The South Bend Tribune from South Bend, Indiana • 123

CHILDRENS CORNER CALLING ALL YOUR STORYBOOK FAVORITES AT THESE MEET THE BERENSTAIN BEARS AT READERS WORLD, SOUTHTOWN MALL FORT WAYNE, IN ON SATURDAY, APRIL 4 from 1 1 :00 A.M. to 1 2:00 and 1 .00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. MEET PETER RABBIT AT READERS WORLD, MARQUETTE MALL, MICHIGAN CITY, IN ON SATURDAY, MAY 2, from 1 1 :00 A.M. to 1 2:00 PETER RABBIT AT READERS WORLD, SCOTTSDALE MALL, SOUTH BEND, IN ON SATURDAY, MAY 9, from 1 1 :00 A.M.

to 1 2:00 PETER RABBIT AT READERS WORLD, GLENBROOK MALL, FORT WAYNE, IN ON SATURDAY, MAY 16, from 1 :00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M.. PERSON' A ZOOFUL OF ANIMALS Selected by William Cole, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger, Houghton Mifflin, $17.95. William Coles menagerie contains more than forty of the funniest, wisest, most appealing poems about animals that youll find anywhere. A sample poem: The Elephant Of all the facts about mammals This is the most relevant: It takes a lot of paper To gift-wrap an elephant.

Louis Phillips OUR YARD IS FULL OF BIRDS by Anne Rockwell, illustrated by Lizzy Rockwell, MacMillan. A little boy lovingly describes all the birds that live in his backyard throughout the year. Accurately detailed paintings are a perfect complement to this childs-eye view of nature that will encourage young birdwatchers. Ages 2-7. MISTYS TWILIGHT by Marguerite Henry, illustrated by Karen Grandpre, MacMillan, $12.95.

Fans of Marguerite Henrys classic horse stories will revel in this exciting, brand new adventure-sure to be a classic. Ages 8-12. CHILDREN'S BOOKS FOR SPRING There are "a wonderful assortment ofchildrens books in our stores. The following are just a few of the many new titles we carry: ONE YELLOW LION by Matthew Van Fleet, Dial, $7.95. Every page contains a surprise in this delightful, active picture book, filled with countable animals.

A fold-out book that teaches numbers, colors and animals. Ages 2 up. GOING TO SLEEP ON THE FARM by Wendy Cheyette Lewison, illustrated by Juan Wijngaard, Dial, A tender bedtime story where each of the fami animals in the barnyard prepares for the night. Beautiful illustrations. Ages 3-7.

ANIMAL STEW by Shen Roddie, illustrated by Patrick Gallagher, Houghton Mifflin, $13.95. Eva the Enormous Giant makes an animal stew. The art is large and simple in this delightful book. Flaps lift up to reveal the animals inside Evas sack, caldron and each others tummies, making this a guessing game book that young children will adore. Ages 2-5.

ABOARD THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS needed to be there to explain the facts. Even more problematic, how would everyone exit? It" was my happiest moment, Cole recalls, when I thought of a sneeze to get them out of the body. Once Cole and Degen have finished a book, they send the completed dummies to expens in the field to check the accuracy of the material. Forexample, Waterworks was sent to the American Society oFWaterworks Engineers and Human Body to a doctor at Johns Hopkins. An essential part of the process, this fact-checking is sometimes painfully time-consuming, as when Degen needed to redo several pages of one book.

The pair have been traveling often to visit schoolstof late, and find that many teachers dress themselves andor their classrooms in Magic School Bus style. At one school the (male) principal wore a dress and frizzy red wig to play Ms. Frizzle. Degen says the books are as popular in classrooms as they are in bookstores, a most pleasant surprise for him. Though the subject matter is geared toward third-graders, readers write in to say the books are being read to and by youngsters of all ages.

Cole and Degen say they are especially honored when the Magic School Bus books win state childrens choice awards, "because the kids are deciding, Degen says, and that means were reaching the audience were trving to reach. PAGE 13 Degen took Coles Ms. Frizzle and gave her uncontrollable red hair and about two million shirtwaist dresses no big shoulders or crazy hats just variations that tie in with the story action. The Friz accessorizes like nobodys business. What to wear with a dress covered in mustard and ketchup bottles? Shoes with mini hot dogs, of course.

And how about a dress with space shuttles? Shoes embellished with tiny Saturns. Degen says he based his rendering of The Friz on his 10th-grade geometry teacher, a blonde woman with frizzy hair whose face, he says, would just beam with the logic? of what she was explaining. I le says, Ms. Frizzle is crazy, but the kids love her at the same time theyre resisting what shes trying todo. Theyre never really nasty to each other or to Ms.

Frizzle. As much as they love creating them, the Magic School Bus books arc such hard work, in Degens words, and Cole concurs. The kids in them hardly ever offer scientific inforrpation it has to come from Ms. Frizzle and she just has one or two sentences per page to get the message across. The book on the human body presented its own set of complications for the author.

The class would go inside a human body, but whose body would they go in? A strangers seemed too scary, according to Cole, and the teacher According to Degen, the partnership with Cole reminds him of another successful creative team. Were like Gilbert and Sullivan; one thought there was too much music and the other too many words. And, indeed, there is competition for space, because once Cole gets all the words on the page, theres hardly room for any illustration, she says. All the characters talk in word balloons, and there are school reports hanging everywhere. Information is packed in all over the place.

Cole writes the words first, then she and Degen go over each page together. When Cole writes a book, she draws words in balloons for the characters to say. But she often covers the balloons with removable tape, writing a different word on the covering tape. So sometimes Joanna and I go through the book and she says, Oh, you dont like that? Peel off the word and you may like the one under it the one under that. One time there were five layers.

The Magic School Bus books serve science with a sizzle! Ms. Frizzle or the Friz, as she is known among her students, is one teacher who conducts out-of-this-world field trips. The books have been taking author Joanna Cole and illustrator Bruce Degen on a bus ride to end all bus rides, with a total of more than one million copies in print since the first in the series appeared in fall 1986. Ms. Frizzle has driven The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks, Inside the Earth, Inside the Human Body and, most recently, Lost in the Solar System.

The next book, will take the bus under the ocean. I ler students for the most part are skeptical, bored and restless, but cant help but be intrigued by their teachers zest for her subject. When Cole wrote her first school bus book, she had no idea who the illustrator would be. She and Dcgen were brought together in an arranged marriage by a Scholastic editor, who originally approached Cole to do the series..