[]
Megan has long strawberry blonde hair with bangs, green eyes, and a slight tan. Megan wears glasses when reading. She is most often shown wearing yellow and illustrated as the tallest of her friends (though Keisha Vance is said to be tall like her mother.) Her birthday is October 1st, and she is the oldest of her group of friends, being 11 at the start of the series.
Megan lives with her mother primarily; her parents are divorced and she's an only child, so she spends most of her time alone at home and has more responsibilities as a result. Megan and her mother live down the street from Ellie and her friends, right off of Primrose Street.; Megan and Alison have always lived in their neighborhood. Megan attends Lincoln Elementary school along with her friends.
Megan is smart and considered an excellent student. Megan is considered good at talking to grown-ups, and her friends point out that she knows big words. Megan's father considers her to be "brilliant, talented, and creative". She's very observant, detail-oriented, and has a strong memory. She is the most organized of her friends and is always prompt or on time. Despite her analytical mind, she loves to daydream. She loves to read everything, especially mysteries such as Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie. Megan's other favorite books are the Little Women books, Harriet the Spy, and A Wrinkle in Time. Computer-themed books are the only books that don't make sense to her. Megan also enjoys writing stories and plays and was responsible for writing and directing the play Peter Pan that she and her friends put on for a nursing home in Princess Megan. In school, she loves to write reports on interesting topics. One of her favorite topics involve history. Megan has strong leadership abilities and almost always gets chosen as team captain because she seems responsible.
Megan can be a "know-it-all", critical and intimidating. While she can be hard on others, and is considered the toughest one of her friends, she's more often harder on herself. She can be quite the perfectionist, serious, and self-conscious, often concerned with standing out in a negative way. Megan struggles to do things she's not very good at and struggles to try new things because she wants to do everything right the first time. She can also be thin-skinned and easily offended. She's at her crankiest when she's sick. Megan is considered to be pretty fair and reasonable, however, and hates fighting with people, even with words--she'd rather talk things out.
Megan is the least athletic of her group of friends; she doesn't like any physical activities that could cause her to get messy or sweaty, injured, or make her look foolish, and her least favorite sport is softball. However, she enjoys skiing and tennis, and is open to becoming involved in her day-camp's Father-Daughter field day event. Megan also joined the school's basketball team (though it's implied that anyone can make the team).
Megan loves animals and nature. She has a pet cat named Ginger, and wants a horse and a dog, too. Her favorite snack is chocolate chip cookies. Her favorite restaurant is Le Jardin, a French Restaurant; she and her father often go there when he's visiting. Megan's favorite color is yellow. Her least favorite colors are pink and certain shades of purple.
She's interested in musical instruments. Megan takes acoustic guitar lessons and piano lessons with Ellie; she also enjoys combing through Ellie's library. She often visits with Ellie when upset or seeking advice.
Megan doesn't really like scary amusement park rides.
Megan's bed has a pull-out drawer for her stuffed bear; the catalog states that her bed is "colonial"-styled.
Megan has shown interest in several future possible careers: a foreign news correspondent, like her father, a diplomat, a travel writer, a horse trainer, an archaeologist, a mystery writer, and a pilot. Mostly, she just wants to travel for work. Among her many interests, she appears most passionate about being a diplomat.
As Part of the Magic Attic Club[]
Megan, like all her friends, enjoys visiting their neighbor and friend Ellie, as well as her magic attic. Megan was the first to figure out how the magic mirror works. She keeps written record of all of her friends' magic attic adventures and was the second member to have a solo adventure.
Of the members of the Magic Attic Club, Megan gets along best with Keisha, who she feels easy to get along with. She gets along least with Alison (who is blunt and impatient) and Rose (whose jokes and cynicism often times go too far for her). Despite the fact that Megan and Alison are opposites, Megan and Alison have been best friends the longest. Megan and Heather both share a love of horses, but Megan intimidates Heather at times because she questions everything. Megan mostly enjoys spending time with all of her friends. It's unclear her relationship with Chloe or Jane, though Chloe's bio says that everyone made her feel welcome.
Main Family and Family Friends[]
- Julia Wyndham: Megan's mother. She is confident and successful, but still gets nervous when speaking to huge crowds. She divorced from Megan's dad. She is an attorney and a partner in a big law firm. She also volunteers with the Food Drive for the homeless shelter. Her favorite drink is cranberry juice. Julia has known Ellie Goodwin for years and there are hints that she possibly knows about the magic attic. When Megan reveals they found a key outside of Ellie's home, she was one of the three moms that insisted Megan return it to Ellie. It appears Julia Wyndham has grown up in the neighborhood.
- Dad: A foreign news correspondent whose job keeps him traveling and away from Megan for a long time. He enjoys history, especially the the Middle Ages. He divorced from Megan's mom. He and Megan love Le Jardin's French food. He calls Megan "Red" because of her strawberry blond hair. He considers his daughter to be "brilliant, talented, and creative".
- Aunt Frances: Julia's younger sister. She lives with Megan and her mom and moved in after Megan's parents divorced. She's a 4th grade teacher at another school. She is adventurous and likes taking on risks and new challenges. She enjoys camping, rock climbing, and aerobics. She's easy to talk to and always knows when Megan has a problem. She has a great sense of humor. She can be "too enthusiastic, too loud, and too different", according to Megan. She treats Megan more like a friend or little sister. In the reboot of the series, she's no longer present and is replaced with Aunt Maggie.
- Grandparents: Megan's paternal grandparents. They live in Washington D.C in a rural town that has stables, a lake, and paddle boats. They live near a woods and the Fun City Amusement Park.
- Great Paul: Megan's great-grandfather on her father's side. His full name is Paul Theodore Ryder. He was an author who wrote several books about American history. He used to read to Megan and tell her stories about the past, but he had been ill for a while, according to Megan.
Friends[]
Adventure Friends and Family[]
On the characters' adventures, they are connected to other people in their alternate identities, which result in other family members and friends in those places.
Megan's Stories[]
Megan stars in or is part of the following stories:
Individual Adventures[]
- Princess Megan
- Megan on the Slopes (Unreleased)
- Downhill Megan
- Cowgirl Megan
- Megan's Balancing Act
- Megan's Masquerade
- Megan in Ancient Greece
- Megan and the Borealis Butterfly
Group Adventures[]
- The Secret of the Mirror (Unreleased)
- The Secret of the Attic
- Trapped Beyond the Magic Attic
- The Ghost of Camp Whispering Pines
- The Jewel of the Sea Cruise
- The Mystery of the Pharaoh's Tomb (Unreleased)
- The Adventure Begins
Megan's Collection[]
- See: Megan's Collection
The following items are in her collection or include her:
As part of the Marian Reboot[]
With the reboot of the series and line from Marian, Megan was given more focus than other members of the club. She is the primary narrator of reboot book The Adventure Begins with most of the point of view and all of the internal monologue. It is also her aunt Maggie Carmody that owns the apartment with the magic attic. She is aged down to be ten rather than eleven, and attends Downey Elementary with a student named Kyle Dresden who teases her. She doesn't know any of the other girls before they spend the night together at Aunt Maggie's.
The Megan doll also received a different face mold.
Reboot Family[]
- Maggie Carmody: Megan's aunt, who is fourteen years older than her younger sister Julia; she's the tallest and oldest in the family and has the same green eyes and red hair as Megan. She is a flamboyant actress who lives in a three-apartment flat building on the top floor and now possesses the magic attic. She walks with a shift in her step owning to an ice skating accident when she was a teenager. She frequently calls the five girls "ingenues."
- Julia: Megan's mother. She is fourteen years younger than her sister Maggie and is a lawyer. During the day of the snowstorm, she's at a courthouse. Aunt Maggie calls her "baby" rather than her name.
- Dad: only briefly mentioned, her father is in Brazil covering a news story about the rainforest and always spends time with her before leaving for another foreign assignment. She only sees him when he's in the country.
Trivia[]
- Because Megan received a collection for Megan and the Borealis Butterfly she had seven individual collections and books where others had only six (excepting Rose Hopkins, who only had five).
Catalog Quotes[]
When we went on our first adventure through the mirror, we were all scared we wouldn't get home again. But I figured out how it works. Afterwards, Heather, Keisha and Alison agreed that I should write down our adventures, I like to write books as much as I like reading them-and I really hope the mirror takes me to all the places I've read and dreamed about.
My friends tease me for reading so much and call me the "Class star" because I'm pretty smart in school. It's true I really like to read everything, especially mysteries. I love animals almost as much as books. Someday I'm going to get a horse and a dog. Mom says that for now I can only have Ginger, my cat.
Do you ever think about the things you'd like to do? I daydream all the time. Sometimes I imagine I'm a foreign news correspondent like my Dad. Or maybe a horse trainer with a whole stable full of horses. Or a pilot! My Dad calls me "Red" because my hair is strawberry blond. But my very favorite color is yellow-I even put yellow laces in my sneakers!-Megan's Catalogue Quotes
| Members of the Magic Attic Club | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heather Hardin | Megan Ryder | Alison McCann | Keisha Vance | Rose Hopkins |