The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge

Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen's THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS AND THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE tells of Ms. Frizzle's students, putting on a play about global warming and in search of facts. The Magic School Bus takes the kids on a worldwide tour observing signs of climate change - and shrinks them to miniature size to get the full scope of problems.

The magic school bus books are always a hit. Ms. Frizzle and her students are always off on another adventure where they learn through doing. These stories are always entertaining and educational at the same time. In The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge is no exception. In this installment, the class is studying global warming. They are all set to put on a play about the Earth. However, the book that Ms. Frizzle had brought in as a resource is outdated (from when Ms. Frizzle was nine), so everyone piled into the magic school bus and the adventure began. Using the book as a reference, the students were amazed at how much the Earth had changed since Ms. Frizzle was young. Then, in an effort to better understand the blanket effect of greenhouse gasses, the kids were given special microscope goggles to see the gas molecules in the air. From here, the class learned ways that they can make a difference.

When my seven year-old saw me reading this book, her comment was, "Mom, that's a good one. They talked about global warming." Wow! The message is really out there, reaching young and old. In this book, we peek into how Ms. Frizzle presents her message and educates her students about this popular topic, how it affects our lives today and more importantly how we can give hope to our future generations that they will live on a normal and healthier Earth. Bringing her worn copy of //Our Wonderful World// with her, Ms. Frizzle starts her students' global warming lesson by taking the class on a special outing in the Magic School Bus: a flight over the Arctic Circle. She opens //Our Wonderful World// to the page showing the area where polar bears were able to walk and play on the ice field. On the exact same spot in real life, the ice field has turned into watery ocean with some floating icebergs. According to Ms. Frizzle, the area of the melt is about the size of California and Texas combined. She then steers the bus-plane from one place to another to observe the inevitable consequences of global warming, which is due to the increasing quantities of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere that blankets our Earth. Ms. Frizzle also has special devices called microscope-goggles that reveal the gas molecules in the air. The class's brief and magical adventure through space and the invisible realm educates them and leads them to take important steps, trying to make a difference. There are many ways to save our precious Earth. At the end of the book, Ms. Frizzle's class shows us a list of big and small tasks that each of us can participate in, in our daily lives, to save our planet. Reviewed by Sophie Masri

The Friz and her class take a trip to the Arctic after seeing Ms. Frizzle's old Geography book, which looks different before the effect of global warming. The whole global warming issue has become fraught with political tension. I definitely believe that we are making unwise choices as a society, and this book presents the facts in a non-political way. As all Magic School Bus books do -- it combines humor and scientific facts in an engaging way. Each page is chock full of information meted out in bite-sized chunks, almost like a comic book. My 11 year daughter and my 5 1/2 year old son both enjoyed this book. My son was even able to spout back some facts to me when I asked him what he had learned from the book -- a couple of days later, even! He said, "Our electrical stuff gives off CO2, and that's bad for the earth."

Our family loves all the Magic School Bus books, but this one stands out above the others because it helps kids understand what they can do to improve the environment. The author explains in terms that kids understand not only how and why people can harm the environment, but also helps kids know what they can do to make it better. I've tried for a long time to get my 4 year old daughter to turn out the lights when she leaves the room, but she never paid attention until she read this book. Now she tells me to turn out the lights! This book brought tears to my eyes because I could see children all over the world taking steps like the kids in this book to change their world.