Cole lived in Sioux City, Iowa, and died on July 12, according to a statement from his editor, Scholastic, sent to CNN on Thursday.
She was best known for “The Magic School Bus”, a scientific series that she launched in 1986 with illustrator Bruce Degen.
“What Joanna has meant to the world, what is in the world thanks to her, is well known,” said Degen. “I can’t describe what she meant to me. Everyone who knew her, worked with her, loved her, knows how lost she is.”
The series has 13 main titles and dozens more connected titles, and there are more than 93 million copies in print in 13 countries, according to Scholastic.
“I think for Joanna the emotion was always in the idea. What? Why? How? And with ‘The Magic School Bus’ it was how to explain it to be exact and in a way that a child can understand and use, Degen said.
“And you can actually joke while you learn. She had a strange sense of what could be humorous.”
The series “The Magic School Bus” won a litany of awards and in 1994 it became an animated television show, broadcast in more than 100 countries, Scholastic said.
“Joanna Cole had the perfect touch to combine science and history,” said Dick Robinson, Scholastic President, President and CEO.
“Joanna’s books, full of humor and information in equal measure, made science easy to understand and fun for the hundreds of millions of children around the world who read her books and watched the award-winning television series.”
Tributes were also flooded online.
Cole’s other titles include “The Clown Arounds”, “Bony-Legs” and “Best Loved Folktales of the World”.
Cole was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1944. As a child, she loved science and her passion continued into adulthood.
“In my science books, including ‘The Magic School Bus’ books, I write about ideas, rather than just the facts. I try to ask a question, like how do scientists guess what dinosaurs were like? So I try to answer question while I write the book, “he said, according to the Scholastic quote.
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