SOURCE CITATION
"Joanna Cole." Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., 8 vols. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Photograph provided by Scholastic Inc.
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
A writer of fiction and nonfiction for children, Joanna Cole is best known for her innovative science books, including her series on animal anatomy and her "Magic School Bus" books. A thorough researcher, Cole has received critical praise for the scientific accuracy of her work, but what makes her books most effective is her ability to explain complex technical material in terms that younger audiences can both understand and enjoy.
Cole first discovered the pleasures of writing when she was in grade school. "I discovered in the fifth grade what I liked to do; write reports and stories, make them interesting and/or funny and draw pictures to go along with the words," she once related. "Except for the pictures, I still do that. I remember grade school very clearly when I sat at my desk, happily interested in whatever subject I was writing about. Science was my favorite. Our teacher, Miss Bair, would assign us to read a science trade book every week. And each week, she would choose one student to do an experiment and report on it to the class. I would have done an experiment every week if she had let me. Grade school was very important to me, much more influential than my later education. Maybe that's why as an adult I ended up writing books for children."
After receiving her bachelor's degree from the City College of the City University of New York, Cole pursued her interest in books by working variously as a librarian, teacher, and editor. It was during her first job at an elementary school that she was inspired by an article about cockroaches in the Wall Street Journal. Realizing that this was a subject she had never read about in school, Cole decided to write about it herself. The first publisher she submitted her manuscript to rejected the idea, but the author had more luck when she sent her book to the publishing house of William Morrow, where editor Connie C. Epstein helped Cole hone her skills in science writing.
Many of Cole's nonfiction works focus on the field of zoology. In books such as Giraffes at Home and Twins: The Story of Multiple Births, she clearly explains the evolution, life-cycle, and lifestyle of different species. In another series, Cole introduces young readers to the anatomies of such animals as horses, frogs, dogs, birds, cats, and snakes. This series concludes with The Human Body: How We Evolved, which explains how archaeologists have pieced together the evolutionary history of mankind and how human anatomy compares to that of our primate cousins. Throughout her science books, Cole has always been aware of how children's feelings affect their reactions to factual material. In her series on animals' births, which includes A Calf Is Born, My Puppy Is Born, How You Were Born, and My New Kitten, the author explains the physiology of birth with candor and accuracy, and is careful to include the gentle care baby mammals need to grow, which mirrors children's own experience. Similarly, a number of Cole's books focus on child development. These titles--The New Baby at Your House, Your New Potty, Asking about Sex and Growing Up, I'm a Big Brother, I'm a Big Sister, and How I Was Adopted: Samantha's Story--help families share facts and feelings about key issues in children's lives.
In all of Cole's works, accuracy is the most important consideration. According to a School Library Journal article by Epstein, Cole feels that "accuracy is harder to achieve in books for the very young than in those for older readers, because so much must be left out in order to keep the text sufficiently simple. She has yet to be 'burned' by an error in her books, however." In addition to the extensive research that the author does for each book, she tries to confer with experts in whatever subject she is pursuing at the time. "Cole prefers to discuss the project with the expert directly, as his general point of view may be even more valuable to her than his factual check. When the rare error does creep in, she notes, it is usually one that has been repeated in several supposedly trustworthy sources."
Of all her science books, it is for the popular "Magic School Bus" series that Cole is best known. All the books in the series combine science and imaginative fun into stories that have been warmly received by critics and readers alike. The adventures involve a class of school children led by their eccentric teacher Ms. Frizzle. The humorous illustrations by Bruce Degen and the unlimited possibilities for travel in a bus that can dig through the earth, shrink to microscopic size, or blast off into space result in lively reading. "Just as 'Sesame Street' revolutionized the teaching of letters and numbers by making it so entertaining that children had no idea they were actually learning something, so the 'Magic School Bus' books make science so much fun that the information is almost incidental," wrote Katherine Bouton in the New York Times Book Review. Bouton declared that these books offer "the freshest, most amusing approach to science for children that I've seen."
Adventures on the school bus take the students and Ms. Frizzle, as well as Mr. Wilde, the assistant principal, inside the human body, down to the waterworks, inside a dog's nose or beehive or hurricane, back in time to the world of the dinosaurs, or through space to the stars. "Climb aboard," John Peters encouraged readers in a School Library Journal review of The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs, "there's never a dull moment with 'the Friz' at the wheel!" Reviewing the 1999 addition to the series, The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses, Christine A. Moesch remarked in School Library Journal that it was "another fun, fact-filled adventure in the series." Commenting on The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip, Blair Christolon noted in School Library Journal that the book "makes a complex subject fun to read about and simple to understand." The same could be said for all the titles in the series, books that mix a sense of humor with lucid explanations of scientific facts.
Although Cole is more often recognized for her science books, she is also the author of a number of stories for children, has compiled anthologies of children's literature, and has written books for adults on parenting and child development. Discussing her fiction writing, which she sometimes bases on old folktales, Cole once related: "In so many folktales, the hero wins, not because he is strong, but because he is able to reach out to others for help, something the greedy, selfish villain cannot do. The hero can also change and develop, and so he can accomplish things at the end of the story that seemed impossible at the beginning. The same thing happens with children as they grow, and that is why children love folktales so much. It is also a main theme of my life; I consistently try to do things in my writing and in my life that are all but impossible. On one level, I am pleased with my work; on another level, dissatisfied. My response to this situation is simply to keep trying and keep doing; that's the only way to grow." Of her growing diversity in writing, she once similarly stated: "I feel I'm bringing more and more of my whole personality to my work every year."
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Born August 11, 1944, in Newark, NJ; daughter of Mario and Elizabeth (Reid) Basilea; married Philip A. Cole (a psychotherapist), October 8, 1965; children: Rachel Elizabeth. Education: Attended University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Indiana University--Bloomington; City College of New York (now of the City University of New York), B.A., 1967. Memberships: Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Society of Children's Book Writers, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Addresses: Agent--c/o HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022.
CAREER
New York City Board of Education, New York, NY, elementary school librarian and instructor, 1967-68; Newsweek, New York, NY, letters correspondent, 1968-71; Scholastic, Inc., New York, NY, associate editor of See-Saw Book Club, 1971-73; Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, senior editor of books for young readers, 1973-80; full-time writer, 1980--.
