Book Review: Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip
My daughter recently developed an obsession with electricity. Since I’m no techno wizard I had a hard time explaining to her the connection between big power transmission towers and the lights in our house. Knowing that science teacher Ms. Frizzle and her magic school bus had already taught us all about dinosaurs, hurricanes and the solar system, we turned to her to get more info on electricity. Once again, she didn’t fail us.
In The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip, a storm hits and the power goes out at school. To find out what caused the outage, Ms. Frizzle takes her class on a trip in the magic school bus. The class visits the site of a downed power line (the kids learn that electricity and be dangerous). From there they visit a coal-fueled power plant where Ms. Frizzle and her students shrink and explore the parts of the plant, from furnace to generator.
They also learn about alternative energy, air pollution, nuclear power, molecules and magnetism. They shrink even more and follow the power out of the plant and into the high-voltage power lines (where they learn about electrons and power transmission). The trip continues with a visit inside a light bulb, a toaster (for a discussion on heating elements), a light switch (where we learn how power is turned off and on), a power saw (where we learn about electric motors), and then a vacuum cleaner (to learn how the vacuum cleaner sucks things up). The kids and Ms. Frizzle then follow the power lines back to school.
It’s a fast and furious and dense ride made humorous by the visit of Ms. Frizzle’s niece Dottie. The dialogue of the kids as they follow Ms. Frizzle on one more adventure is also very funny in places. Your young reader (and you) will learn everything and more that she ever wanted to know about why flipping a switch turns on a light or how the blender works.
For the skeptics in the audience, each Magic School Bus book ends with notes about the fantastical nature of the books. For example, in this episode, writer Joanna Cole and illustrator Bruce Degan have created a game that says what’s fact and what’s not. Just the right tone for a the logician-child.
Be warned that these are not short reads, but can be broken into several sittings. It takes us about 30 minutes to read each book cover-to-cover (this one may take a little longer as you – yes you – and your child try to grasp the concepts).
Ages: 7+ (Unlike most of the other Magic School Bus books, we don’t recommend this one for very young readers. The concepts are a bit more difficult to grasp.)
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