Joanna Cole was originally a librarian eventually turned editor and then became a very successful children’s book author. She is originally from New Jersey and still lives there with her husband. She is mostly known for her writing The Magic School Bus Series, but she also writes many books concerning children life lessons. She is still writing books for her Magic School Bus series, which turned into a television series, as well as movies available. So far she has written over 250 nonfiction and fiction children’s books. Cole uses humor to attract students to science and make sure they have fun learning. This video below is all about Joanna Cole. It explains her works, as well as her biography. This is something you could show your kids before introducing them to the magic school bus series.
I think that Joanna Cole really created a kind of legend with the Magic School Bus series, and I didn’t know she was still writing them. I liked how you described her style of writing and how you talked about the other topics/themes she writes about instead of highlighting only TMSB. One thing to think about would be to maybe include a snippet of another work she wrote besides TMSB since I think most people are familiar with that series. I am curious as to how she writes her other books.
I love that she talks about teaching ideas instead of just facts. It’s also interesting that she doesn’t like to use technical terms in her books because she wants the kids to remember the ideas rather than just the vocabulary. I think these books would be very useful in supplementing a science lesson. I can teach the academic language after the students have a basic understanding of the subject from reading an entertaining book by Joanna Cole.