The Magic School Bus + Rides Again Wiki
The Magic School Bus + Rides Again Wiki
Inside a Beehive
The Electric Field Trip
Explores the Senses


The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip is the ninth book in the original series books. It was published in the United States in 1997.

It's the first in the "modern era" of the classic series books, classified by the update in the cover art designs from this one forward.

Its episode counterpart is "Gets Charged" from Season 4 of The Magic School Bus Classic. The educational content is the same, but the plots differ.

Descriptions[]

  • Book jacket (1997 publication, hardcover): "What is electricity? How is it made? In Ms. Frizzle's class, there's just one way to find out—a field trip on the bus! After experiencing firsthand how a power plant makes electricity, the class shrinks small enough to squeeze through the power lines. They learn how electric current travels through the town and how it lights up a light bulb, heats up a toaster, and runs an electric motor."

Trivia[]

  • The episode "Gets Charged" is also focused on electricity like this book, even though they were both in production at the same time and have completely different plots making neither one adapted from each other.
  • This is the first and only book to make a nod to the main canon. The original series is credited as "Magic School Bus television series" in the special thanks list.
  • This book marks the beginning of the "new era" of the Magic School Bus book series. These "new era" books introduce new topics such as climate change, evolution, and electronic appliances, and introduce modern technology to the 1980s books such as flat screen televisions. They are also larger in size and have a new cover art style, in which the title of the book uses a different font: a bold, sans-serif, lowercase typeface.
  • The Bus's overhead sign says POWER!
  • Starting here, The Magic School Bus 1986 wordmark logo is rendered digitally like those of the 90s series and Rides Again, as it is no longer hand-drawn.
  • In some of the Season 2 VHS tapes, a promo was made to introduce this book.
  • Though Season 4 was never available commercially on VHS, old broadcast masters thereof dubbed to VHS show this as the new book in the book promo at the end.
  • Even though this is in the "modern" era of the main series, it got republished because VHS tapes have been fully replaced by DVDs and Blu-rays by the early 2010s, and this book mentions the former in a list the class made of things electricity can power.
    • This is the only classic book in the "modern" era to get a republished edition.
    • This is also the first classic book in which Carlos makes a joke.
  • This was originally intended to be the last book in the original series of books.

v - e - d The Magic School Bus book series by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen