By Joanna Cole
Ms. Frizzle drives the class straight back to the dinosaurs, with real facts crammed into every corner.
Ms. Frizzle's school bus becomes a time machine and carries the whole class back to the age of the dinosaurs. They tramp through prehistoric swamps, watch different dinosaurs feed and nest, find a nursery full of Maiasaura babies, and then come face to face with a Tyrannosaurus rex, which is exactly as alarming as it sounds. Crammed around the edges of every page are real facts, scribbled to look like a child's homework.
For a child who wants the actual science but isn't ready for a wall of it, this is the perfect middle. The adventure pulls them along, a real trip with a real scare, while the margins and the little report pages feed them true dinosaur facts almost without them noticing. They'll read it for the story the first time and for the facts the fifth time, which is how these end up read to pieces.