lkvanvoorhis's Full Review: Joanna Cole - The Magic School Bus Inside the Eart...
If you're familiar with Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus, you'll understand my title. If not, let me enlighten you with this review. You'll wish Ms. Frizzle had been one of your teachers when you were little!
The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth starts out in Ms. Frizzle's classroom. Her classroom looks almost like a zoo because they have been studying animals' homes - there's a beehive, a beaver lodge, and ant farm, and owl's nest, etc. The children had grown tired of studying about this, so Ms. Frizzle announced that they were gong to start something new - studying about the earth!
Not everyone was excited, especially when Ms. Frizzle assigned them to all bring a rock to school. And the next day, she was surprised to see that only 4 children brought one - and the rocks they brought were questionable (a piece of broken sidewalk, a piece of a soda bottle, etc.). So, to get them interested, Ms. Frizzle decided to take them all on a field trip in the Magic School Bus to collect and learn about rocks.
For the field trip Ms. Frizzle wore a new dress with digging tools on it, indicative of what they would be doing for the day - they were so excited (not). When they boarded the bus, it began to spin and spin - then stopped abruptly. The bus had become a steam shovel and the kids were now all in digging clothes and had shovels and picks!
They began digging through the earth's crust, learning about each layer as they went: soil, sandstone, shale, limestone, etc. The children were learning about fossils when the bus turned into a huge drill and proceeded to dig further into the earth. The lower they went the more they learned about the mantle and the core, lava and volcanoes. After a very close call among the lava, they were all whisked back to school. The next day they were able to put together an awesome rock collection from their findings on the field trip, which is displayed on the last page with facts about each rock.
Not only was this a unique field trip, The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth is very unique in itself, as the entire series is. Each page has many parts. There is a narrative telling what's actually going on. Conversations are also occurring among the classmates with their reactions to what's going on. Then, there are little notebook pages in each corner giving various definitions and facts prepared by a different student. The graphics are vivid with many colors.
While I liked The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth very much, I was concerned about my 8 year old becoming distracted while reading it. There was so much happening and being presented on every page! It's hard to get him to sit down a read a book anyway, so I was afraid he'd lose concentration. After he read it through to his brother, I asked him about it. He didn't read the notebook pages on each page, so I had to make him go back and read it again - his excuse was he didn't know he had to read that part. Now, that's just my kid trying to get it over with as quickly as possible - but you may want to stress that every word on every page is meant to be read. My child is so active that getting him to sit still is very hard for any period of time, so if you have that problem you may want to read this book with your child.
My final recommendation: It's a great approach with lots of information presented in a fun-to-learn format. However, be cautioned about the "busy-ness" on the pages that may distract your child.
(This review was submitted previously, but somehow got 'separated' from the correct book. Therefore, I moved it to the right place.)
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