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I’m a Roller Coaster Fanatic
So You Want To Be A Roller Coaster Designer is a fun, fast, and informative children’s book that takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most exciting engineering jobs imaginable. Do you have a personal connection to theme parks or engineering?
Yes, deeply, on both counts. I’m a roller coaster fanatic. My family plans vacations around theme parks. We compare notes on the launch sequence of every new ride. We have strong opinions about which coaster’s first drop is the best in the country, and we will defend those opinions vigorously. Theme parks are my happy place. A great coaster gives you real fear and real safety in the same instant — and someone designed that. They calculated the exact second your stomach drops, the precise moment your hands fly up, the last possible point at which the brake run can engage. I don’t see the engineering side and the fun side as two different things. They’re inextricably intertwined.
Q2: How did you approach explaining complex ideas like force, velocity, and g-forces in a way kids can understand?
The trick is to start with what kids already know in their bodies. Every kid who has ridden a coaster has felt g-forces, even if they have not heard the word. They know what it feels like when your stomach lifts at the top of the first hill. They know the press at the bottom of the loop. They know the floating moment in an airtime hill. The science is not abstract, because they have already experienced it. So the book starts with the feelings and then names them. Once “that press at the bottom” is connected to “two g’s of force,” the physics stops being a textbook concept and becomes something happening in their own body — something they have always known but never had a word for. Giving a kid the word for something they already feel is one of the most powerful ways to make science more accessible.
Q3: The illustrations capture the excitement of riding. Do you think visuals help kids connect more deeply to STEM topics?
Absolutely, and I think we sometimes underestimate how much. STEM topics get described as conceptual, but most of them are deeply visual at their core. Engineering is shapes meeting forces. Physics is bodies moving through space. Roller coaster design is literally the choreography of a steel structure interacting with gravity. When a kid can see the angle of a launch hill alongside the explanation of why that angle matters, the concept lands in a different way than text alone could deliver. And visuals open the door for a kind of learner who often gets left out — the kid who thinks in pictures, who builds before they read, who has been told their whole school career to slow down and use words. A good illustration tells that kid: this field was built for minds like yours.
Q4: What advice would you give to a child who wants to design roller coasters someday, and what skills or interests should they start developing now?
Ride coasters with your designer brain on. Most kids ride a coaster and feel the thrill. A future engineer rides the same coaster and starts noticing things: why does that turn bank exactly that way? Why does the sequence start with the big drop instead of saving it for last? Where is the brake run hidden, and how did the designer make you forget it was coming? Perhaps surprisingly, paying attention to the engineering does not ruin the ride. It makes it better. Once you can see the choices the designer made, every drop becomes a tiny conversation between you and the clever person who built this thing to thrill you. You ride harder. You laugh louder. You start clocking which parks have the most brilliant engineers, and you defend your favorites. Every ride becomes a free engineering lesson and a more thrilling ride at the same time. The formal training can come later: physics, mechanical engineering, sometimes architectural design. But the curiosity that fuels all of it is something you can start practicing the next time you are in line. Theme park engineering is one of the few careers where being a fan is genuinely useful preparation. Lean all the way in.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website
Before the first rider screams, before the first chain pulls the first car to the top of the first hill, someone spent years doing the mathematics of fear — calculating exactly how fast, how steep, how inverted, and how long, so the experience lands in the precise space between terrifying and safe. That calculation is not an accident. It is engineering at its most thrillingly human.
This book takes young readers ages 10-14 inside one of the most imaginative and technically demanding careers on earth — not the theme park guest version, but the real one. The years of physics, materials science, and computer modeling that happen before a single piece of track is laid. The specific discipline of designing for the human body — its limits, its thresholds, its capacity for joy and adrenaline — with the precision of a surgeon and the imagination of a storyteller.
Roller coasters don’t just appear. They are built by teams of structural engineers, ride mechanics, safety specialists, and experience designers working in careful coordination so that one ride, lasting ninety seconds, feels like nothing else on earth. Kids who are fascinated by how things work will find the real story here — the physics of g-forces and kinetic energy that make speed feel exactly right, the computer simulations run thousands of times before a single bolt is tightened, and the materials engineering behind track and structure that must perform flawlessly under millions of cycles of stress. This is STEM brought to life in the most fun, visceral way imaginable.
But this is also a book about creative vision — turning a mathematical model into an experience that makes people laugh, scream, and immediately want to ride again. It is honest about what the work costs, what it gives back, and why the people who design roller coasters say they have the best job in the world and mean it completely.
Inside, young readers will discover what a real roller coaster designer’s process looks like from concept sketch to opening day. They will explore the science of thrills — g-forces, velocity, momentum, and what they do to the human body. They will learn why safety engineering is the most creative constraint of all, dig into the history of coasters and the legendary designers who turned a wooden hill into one of humanity’s great inventions, and find out what young people can do right now to discover if this career might be their calling.
Honest, specific, and genuinely illuminating, this illustrated guide to roller coaster engineering does not talk down to young readers — it brings them all the way in. Because the kid who wants to know what this work is really like deserves a real answer, not a watered-down version.
For the reader who rides the coaster once for the thrill and once to figure out exactly how it works — and feels something shift. For the kid who builds things, takes things apart, and wonders how the wildest rides on earth actually stay on the track.
The greatest roller coaster ever built does not exist yet. Someone has to design it.
So You Want To Be A Roller Coaster Designer (Theme Park Engineer)
So You Want To Be A Roller Coaster Designer is a fun, fast, and informative children’s book that takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most exciting engineering jobs imaginable. This children’s book has plenty to offer younger children, older students, teachers, parents, and even curious adults. At just 38 pages, it’s a short read, but it manages to pack in a lot of fascinating information about what it really takes to design a roller coaster before anyone ever gets to enjoy the ride.
One of the book’s strengths is how clearly it explains the mix of imagination and science involved in roller coaster design. Readers learn that designers don’t simply dream up wild rides and hope they work. They use physics, geometry, computer simulations, force measurements, scale models, and careful calculations to make sure every hill, loop, turn, and drop is thrilling and safe. The book does a great job showing how classroom concepts like force, motion, momentum, velocity, and g-forces connect to a real-world career that many kids already find exciting.
The book also highlights the teamwork and responsibility behind the fun. Roller coaster designers work with engineers, manufacturers, construction crews, mechanics, safety specialists, and many others to turn an idea into a working attraction. I especially appreciated how much attention the book gives to safety, because it helps young readers understand that the most exciting rides are possible only because so many people are carefully checking every detail. The book also includes useful career-focused sections, such as tools of the trade, a day in the life, important qualities for the job, famous coaster designers, fun facts, a glossary, and ideas for what interested kids can do now.
The illustrations throughout the book are exceptional, as they are throughout every book in Linda Soules So You Want To Be A… series. My favorite scenes were the ones where people were actually riding the roller coasters. You can see the joy and excitement on their faces, which makes the book feel even more fun. I think kids will connect with those moments because they capture the feeling of being on a ride.
This is a well-structured, creative, and informative book for children who love roller coasters, engineering, theme parks, or simply learning how amazing things are made. The colorful artwork and short sections make it approachable, while the real-world details give it lasting educational value. It would be a great addition to a classroom library, especially for science units on force and motion, and it is also a wonderful choice for families with curious kids.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B0GXRH7RYG
