Joanna Cole

Featured Books:

The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten: A Book about the Food Chain. Scholasitic, 1999.		How You Were Born. HarperTrophy, 1984.

Biography:

Joanna Cole loved science as a child. "I always enjoyed explaining things and writing reports for school. I had a teacher who was a little like Ms. Frizzle. She loved her subject. Every week she had a child do an experiment in front of the room and I wanted to be that child every week," she recalls. It's no surprise that Cole's favorite book as a child was Bugs, Insects, and Such.
Ms. Cole has worked as an elementary school teacher, a librarian, and a children's book editor. Combining her knowledge of children's literature with her love of science, she decided to write children's books. Her first book was Cockroaches, which she wrote because there had never been a book written about the insect before. "I had ample time to study the creature in my low-budget New York apartment!" Since then she has written more than 90 nonfiction and fiction books for children, and she is the winner of the 1991 Washington Post /Children's Book Guild Nonfiction award for the body of her work, which also includes the ALA Notable Children's Book How You Were Born, Bony-lets; Cars and How They Go; and with Stephanie Calmenson, The Gator Girls series. Despite the hard work Ms. Cole insists that writing "is the greatest fun in the world." And The Magic School Bus books in particular provide the opportunity for Ms. Cole to combine the two things she loves most: science and humor.

Selected Bibliography:

Hungry, Hungry Sharks (Step-Into-Reading, Step 3) (Random House, 2003)
Dinosaur Detectives (2002)
The Great Shark Escape (2001)
The Magic School Bus Gets Programmed (2001)
Penguin Puzzle (2001)
Magic School Bus Explores the Senses (2001)
When You Were Inside Mommy (2001)
The Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow: A Book about Colors (2001)
The Magic School Bus Spins a Web: A Book about Spiders (2001)
In the Rain Forest (2001)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up: A Question-And-Answer Book for Boys and Girls (1999)
Gets All Dried Up: A Book about Deserts (1999)
How You Were Born (1999)
The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field (1999)
The Magic School Bus Blows its Top: A Book about Volcanoes (1999)
The Magic School Bus Taking Flight: A Book About Flight (1999)
The Magic School Bus Butterfly and the Bog Beast: A Book About Butterfly Camouflage (1999)
The Magic School Bus Gets Ants in Its Pants: A Book About Ants (1999)
The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten: A Book about Food Chains (1999)
The Magic School Bus Goes Upstream: A Book About Salmon Migration (1999)
The Magic School Bus Going Batty: A Book About Bats (1999)
Spider's Lunch: All About Garden Spiders (1999)
The Magic School Bus Hops Home: A Book about Animal Migration (1999)
The New Baby at Your House (1998)
The Magic School Bus in the Arctic: A Book About Heat (1998)
The Magic School Bus in the Rain Forest (1998)
The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive (1996)
The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane (1995)
The Magic School Bus Inside Ralphie: A Book About Germs (1995)
The Magic School Bus in the Time of Dinosaurs (1995)
The Magic School Bus: In the Time of the Dinosaurs (1994)
The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor (1992)
Your Insides (1992)
The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System (1990)
The Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth (1987)
Evolution (Let's Read-And-Find-Out Science) (1987)
The Human Body: How We Evolved (1987)
Cuts, breaks, bruises, and burns: How your body heals (1985)
An Insect's Body (1984)
Cars and How They Go (1983)
A Frog's Body (1980)
A Cat's Body (1980)
A Snake's Body (1980)
A Horse's Body (1980)
A Fish Hatches (1978)
Saber-Toothed Tiger and Other Ice Age Mammals (1977)
Dinosaur Story (1974)
Twins: The Story of Multiple Births (1972)
Cockroaches (1971)

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