What do you think?
Rate this book
Nonfiction Companion to the Original Magic School Bus Series
The Magic School Bus Presents: Dinosaurs: A Nonfiction Companion to the Original Magic School Bus Series
THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS PRESENTS DINOSAURS is a photographic nonfiction companion book to the original bestselling title, THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS IN THE TIME OF THE DINOSAURS.
IN THE TIME OF THE DINOSAURS from the bestselling Magic School Bus series taught thousands of kids about the T-rex, triceratops, and stegosaurus. MAGIC SCHOOL BUS PRESENTS DINOSAURS will expand upon the original title with fresh and updated content about all the incredible extinct creatures from millions and millions of years ago. With vivid full-color photographs on each page as well as illustrations of the beloved Ms. Frizzle and her students, the Magic School Bus Presents series will enthrall a whole new generation of Magic School Bus readers.
IN THE TIME OF THE DINOSAURS from the bestselling Magic School Bus series taught thousands of kids about the T-rex, triceratops, and stegosaurus. MAGIC SCHOOL BUS PRESENTS DINOSAURS will expand upon the original title with fresh and updated content about all the incredible extinct creatures from millions and millions of years ago. With vivid full-color photographs on each page as well as illustrations of the beloved Ms. Frizzle and her students, the Magic School Bus Presents series will enthrall a whole new generation of Magic School Bus readers.
37 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 30, 2014
29 people are currently reading
66 people want to read
About the author
Tom Jackson
655 books59 followers"I'm a non-fiction author and project editor (plus I do a bit of journalism). I'm available for project development, writing, project management and I also work as a packager. Click on the links above to see examples of my work.
But first some background: Over the last 20 years, I've written books, magazine and newspaper articles, for online and for television. I get to write about a wide range of subjects, everything from axolotls to zoroastrianism. However, my specialties are natural history, technology and all things scientific. I've worked on projects with Brian May, Patrick Moore, Marcus de Sautoy and Carol Vorderman and for major international publishers, such as Dorling Kindersley, National Geographic, Scholastic, Hachette, Facts on File and BBC Magazines.
I spend my days finding fun ways of communicating all kinds of facts, new and old, to every age group and reading ability. I live in Bristol, England, with my wife and three children. I studied zoology at Bristol University and have had spells working at the zoos in Jersey and Surrey. I used to be something of a conservationist, which included planting trees in Somerset, surveying Vietnamese jungle and rescuing buffaloes from drought-ridden Zimbabwe. Writing jobs have also taken me to the Galápagos Islands, the Amazon rainforest, the coral reefs of Indonesia and the Sahara Desert. Nowadays, I can be found mainly in the attic."
~http://tomjackson.weebly.com/
But first some background: Over the last 20 years, I've written books, magazine and newspaper articles, for online and for television. I get to write about a wide range of subjects, everything from axolotls to zoroastrianism. However, my specialties are natural history, technology and all things scientific. I've worked on projects with Brian May, Patrick Moore, Marcus de Sautoy and Carol Vorderman and for major international publishers, such as Dorling Kindersley, National Geographic, Scholastic, Hachette, Facts on File and BBC Magazines.
I spend my days finding fun ways of communicating all kinds of facts, new and old, to every age group and reading ability. I live in Bristol, England, with my wife and three children. I studied zoology at Bristol University and have had spells working at the zoos in Jersey and Surrey. I used to be something of a conservationist, which included planting trees in Somerset, surveying Vietnamese jungle and rescuing buffaloes from drought-ridden Zimbabwe. Writing jobs have also taken me to the Galápagos Islands, the Amazon rainforest, the coral reefs of Indonesia and the Sahara Desert. Nowadays, I can be found mainly in the attic."
~http://tomjackson.weebly.com/
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 20, 2020
Basic, but fun.
August 19, 2020
We love the Magic School Bus series. These books are so informative and visually appealing for readers of all ages.
July 30, 2025
What's the purpose? ( www.amazon.com/review/R11GF639RIK8M4/... ): 1/5
When I 1st saw Jackson's "The Magic School Bus Presents: Dinosaurs: A Nonfiction Companion to the Original Magic School Bus Series" (henceforth Magic), I thought something like, "What's the purpose?" In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is.
1) Despite its title, Magic has almost nothing to do with the OG series: For 1, it's neither authored by Cole nor illustrated by Degen; For another, only characters from the TV series are included; Furthermore, all their looks (illustrated by Bracken) are based on the TV characters, yet all their dialogue is interchangeable, in which case, what's the purpose of focusing on a core cast?
2) While the OG series has an actual story, Magic is just a bunch of stuff happening in no particular order, yet it's formatted just like the OG series (I.e. With a small amount of narrative main text & lots of informational sidebar text). In other words, what's the purpose of "a nonfiction companion" that reads like a lesser version of its fictional counterpart?*
3) The OG series never needed "a nonfiction companion", especially 1 as textually/visually bad as Magic:** For 1, as mentioned above, most of its text is informational (& thus, nonfiction); For another, it lists the American Museum of Natural History, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, & the Museum of the Rockies as sources of "helpful advice and consultation" (& thus, more info).
*In addition to the interchangeable dialogue, the writing is annoyingly redundant (E.g. On page 15, 1 sidebar reads "A hadrosaur's crest[...]would have made the dinosaur's calls sound much louder", & another reads "A hadrosaur's crest might have been used[...]for making loud calls")/simplified (E.g. 1st, see the 1st Jackson quote; Then, see reason #1 in my review of Schwabacher's book: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3492121242 )/weird (E.g. See the 2nd Jackson quote; Where else would one eat meat other than from bodies?; Also, why "T. rex ate by scavenging [AWA] hunting"?; Why not "T. rex scavenged [AWA] hunted"?).
**In reference to "textually", see the Jackson quotes, the 2nd of which is especially bad for how much it gets wrong about living animals (I.e. "The biggest sharks alive today" are whale sharks, which don't bite at all hard, let alone that hard; Hyenas aren't "the animal with the strongest bite today", nor are they just "a scavenging animal"). In reference to "visually", the paleoart consists almost entirely of poorly-photoshopped stock photos of inaccurate, cheap-looking CG dinos (including Dinoraul's, which aren't even the worst ones) depicted in inappropriately-modern environments (E.g. Grass, grass everywhere, even in the Jurassic).
Quoting Jackson: "How did dinosaurs become fossils? by Carlos
To become fossilized, an animal must be buried soon after it dies. Many of the dinosaurs we have fossils for drowned in mud or were buried in rock falls. The soft parts of the body, such as the skin, rotted away, but the harder bones and teeth stayed buried for millions of years. The sand or mud around the bones turned to solid rock. Water trickling through the rocks washed away the bones, leaving minerals in their place. Eventually, a bone-shaped stone was formed — a fossil!"
Quoting Jackson: "How hard could T. rex bite? by Dorothy Ann
Scientists believe Tyrannosaurus rex had the strongest bite of any animal that has ever lived. They think it may have bitten three times as hard as the biggest sharks alive today.
The animal with the strongest bite today is the hyena — a scavenging animal that eats meat from bodies. It uses its strong jaws to crack through bones. Dinosaur experts think that T. rex ate by scavenging as well as hunting."
When I 1st saw Jackson's "The Magic School Bus Presents: Dinosaurs: A Nonfiction Companion to the Original Magic School Bus Series" (henceforth Magic), I thought something like, "What's the purpose?" In this review, I list the 3 main reasons why that is.
1) Despite its title, Magic has almost nothing to do with the OG series: For 1, it's neither authored by Cole nor illustrated by Degen; For another, only characters from the TV series are included; Furthermore, all their looks (illustrated by Bracken) are based on the TV characters, yet all their dialogue is interchangeable, in which case, what's the purpose of focusing on a core cast?
2) While the OG series has an actual story, Magic is just a bunch of stuff happening in no particular order, yet it's formatted just like the OG series (I.e. With a small amount of narrative main text & lots of informational sidebar text). In other words, what's the purpose of "a nonfiction companion" that reads like a lesser version of its fictional counterpart?*
3) The OG series never needed "a nonfiction companion", especially 1 as textually/visually bad as Magic:** For 1, as mentioned above, most of its text is informational (& thus, nonfiction); For another, it lists the American Museum of Natural History, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, & the Museum of the Rockies as sources of "helpful advice and consultation" (& thus, more info).
*In addition to the interchangeable dialogue, the writing is annoyingly redundant (E.g. On page 15, 1 sidebar reads "A hadrosaur's crest[...]would have made the dinosaur's calls sound much louder", & another reads "A hadrosaur's crest might have been used[...]for making loud calls")/simplified (E.g. 1st, see the 1st Jackson quote; Then, see reason #1 in my review of Schwabacher's book: www.goodreads.com/review/show/3492121242 )/weird (E.g. See the 2nd Jackson quote; Where else would one eat meat other than from bodies?; Also, why "T. rex ate by scavenging [AWA] hunting"?; Why not "T. rex scavenged [AWA] hunted"?).
**In reference to "textually", see the Jackson quotes, the 2nd of which is especially bad for how much it gets wrong about living animals (I.e. "The biggest sharks alive today" are whale sharks, which don't bite at all hard, let alone that hard; Hyenas aren't "the animal with the strongest bite today", nor are they just "a scavenging animal"). In reference to "visually", the paleoart consists almost entirely of poorly-photoshopped stock photos of inaccurate, cheap-looking CG dinos (including Dinoraul's, which aren't even the worst ones) depicted in inappropriately-modern environments (E.g. Grass, grass everywhere, even in the Jurassic).
Quoting Jackson: "How did dinosaurs become fossils? by Carlos
To become fossilized, an animal must be buried soon after it dies. Many of the dinosaurs we have fossils for drowned in mud or were buried in rock falls. The soft parts of the body, such as the skin, rotted away, but the harder bones and teeth stayed buried for millions of years. The sand or mud around the bones turned to solid rock. Water trickling through the rocks washed away the bones, leaving minerals in their place. Eventually, a bone-shaped stone was formed — a fossil!"
Quoting Jackson: "How hard could T. rex bite? by Dorothy Ann
Scientists believe Tyrannosaurus rex had the strongest bite of any animal that has ever lived. They think it may have bitten three times as hard as the biggest sharks alive today.
The animal with the strongest bite today is the hyena — a scavenging animal that eats meat from bodies. It uses its strong jaws to crack through bones. Dinosaur experts think that T. rex ate by scavenging as well as hunting."
February 13, 2017
just the right length--and the illustrations and photos are pretty incredible. We loved this one!
Read
April 18, 2016This book was introduced in my first field placement of 2nd grade and the students were really excited to learn about dinosaurs. I enjoyed their reaction and I learned a lot myself. This is a fun book that makes nonfiction interesting.
March 24, 2024
Triceratops uses its beak to get food.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews