You most likely remember the bus if you grew up anywhere close to a television in the 1990s or a school library filled with colorful, large picture books. You recall the dresses covered in planets, dinosaurs, or blood cells, the lizard on the shoulder, and the frizzy red hair. The name of the woman who came up with all of this is something you may not recall or may never have known. The Magic School Bus was written by a woman named Joanna Cole.
Cole, who passed away in July 2020 at the age of 75, was a writer who appeared almost bashful about the scope of her creations. Over the course of her life, she authored over 250 books, but the series she co-created with illustrator Bruce Degen in 1986—a charming, slightly chaotic group of schoolchildren led by the unflinching Ms. Valerie Frizzle—sold over 93 million copies in 13 different countries. That’s a startling figure for any writer, but Cole herself frequently used quiet, almost self-deprecating language when discussing her writing.
She was the kind of kid who enjoyed studying insects in the backyard while growing up in East Orange, New Jersey, as the daughter of a house painter and a homemaker. Reading about her early years gives me the impression that Ms. Frizzle was always waiting inside of her. She claimed that her own fifth-grade teacher served as the true inspiration, but Cole took care to point out that the woman appeared “very conservative,” not at all like the cartoon character who would subsequently wear earrings shaped like solar systems. That teacher merely allowed her students to check out science books for their own enjoyment. When Cole was younger, he thought that everyone did this.
Cockroaches, her debut novel, was released in 1971. It is an incredibly unique place to launch a career. She once explained to her publisher, Scholastic, that she chose the topic because no one else had written one and because, in her words, she had plenty of time to study the creature in her modest New York apartment. That line has a disarming quality. It sums up her work style perfectly: she was inquisitive, pragmatic, and eager to use whatever was available to her.
Cole had worked as a children’s book editor at Doubleday, a letters correspondent at Newsweek, and a librarian in Brooklyn by the time the first Magic School Bus book came out in 1986. Although she acknowledged that she was afraid when she sat down to write that first book, her insider knowledge of the industry probably helped. She did closet cleaning. She went shopping. She didn’t write at all. The feeling is familiar to anyone who has ever stared down a blank page.
The show took unexpected turns. In 1994, Microsoft converted it into software. That same year, PBS animated it, with Lily Tomlin voicing Ms. Frizzle and Little Richard singing the theme song. After eighteen years of broadcasting in more than 100 countries, Kate McKinnon took over the role in the Netflix reboot in 2017. The National Science Foundation provided partial funding for a 2,600-square-foot traveling museum exhibit. Somehow, the bus continued to move.
Observing all of this, it’s easy to overlook how strange it was. Women were still uncommon on science television in the early 1990s. The historian Marcel LaFollette once observed that successful women were “exceptions in a universe of male luminaries.”” Despite being fictional and animated, Ms. Frizzle came to resemble a substitute for the female science expert that television would not otherwise offer. It wasn’t a coincidence. Deborah Forte, the president of Scholastic at the time, had received concerns from educators and parents regarding the way science was taught to minorities and girls.
Looking back, it’s difficult to ignore the fact that Cole created something massive out of tiny, everyday objects, such as a cockroach in a cheap apartment, a childhood backyard, and a remembered teacher. Seldom did she sound like someone who believed she was making a difference. She simply continued to write. It turns out that she had been driving the bus the entire time.
