Bruce Degen, Who Drew ‘The Magic School Bus,’ Dies at 79

Bruce Degen, the illustrator of “The Magic School Bus” series of children’s books, died on Thursday at his home in Newtown, Conn. He was 79.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, his family said.

The main character of the books, a science teacher named Ms. Frizzle, shows her elementary school students that adventure awaits in understanding the biology, chemistry and physics of everyday life.

Ms. Frizzle drives her yellow school bus up into the clouds, so that her students can hop inside raindrops and travel through their local water treatment system. On other occasions, she drives through the small intestine and across the surface of the sun.

Joanna Cole, a children’s book author, was responsible for making those lessons educational, writing the text of Ms. Frizzle’s lessons and inventing plots that put her students inside a hurricane or a classmate’s nose. Ms. Cole gave Ms. Frizzle catchphrases like “take chances, make mistakes and get messy!”

Mr. Degen (pronounced like the Major Deegan Expressway) made the visual world of the books by using the clear lines of pen and ink and also the childlike softness of watercolor. He rendered Ms. Frizzle’s hair red and wildly frizzy — but contained it all in a mostly tidy bun.