Joanna Cole was an American author of children's books, best known as the author of the Magic School Bus series, which sold more than 93 million copies in 13 countries. She wrote over 250 books, ranging from her first book Cockroaches to her famous series Magic School Bus, which is illustrated by Bruce Degen.
Early life
Cole was born in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of Elizabeth, a homemaker, and Mario Basilea, a house painter. She grew up in the suburb East Orange. She loved science as a child, and had a teacher that she says acted a little like Ms. Frizzle, but that she did not resemble her physically because her teacher looked "very conservative". Her teacher let students check out one of her science books each week and Cole stated, "I thought that reading science books for pleasure was an ordinary thing". As a child, she studied insects and plants in her backyard. Cole enjoyed school and also enjoyed writing science reports for class. Her favorite book as a child was titled Bugs, Insects and Such which was a gift from her aunt because Cole liked to watch insects in her backyard. She attended the University of Massachusetts and Indiana University before graduating from the City College of New York with a B.A. in psychology.
Career
After some graduate education courses, she became a librarian in a Brooklyn elementary school. Cole subsequently became a letters correspondent at Newsweek, then associate editor for the SeeSaw book club at Scholastic, and then a senior editor for Doubleday Books for Young Readers. She went freelance in 1980, writing children's books and articles for Parents magazine. Her first children's book was about cockroaches and it was published in 1971. Cole decided to write Cockroaches because there was not a book written about the insect at the time. She decided to write children's books full-time in 1980. Two of her books were written for parents to read with their children, with the titles being How You Were Born and Your New Potty. Cole always kept the emotional level of her readers in mind when writing children's books. She stated that it is a privilege to have a career doing what she enjoyed as a child.
''The Magic School Bus''
The first Magic School Bus book was written in 1985 and published the following year. She and illustrator Bruce Degen spent over a year per book when they worked on the first 10 titles. Cole was nervous about starting the first Magic School Bus book, stating, "I couldn't work at all. I cleaned out closets, answered letters, and went shopping anything but sit down and write. But eventually I did it, even though I was scared". She also said that she wanted to write science books that told stories which readers would enjoy even with no science aspect. When writing a Magic School Bus book Cole wrote the text first, then she and Degen went over each page. She also wrote more words on removable tape which she placed over those she had previously written. If she did not like something she had written, she figured that she might like what was on the tape instead. The Magic School Bus has enjoyed continued success and has sold millions of copies in multiple languages. The most recent installment in the series is The Magic School Bus Explores Human Evolution. Cole said that her favorite The Magic School Bus book is Inside the Earth, in which the character Arnold confuses a piece of Styrofoam with dirt on it as a rock and brings it to class, similar to an incident involving Cole's daughter. The book series was adapted into an animated television show starring Lily Tomlin, which ran for 18 years beginning in 1994. In 2017, the books were adapted for a Netflix series starring Kate McKinnon, titled The Magic School Bus: Rides Again. The video game series was published for several different hardware platforms in 1994–2010.
Honors and reception
Most of Cole's books became ALA Notables and received NSTA/CBC Non-fiction Awards. Cole received the Washington Post/Children's Book Guild for her non-fiction children's books in 1971. Her books A Cat's Body and A Bird's Body were selections for the Junior Literary Guild. A 1988 review in The New York Times of The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth said:
The author Joanna Cole and the illustrator Bruce Degen have come up with the freshest, most amusing approach to science for children that I've seen...Elementary school science should never be the same again after the Magic School Bus series is completed.
An author spotlight in the book Valerie & Walter's Best Books for Children 2nd Ed: A Lively, Opinionated Guide stated, "If Joanna Cole had contributed nothing to the world of children's books other than her Magic School Bus books, her popularity would still be assured".
Death
Cole died on July 12, 2020, at the age of 75, of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Her frequent collaborator Stephanie Calmenson wrote a tribute which states, "Losing Joanna, we lose the chance to share Ms. Frizzle’s latest science adventure with children, making them laugh and helping them better understand the world they live in". Until her death, Cole continued to write books on many subjects for a range of ages, and collaborated on many books with Calmenson, including the Ready, Set, Dogs! series and The Adventures of Allie and Amy series.
