Children’s book world mourns death of ‘Magic School Bus’ illustrator Bruce Degen

Tributes are pouring in for artist and Brooklyn native Bruce Degen, whose illustrations brought Ms. Frizzle and her “Magic School Bus” to life, following his death from pancreatic cancer at age 79.

He died on Nov. 7 at his home in Newtown, Conn., his family confirmed to People on Tuesday.

Born June 14, 1945 in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood, Degen was drawn to art from an early age, attending New York City’s High School of Art & Music (today LaGuardia High School).

He went on to earn a bachelor’s of art from Cooper Union and a master’s in printmaking and painting from Pratt Institute. He taught art full-time in New York City schools for 25 years while doing freelance illustration work on the side.

Shortly after graduating art school, Degen realized that his focus on “very serious art” had been stripping the fun from his passion, as he told Science.org in 2020, so he turned his attention toward children’s books. That led to the 1977 publication of “Aunt Possum and the Pumpkin Man,” which he wrote and illustrated.

He also began illustrating books for other authors, then wrote and illustrated “Jamberry,” among the most beloved of his books, in 1983.

The next year saw the launch of his lifelong collaboration with author Joanna Cole on her now-famous “Magic School Bus” series. The first of the eventual 14 in the series was published by Scholastic in 1986.

The rollicking class field trip adventures of science teacher Ms. Frizzle and her students eventually morphed into animated series on PBS and Netflix, plus spinoff books and licensed merchandise. Today more than 95 million copies of the “Magic School Bus” books are in print nationwide, according to Publishers Weekly.

Degen was mourned across the book world in the wake of his death.

“We’re sorry to hear of the passing of our long-time friend Bruce Degen, but grateful for the amazing legacy of brilliant illustrations that he left us in the ‘Magic School Bus’ series,” said Scholastic Trade Publishing president Ellie Berger in a statement to the Danbury News-Times. “His hilarious take on Ms. Frizzle and her madcap adventures in science are now considered icons of modern children’s classics thanks to the exuberance and joy of his endearing renderings.”

“Bruce Degen was one-of-a-kind,” Phoebe Yeh, VP and editor at large for Crown Books for Young Readers, told Publishers Weekly. “We have lost a true pioneer of children’s bookmaking.”

Booksellers in Connecticut, including Alice Hutchinson, owner of Byrd’s Books in Bethel, remembered Degen mourned the loss of an “astonishingly talented, caring and sweet man.”