Customer Reviews

The Truth about Bats (The Magic School Bus Chapter Book, No. 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, I would like to clarify that this is a review of the WHOLE chapter book series - not just this book. Second of all, I would like to clarify that, at age 15, I'm probably NOT the target audience for these books. However, as a die-hard Magic School Bus fan, I can honestly say that while I applaud Scholastic for wanting to introduce MSB to a new generation of kids, it certainly deserves better treatment than this.

The kids' voices (with the possible exception of Arnold) are interchangeable, the plots are, with few exceptions, copied directly from MSB episodes, and the illustrations range in quality from pretty good (The Search for the Missing Bones) to extremely poor (Color Day Relay). But that wasn't what bothered me.

What bothered me was that the characters are hardly recognizable - with the exception of Liz, they all seem different.

*Ms. Frizzle makes mistakes (Butterfly Battle), gets nervous, (Voyage to the Volcano), and gets sick (The Great Shark Escape), whereas in the TV series (which I am comparing them to rather than the original books, because that's obviously what they're based on), she never does any of those things. It even specifically stated on "Inside Ralphie" that she never gets sick.

*Arnold is pretty much the same, although he doesn't seem to know anything about rocks (Rocky Road Trip) - in the TV show they're his favorite thing - and he has been given Ralphie's tendency toward motion sickness (several books).

*Ralphie is my biggest complaint about this series. While I will admit to being prejudiced as he is my favorite character in the TV series, anyone can see the difference. Whereas before Ralphie was the class athlete and mentioned food no more or less than any of the other boys, he now suddenly is the only member of the class who can't jump onto a moving conveyer belt (The Search for the Missing Bones) and clumsy and food-obsessed (Color Day Relay). One can't help but wonder if they perhaps did this because Ralphie is the most heavily built student in Ms. Frizzle's class. Also, his overactive imagination has been toned down considerably.

*Phoebe thought bats were ugly (The Truth About Bats). The Phoebe I know would never say an animal is ugly.

*Dorothy Ann is not only the smartest kid in the class, she is now a stuck-up know-it-all who constantly wants to feel superior to the other kids (Voyage to the Volcano).

I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point. While it is great that a new generation of kids is being introduced to these characters, the question remains - exactly who are they being introduced to?

I was very excited to find out about the Magic School Bus chapter books. I teach 2nd and 3rd grades and my students love this book! My 3rd graders are reading chapter books. This new series allows them to keep reading about Ms. Frizzle and her class. They are learning more Science facts and working on their reading skills. As a teacher I couldn't ask for more!

This is a great series for early readers that want to move to a bit more challenging chapter books. My second grader loves that each book is about a different adventure and that she learns facts at the same time.

These chapter books have turned this series into almost total nonfiction. When I was reading them to my son we both got bored and then noticed the magic was missing from the series like the shows had. This is a great series but is missing the boat by not adding in some magic for fun and excitement. the title is "magic school bus" but the magic is missing