The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs is the sixth book in Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen's The Magic School Bus series. Synopsis The kids are transforming their classroom into Dinosaur Land for Parents Night, as they are studying dinosaurs. Ms Frizzle then gets a letter from an old high school friend who is now a paleontologist and she decides to take the class on a trip to the dig. When she discovers that they are missing the bones of some Maiasaurs, she turns the bus into a time machine to travel back to the age of dinosaurs to find the bones. The class sees dinosaurs and learns the name of the different periods of the era and other information. Notes This book is the first time Ms. Frizzle's first name is mentioned. This is the first appearance of Keesha and Carlos in the original series books; the TV series debuting the same year this book was released. The book seems to feature a predestination paradox. In the present, the palaeontologists find Maiasaura bones, but have difficulty finding their nests. An astute reader will notice that the Maiasaura were apparently separated from their nests because of the Troodon pack the class inadvertently led to their nesting grounds. Television adaptation The episode's main aim was to show that dinosaurs weren't all terrifying monsters, like movies often make them out to be. This episode is loosely the television adaptation of The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs (from the book series). The book shows all the time periods but the television adaptation shows just the Cretaceous period. All three time periods (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous) were seen in the book. Unlike in the book (which focuses with all the time periods), the cartoon adaptation only focuses with the Cretaceous. This version shows only the Cretaceous because it was due to time constraints. Time constraints forced this version to show only that period in order for the episode (The Busasaurus) in the TV series to be up to 30 minutes (like all other episodes). In this episode, the kids visit Ms. Frizzle's old friend, Dr. Carmina Skeledon at a dinosaur dig, as opposed to Jeff in the book. Dr. Skeledon lets Arnold see a fossilized dinosaur egg that Ms. Frizzle finds as the kids are leaving, and he still has it when they go back in time.