Blog Archives
So You Want To Be A Librarian
So You Want To Be A Librarian is an engaging and informative introduction to the world of librarianship. Written for children, the book challenges the outdated stereotype of librarians as stern people who only shelve books and tell visitors to be quiet. Instead, it shows librarians as teachers, researchers, problem-solvers, and champions of free access to information. Young readers learn that librarians work in many places, including schools, hospitals, archives, bookmobiles, children’s rooms, and digital information systems.
I loved the way the book explains the importance of libraries in everyday life. Librarians do more than help people find books; they listen carefully, answer questions, connect visitors with useful resources, and teach people how to recognize reliable information. The book’s focus on critical thinking and misinformation is especially valuable for children growing up in a digital world. It also presents the library as a living organization that must change and grow along with the community it serves.
The book is well organized and includes sections about the best, hardest, and most surprising parts of the job, as well as a typical day in the life of a librarian. Warm illustrations, fun facts, historical profiles, career questions, and a glossary make the information easy and enjoyable to explore. Readers are introduced to inspiring figures such as Pura Belpré, S. R. Ranganathan, and the Pack Horse Librarians, who carried books into remote areas of Kentucky. One minor weakness is that the book could explain more clearly that librarians are only some of the many important people who work in libraries.
So You Want To Be A Librarian is a fun, appealing, and educational book for elementary and middle-grade readers. It would be an excellent choice for classrooms, homeschool collections, family read-alouds, and children who enjoy career-exploration books such as the Who Was? series. Even readers who do not plan to become librarians will gain a greater appreciation for libraries as welcoming places of knowledge, comfort, connection, and community. Most importantly, the book encourages curiosity, kindness, critical thinking, and a lifelong love of reading and learning.
Pages: 40 | ASIN : B0H9PCQPGY
So You Want To Be A Teacher
So You Want To Be A Teacher, by Linda Soules, is an engaging and informative career guide for children ages eight to fourteen. The book begins with a powerful reminder that every doctor, astronaut, chef, engineer, and leader was once taught by someone. From there, Soules presents teaching as the profession behind every other profession. The author gives young readers an honest look at the patience, preparation, flexibility, and care required to help students learn and grow.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its realistic portrayal of a teacher’s daily life. Readers follow a teacher from the quiet classroom early in the morning through lessons, classroom challenges, and evening grading at home. The book celebrates the rewarding moment when a struggling student finally understands something, but it also discusses tiring days, disrupted lessons, and the work teachers complete outside school hours. This balanced approach helps children understand that teaching can be difficult while still being deeply meaningful.
The book is also filled with practical and age-appropriate information. Young readers learn about lesson plans, manipulatives, classroom management, teacher training, and the importance of asking thoughtful questions. They are introduced to many different teaching careers, including kindergarten, high-school science, special education, and robotics coaching. Profiles of influential educators such as Anne Sullivan, Jaime Escalante, Maria Montessori, and Confucius add historical interest, while the glossary, fun facts, and career-readiness questions make the book especially useful for home or classroom learning.
Soules writes in a conversational tone that respects young readers and never talks down to them. The colorful illustrations make the information approachable, although a few visual details may appear inconsistent or oddly shaped. Even so, the strong writing and thorough research make this an excellent introduction to education as a career. So You Want To Be A Teacher is highly recommended for children who enjoy helping others understand new ideas, as well as for parents and educators who want to encourage thoughtful career exploration. It is both a practical guide and a sincere tribute to the teachers who shape lives one lesson, question, and encouraging word at a time.
Pages: 42 | ASIN : B0H9CNJM5W
So You Want To Be A Psychotherapist
So You Want To Be A Psychotherapist, by Linda Soules, is another excellent addition to the So You Want To Be A… series. Rather than focusing on vehicles, technology, or specialized equipment, this career guide introduces children to a profession in which the most powerful tool is the ability to listen. Soules explains how psychotherapists help people understand their emotions and heal through careful, honest conversation. Written for readers ages ten to fourteen, the book treats children as thoughtful equals while presenting mental health and therapy in a warm, approachable, and respectful way.
The book offers a thorough look at what psychotherapists actually do, where they work, and what a typical day might involve. Young readers learn about the familiar two chairs, the tissue box, the fifty-minute hour, and the surprising “doorknob moment,” when a client reveals something important just as a session is ending. Soules also explores settings beyond the traditional office, including schools, hospitals, video appointments, and barns where therapists work alongside horses. Fun facts, practical listening exercises, a self-assessment quiz, and a kid-friendly glossary make the material informative and engaging.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its honesty. Soules doesn’t sugarcoat the educational requirements, licensing process, ethical responsibilities, emotional strain, or risk of burnout that can accompany this career. At the same time, these challenges are presented without discouraging readers. The book emphasizes the importance of empathy, curiosity, emotional steadiness, self-awareness, and self-care. It also introduces influential figures such as Carl Rogers, Mamie Phipps Clark, Virginia Satir, Marsha Linehan, Anna Freud, and Derald Wing Sue, showing how different people and ideas have helped shape the profession.
The warm, inviting illustrations and straightforward language make So You Want To Be A Psychotherapist accessible to younger readers while offering valuable insights for teenagers, parents, and adults. It’s especially well suited to the child whose friends naturally turn to them, the quiet listener who offers patience rather than judgment. The book may also reassure young people who feel nervous about attending therapy by showing that psychotherapists are caring professionals trained to listen and help. Realistic, encouraging, and deeply compassionate, this career guide invites readers to consider whether one of those two chairs in a quiet room might someday be theirs.
Pages: 40 | ASIN : B0H7GJDPJV
So You Want To Be A Journalist
So You Want To Be A Journalist, by Linda Soules, is an engaging and informative introduction to the demanding work behind every headline. Written for curious readers ages 10–14, the book moves beyond the glamour of television news to show journalism as a profession built on patience, courage, and persistence. Soules explains how reporters search for reliable information, ask difficult questions, verify facts, and communicate the truth clearly. By emphasizing that journalism can change laws, protect communities, and give a voice to people who might otherwise go unheard, the book presents the profession as both admirable and essential.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its clear explanation of what journalists actually do. Readers learn about different careers, including beat reporters, investigative journalists, foreign correspondents, science reporters, and sportswriters. Soules also describes the daily rhythm of a newsroom, from the morning news scan and pitch meeting to interviews, fact-checking, revisions, and an unmovable deadline. Practical details about notebooks, recorders, public documents, source protection, and Freedom of Information requests give children a realistic understanding of the tools and responsibilities involved. The book is honest about the difficult parts of journalism while still conveying the excitement of uncovering an important story.
Soules’ writing is accessible, inspiring, and well suited to young readers with short attention spans. She explains unexpected skills journalists need, such as understanding statistics, scientific studies, percentages, and community issues. The historical profiles of Ida B. Wells, Nellie Bly, Edward R. Murrow, and Gordon Parks show how determined reporters have helped change the world. Fun sidebars about carrier pigeons, the mistaken “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline, and Watergate’s secret source add humor and variety. The detailed, colorful illustrations reinforce the text and help readers imagine everything from a busy newsroom to a reporter covering City Hall.
So You Want To Be A Journalist encourages children to ask whether something is true rather than simply accepting what they hear. It promotes accuracy, fairness, curiosity, and unbiased reporting while showing the importance of both local journalism and major international news organizations. Young readers are also given practical ways to begin preparing now, including reading the news, practicing clear writing, following community events, and asking thoughtful questions. This is an excellent resource for school libraries, home bookshelves, and middle school writing classes. It offers a complete and honest look at journalism while inspiring future writers and researchers to approach the world with courage, grit, and a commitment to the truth.
Pages: 39 | ASIN : B0H72BCNWV
Education and Adventure
So You Want To Be A Treasure Hunter takes young readers inside the world of archaeology, focusing on the tools and dating methods in reader-friendly terms children can understand. Did you learn anything that surprised you in your research?
The biggest surprise was learning that the most responsible thing an archaeologist can do is sometimes nothing at all. I had assumed the discipline was about digging more, finding more, knowing more. It turns out the professional consensus today is to leave most sites untouched — because every excavation destroys the very context it studies, and the scientists who will read these sites 50 years from now will have tools no one alive today has imagined. That kind of restraint, that quiet deference to the future, struck me as profoundly humble in a way I hadn’t expected from a field I associated with adventure.
The other surprise was how many of the most famous discoveries were complete accidents. The Rosetta Stone was found by a French officer digging a fort foundation. The Terracotta Army was found by farmers digging a well. Mary Leakey’s hominid footprints arose from a paleontologist ducking a flying piece of elephant dung. The myth of the methodical archaeologist cracking ancient mysteries is partly true, but the messier truth is that the past has a habit of stepping out and waving.
Why do you think so many children are naturally fascinated by buried objects and ancient history?
Children haven’t yet been trained out of believing the world holds secrets. An adult walks past a patch of disturbed dirt; a child crouches down. An adult sees a rusted button in the gutter; a child wonders who lost it. That instinct — to suspect that the ordinary world is hiding something magical — is exactly the instinct archaeology rewards. It is one of the few fields where the question that comes most naturally to a seven-year-old (“what’s under there?”) is also the question that drives world-class research, and where the answer is uncertain until somebody picks up a brush and finds out.
I also think children are drawn to the past because they can sense, without anyone explaining it, that someone else has lived here before. The idea that another child once played in this field, dropped this clay marble, scratched their name into this brick — it doesn’t feel abstract to them. It feels like a friend they haven’t met yet. Archaeology gives them the tools to reach back and say hello. It tells them they are part of a very long line of people who have wondered what the world is and tried to leave it slightly more interesting than they found it.
There is one more piece, and it might be the most important. Children live in a world where almost everything has already been explained to them by an adult. Archaeology is one of the rare subjects where the adults openly admit they don’t know — where a Bronze Age civilization can vanish without explanation, where a script can sit undeciphered for centuries, where a sealed tomb might still hold a queen no one has ever heard of. To a child, the existence of genuine mystery — mystery that even grown-ups haven’t solved yet — is electrifying. It means there’s still room. It means the work isn’t finished. And it means that the curious child reading the book in their bedroom tonight might, one day, be the person who finally figures out what nobody else could.
The book balances education with adventure very well. How important was it that learning still felt exciting and imaginative?
Essential — but I don’t think of education and adventure as needing to be balanced like flour and sugar in a recipe. The adventure is already inside the truth. The writer’s job is to find it and get out of its way.
Archaeology is a vivid example. The trowel really does strike something a thousand years lost. The first human eyes on an object in fifteen centuries really are yours. A pollen grain trapped in a clay pot really can tell you what someone ate for dinner during the reign of an emperor. None of that needs dressing up. The excitement isn’t a decorative element a writer sprinkles on top of dry information to make it palatable — it is embedded in the actual work, woven into how the discoveries are made and what they reveal.
What I try to do is find the moments where the truth itself is already astonishing and let those moments carry the explanation. The point of the writing is to choose, out of everything that could be said about a profession, the details that already carry the charge — and then to render those details cleanly enough that the charge actually reaches the reader.
The other half is not to flatten what’s already vivid. I think children’s nonfiction often goes wrong by trying to make work sound easier, simpler, or safer than it really is. Kids see through that instantly. They can tell when a book trusts them and when it’s hedging. What I aim for, in every title in this series, is to meet a child eye to eye — to give them the real texture of a job, including the hard parts, and trust that the wonder will hold. It almost always does. The world is more interesting than the watered-down version of it, and children, more than anyone, already suspect this.
If you could take young readers to one archaeological site anywhere in the world, where would you choose and why?
Pompeii. Not because it’s the most beautiful site in the world, but because it’s the one where archaeology’s central insight lands with the most force: every life mattered.
When Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, it sealed an entire ordinary morning in volcanic ash. Bread still sat in the oven. Dogs were still leashed in their courtyards. A child had set down a wooden toy minutes before the world ended. None of these people made the history books. They weren’t emperors or generals. But 2,000 years later, archaeologists know what they had for breakfast, what they wrote on their walls, who they loved, who owed them money. Pompeii is the proof that ordinary lives are not lost — they are simply waiting for someone patient enough to read them.
I would want a child to stand on those streets and feel, in their own bones, that one day someone might walk where we walk and wonder about us with the same tenderness. That, more than anything, is what I hope archaeology teaches the next generation to carry forward.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
So You Want To Be A Treasure Hunter takes young readers inside the real world of archaeology — not the movie version with booby traps and rolling boulders, but something far more fascinating. This is the story of how actual treasure hunters work: the years of study, the painstaking science, and the moment when a fragment of something ancient emerges from the earth and rewrites everything we thought we knew.
What does a real archaeologist do all day? How do they know where to dig? What happens when they uncover an artifact that has been buried for centuries — and how do they keep it from crumbling the moment it touches open air? This book answers those questions honestly, with vivid illustrations and writing that never talks down to its readers.
Inside, you will discover how ground-penetrating radar and remote sensing let scientists see beneath the surface before a single shovelful of soil is moved. You will learn how stratigraphic layers — the earth’s own timeline — help archaeologists read thousands of years of history recorded in the ground itself. You will explore the careful science of artifact conservation, the physical demands of fieldwork, and the intellectual detective work that turns a broken pottery shard into a window on a lost civilization.
This is also a book about careers — what it actually takes to become an archaeologist, from the geology and history you study in school to the fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and scholarly research that fill a working scientist’s life. It covers the history of archaeology itself, from the early days of treasure hunting to the rigorous science it has become, and the remarkable people who made that transformation happen.
But most of all, this is a guide for the kid who picks up every arrowhead, every old coin, every fragment of something mysterious — and feels not just curiosity but a deep hunger to know the story behind it. The kind of kid who looks at an ancient civilization and wants to understand the people who lived there, not just the objects they left behind.
The past is not gone. It is buried. And the next great archaeological discovery is still out there, waiting beneath the ground for someone who knows how to look.
Counterintuitive Truths
So You Want To Be A Deep Sea Diver is an illustrated guide that shows young readers that deep-sea diving is both an adventure and a serious, disciplined career. What is the most rewarding aspect of writing guides for young readers?
Children are the most honest readers. Adults will keep going out of politeness, or because they paid for the book, or because someone gave it to them. Children won’t. If a page bores them, you’ve lost them, and no amount of well-meaning framing will win them back. That’s not a problem; it’s a gift. It forces a writer to be useful on every page, to trust the reader’s intelligence, to leave out the throat-clearing that fills so much adult nonfiction.
The most rewarding part, though, is knowing that somewhere a child is sitting cross-legged on a bedroom floor, holding one of these books, reading about a job they didn’t know existed three days ago — and a small door is opening inside them. Maybe it stays open. Maybe they grow up and become the deep-sea diver, the archaeologist, the dinosaur hunter. Maybe they don’t, and the book just plants the idea that the world contains more possibilities than any one childhood can hold. Either outcome is enough.
Were there scientific concepts that were especially difficult to translate for younger readers without oversimplifying them?
The hardest one was the physics of breathing at depth — the strange truth that the same air you breathe safely at the surface begins to behave like a drug if you go deep enough. Nitrogen narcosis is one of the most peculiar phenomena in human physiology, and I wanted children to understand that, not just nod past it.
The second hardest was explaining why technical divers at extreme depth breathe gas mixtures with only three percent oxygen — a mixture that would put a person to sleep at the surface. The metaphor I landed on was a lock and a key: the gas has to match the depth exactly. Pressure changes the lock, and the gas has to change with it.
What I’ve learned, again and again across this series, is that children handle counterintuitive truths better than most adults assume. They don’t need the science softened, but they need it told well (which can be a challenge).
Notably, my first draft of this book was much drier than what eventually went to press, because in my attempts to delve into the science, I let safety and risk take over the narrative. The protocols are real, and they matter — but a book that leads with caution buries the very thing that makes a child want to learn the caution in the first place. If the child does not feel the wonder first and understand the draw, the precautions are just rules, and rules without reasons are the fastest way to lose a young reader. So I started over. The redraft was about putting the beauty back where it belonged: at the front of the story, where it lives in real life.
Was there one behind-the-scenes role in deep-sea operations that surprised you most?
The standby diver. On any serious dive operation, there is one person who suits up in full gear at the start of the dive and stays that way the entire time — fins, tank, regulator, ready to enter the water inside seconds. They (generally) never get to make the dive. Their job, as I came to think of it, is to be a goalkeeper: alert, watching, prepared, and hoping with everything in them never to be called.
I love that role because it captures something children don’t always learn from the stories they’re told about heroism. The standby diver doesn’t get the photograph. They don’t get the discovery. They don’t even get wet on most days. And yet without them, the dive doesn’t happen, because no responsible team enters dangerous water without someone ready to come after them.
That is one of the best lessons the ocean teaches: being ready is its own job. Some of the most important people in any operation are the ones whose value is measured by what didn’t go wrong.
What do you hope this book teaches children about adventure — that it is not only excitement, but preparation, teamwork, and learning how to face the unknown?
Yes — and one thing more. I hope it teaches children that fear is not the enemy. Panic is.
That distinction is one of the oldest lessons in diving, and it’s one I most hoped kids would carry out of this book and into the rest of their lives. Fear keeps you sharp; it tells you something matters. Panic makes your body move before your brain can stop it. The difference between the two is learning and training — the willingness to spend years preparing for a moment that might last seconds. A diver who trusts their training can be afraid and still safe. A diver who doesn’t can be unafraid and in real trouble.
Adventure, in the deep-sea diver’s life, is not the opposite of preparation. Preparation is what makes the adventure possible. I’d love for every child reading this book to grow up understanding that — for diving, and for everything else.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
So You Want To Be A Deep Sea Diver is an illustrated nonfiction guide for young readers ages 10 to 14 who want the true, complete answer to that question. It follows the path from a kid’s first fascination with the deep ocean all the way through open water certification, advanced dive training, saturation techniques, and the most extreme underwater operations on earth — welding, construction, salvage, scientific research, and marine exploration in conditions most people cannot imagine.
Inside, you will discover the real science of deep diving: how pressure works on the human body, why the wrong gas mixture at depth can be fatal, how decompression keeps divers alive, and what it means to live in a pressurized chamber for weeks while working hundreds of meters below the surface. These are not simplified facts stripped of their meaning. This is the actual physics and physiology, presented clearly and honestly for readers who deserve more than a surface-level overview.
You will also explore the world divers enter — a place of crushing cold, near-total darkness, and strange deep sea creatures and ocean animals that thrive where sunlight never reaches. You will learn about the teams of dive supervisors, saturation technicians, and support crews who make every descent possible, and the absolute calm that divers must bring to emergencies that can only be resolved in slow motion, because panic at depth costs lives.
This book does not talk down to kids. It brings them all the way in — into the training, the discipline, the wonder, and the weird and extraordinary reality of a career spent in the deepest places human beings can go. It is honest about the difficulty, specific about the science, and deeply respectful of the young reader who feels the pull toward something most people will never experience.
Most of the ocean remains unseen by human eyes. The divers who go deepest are going somewhere almost no one has ever been. Maybe one day, that diver will be you.
So You Want to Be A Candy Scientist
So You Want to Be A Candy Scientist is a delightful and informative children’s book that turns candy into a gateway for scientific discovery. Written for curious young readers, the book explores the fascinating work of candy scientists, showing how chemistry, creativity, and problem-solving come together to make the treats kids know and love. From gooey caramels and crunchy lollipops to chocolate that melts just right, Soules explains how small changes in temperature, texture, and ingredients can completely transform the final product.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is how accessible and engaging it makes STEM concepts feel. Rather than reading like a textbook, the book feels conversational and inviting, helping readers understand topics such as sugar stages, chocolate tempering, sour candy chemistry, and the science behind color and flavor. Young readers learn that a lollipop is technically glass, cotton candy is mostly air, and chocolate gets its satisfying snap from carefully formed crystals. These fun facts make the science memorable while encouraging children to keep asking “why.”
Author Linda Soules also does an excellent job introducing the real people and teamwork behind candy making. Readers meet pioneers such as Harvey Wiley, Milton Hershey, and Rebecca Robbins, whose discoveries helped shape candy safety, shelf-stable chocolate, and food coloring research. The book highlights that being a candy scientist is not just about tasting sweets all day; it takes patience, careful testing, communication, and the willingness to try again when experiments fail. This career-focused angle makes the book especially useful for classrooms, STEM lessons, and career exploration units.
The hands-on experiments and reference materials at the end make this book even more valuable. Activities such as growing rock candy, making edible sugar glass, and testing chocolate snap allow children to turn their own kitchens into mini laboratories. The colorful illustrations, clear explanations, glossary, and next-step resources all work together to inspire curiosity long after the final page. So You Want To Be A Candy Scientist is a fun, educational, and inspiring read for families, teachers, and young learners who want to discover how science helps make the world a little sweeter.
Pages: 38 | ISBN : 978-1972766590
So You Want To Be A Fashion Designer
So You Want To Be A Fashion Designer, by Linda Soules, is an inspiring and highly engaging introduction to the world of fashion design for young readers. Written for kids ages 10 to 14, this illustrated guide follows the creative journey of a garment from the first rough sketch to the runway. Soules presents fashion as far more than glamorous clothes; she shows it as a form of communication, identity, problem-solving, and wearable art.
I loved how the book balances the excitement of fashion with the realities of the profession. Readers learn that designers must think like artists, engineers, storytellers, material scientists, and problem-solvers. The book explores trend forecasting, fabric choices, sketching, sewing, garment production, and the teamwork involved in bringing a collection to life. It also doesn’t ignore the more difficult parts of the industry, including tight deadlines, copied designs, sustainability concerns, waste, and the importance of fair treatment for workers.
Soules fills the book with fascinating history, memorable facts, and stories of creative visionaries such as Coco Chanel, Virgil Abloh, and Issey Miyake. Young readers will be surprised to learn details such as the origins of high heels and the extraordinary amount of handwork that can go into a single haute couture gown. The hands-on activities are especially valuable, encouraging readers to start a sketchbook, drape fabric, redesign or repair garments, and begin thinking like designers right away. The glossary and “The Most Important Qualities of a Fashion Designer” sections make the book feel practical.
This is much more than a simple career guide. Linda Soules writes with warmth, encouragement, and respect for her young audience, never talking down to them while still making complex ideas easy to understand. The vibrant illustrations and lively descriptions make studios, fabrics, and runways feel vivid and exciting. So You Want To Be A Fashion Designer is an excellent choice for creative kids, aspiring artists, and anyone curious about how clothing can help people feel seen, confident, and valued. It is educational, realistic, and wonderfully inspiring.
Pages: 38 | ISBN : 978-1972766347
