‘Magic School Bus’ author dies
Joanna Cole, whose books transported millions of young people on educational adventures, was 75.
Author Joanna Cole, whose “Magic School Bus” books transported millions of young people on extraordinary and educational adventures, has died. She was 75.
Scholastic Inc., her publisher, announced that Cole, a resident of Sioux City, Iowa, died Sunday of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
“Joanna Cole had the perfect touch for blending science and story,” Scholastic Chief Executive Dick Robinson said in a statement. “Joanna’s books, packed with equal parts humor and information, made science both easy to understand and fun for the hundreds of millions of children around the world who read her books and watched the award-winning television series.”
The idea for “The Magic School Bus” came in the mid-1980s. Scholastic senior editorial director Craig Walker was receiving frequent requests from teachers for books about science and thought a combination of storytelling and science would catch on. He brought in Cole, whose humorous work such as the children’s book “Cockroaches” he had admired, and illustrator Bruce Degen.
With the ever maddening but inspired Ms. Frizzle leading her students on journeys that explored everything from the solar system to the ocean, “Magic School Bus” books have sold tens of millions of copies and were the basis for a popular animated television series and a Netflix series. Plans for a live-action movie, with Elizabeth Banks as Ms. Frizzle, were announced last month. Ms. Frizzle was based in part on a fifth-grade teacher of Cole’s.
“I think for Joanna the excitement was always in the idea. What? Why? How?” Degen said in a statement. “And with ‘The Magic School Bus,’ it was how to explain it so that it is accurate and in a form that a kid can understand and use. And you can actually joke around while you are learning. She had a rare sense of what could be humorous.”
She is survived by her husband, Phil; daughter Rachel Cole and her husband, John Helms; grandchildren Annabelle and William; and her sister, Virginia McBride.