The Magic School Bus is a series of children's books about science, written by Joanna Cole and illustrated by Bruce Degen. Designed for ages 6-9, they feature the antics of Ms. Valerie Felicity Frizzle and her class, who board a sentient anthropomorphic mini school bus which takes them on field trips to impossible locations, including the solar system, clouds, the past, and the human body. The books are written in the first person from the point of view of an unnamed student in "the Friz's" class. The class has a pet lizard named Liz, who accompanies the class on their field trips. Since the Magic School Bus books present scientific facts in the form of stories in which fantastic things happen (for example, the bus turns into a spaceship, or children shrink to the size of blood cells), each book has a page at the end detailing in a humorous manner which parts of the book represented scientific fact and which were fanciful storytelling. Similarities to Maurice Dolbier's The Magic Bus (1948) illustrated by Tibor Gergely are strictly coincidental.

History

Craig Walker, vice-president and senior editorial director at Scholastic Co., stated that the concept began with the idea of combining science with fictional stories, and Joanna Cole (who had written both science and humor before) and Bruce Degen were then approached with creating such a series. Walker also states that his own memories of school field trips and of a teacher he had once, served as further inspiration. The first book "At the Waterworks" was written in 1985 and published the following year. Cole and Degen started a new series called Ms. Frizzle's Adventures in 2001, which teaches social studies. In those books, Ms. Frizzle travels through time via a special watch. There are now three books in that series. Microsoft Home started publishing Magic School Bus software in 1994. TW Kids published four audio cassettes/activity book "Fun-Kits" in 1994 and 1995, these audio cassettes use audio from the TV Series. Scholastic has also published the original series books as read-along book-on-tapes and book-on-CDs. Scholastic Entertainment, the American Meteorological Society and the Children's Museum of Houston created a Scholastics the Magic School Bus Kicks Up a Storm, a 2600 sqft traveling exhibit funded in part by the National Science Foundation, which premiered at the Children's Museum of Houston in 2003 (a copy of it opened in New Jersey the month after that).

Characters

In the original series books, Ms. Frizzle's class had a larger number of multiethnic students and consisted of Arnold, Tim, Ralph (changed to "Ralphie" on the show and later books in this series), Alex, Amanda Jane, Arnold, Carmen, Dorothy Ann, Florrie, Gregory, John, Michael, Molly, Phil, Phoebe, Rachel, Ralphie, Shirley, Tim, Wanda, Carlos and Keesha (19 students). Janet was first introduced in the 1987 book, The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth. Carlos and Keesha were added in the 1994 book, The Magic School Bus In the Time of Dinosaurs. In the other books and merchandise --including the TV series and TV tie-in books-- Ms. Frizzle's class was whittled down to eight kids (Arnold, Carlos, Dorothy Ann, Keesha, Phoebe, Ralphie, Tim and Wanda).

List of books and merchandise

Original series books

Notes: *The Science Fair Expedition released 20 years after at its anniversary.

Chapter books

Scholastic Reader Level 2

TV tie-in books

TV tie-in fun kits

A Science Fact Finder Book

Ms. Frizzle's Adventures

Liz series

Magic School Bus Presents: A Nonfiction Companion to the Original Magic School Bus Series

DVDs

VHS

Individual books

The original Magic School Bus books are: