The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body is the third book in the book series. It was first published in the United States in 1989.
Plot[]
Ms. Frizzle's class takes a field trip which is supposedly to a science museum. But when they stop at a park for lunch, she suddenly gathers all the students back onto the bus except for Arnold, who is still eating. Then she pushes a button that shrinks the Bus until it is small enough for Arnold to absentmindedly swallow. This leads to the development of two parallel stories, inside and outside of Arnold. On the Bus inside, the class discovers the process of digestion from the mouth to the stomach and the small intestine. Then the bus enters a blood vessel where readers can see through the plasma where red and white blood cells fight germs and they flow into the heart where the class, now out of the bus and garbed in surgical outfits, follow the red blood cells, now with fresh oxygen, to the brain. From there, they climb down the bones of the spine, follow nerves to see muscles work, and then finally catch up with the Bus to emerge into the nasal cavity. Meanwhile, Arnold has coped with being lost and alone and has found the way back to school. With one sudden sneeze, he sends the Bus out into the parking lot where it returns to full size. Back in the classroom, the kids make a poster of the different parts of the human body based on their actual experiences.
Trivia[]
Unlike in the episode "For Lunch", the students never realize that they are inside Arnold's body. However, Phoebe says that she feels as though he is close by.
This is the final book of the '80s.
The Shrinkerscope is used for the first time in this book.
This is one of the books to feature in all four book ads that appear during the funding credits of the original series.
Ralph gets his physical appearance debut in this book. He starts appearing regularly with the other students, and wears his trademark red baseball cap, though the R on his shirt does not appear until two books later.
This is the second book to not have the Bus transform into anything. The first time was At The Waterworks.
In the republished version, the Bus had GURGLE! as its overhead sign. Plus on the cover of the 1997-present republishing, we get to see inches more of Arnold's stomach than we could see in the pre-Electric Field Trip releases.
This book is one of the few that did not change cover illustrations in the 1997-present reprint (except for the addition of “GURGLE!” as the text on the Bus’s overhead sign).
On the cover of the 1989 release, the title logo is seen in a font resembling Cambria. This is also the second time in the book series that the MSB logo changes, the first being the previous book.
On the back of the 1989 hardcover first edition, Arnold is seen holding his stomach in sadness (similar to Pg.13), with the cardinal sitting beside him. On the 1992 paperback first edition, the bird is blocked out by the rectangular box filled with names, credits and the list of other Magic School Bus 1986-2021 books so far.
On page 8, Arnold does a report titled "Your Tongue is Covered with Thousands of Taste Buds". on the four flavors: bitter, sour, salty, and sweet (sans umami). However, there is a difference between the first release and the republished edition. In the original, the taste buds that taste "bitter" are located at the back of the tongue, and in the republished version, "bitter" is located on the roof of the mouth. This is because research shows that taste buds exist outside the tongue, ranging from the cheeks to the soft palate. (Arnold mentioned it in the new report) The report's title changed to "Your Mouth Has Thousands of Taste Buds!".
At the end of this book, there are fun facts and warnings. This appears to be a "True or False" test. One example is, "A school bus can enter a person's body". The correct answer to that question is "False". False because that would never happen. Not even to Arnold.
v - e - dThe Magic School Bus book series by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen
