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So You Want to Be a Police Officer
Linda Soules’s So You Want to Be a Police Officer is a visually rich career guide that gives young readers a surprisingly thoughtful look at what police work involves. The book spends most of its time on communication, judgment, community relationships, observation, de-escalation, and the everyday responsibility of being present when people need help. It walks readers through a typical workday, explains equipment and working environments, introduces the people officers work alongside, and explores both rewarding and difficult parts of the profession. The illustrations make the material approachable, while the short sections keep the book moving at a pace that fits its intended younger audience.
I appreciated the seriousness with which the book treats the human side of policing. Soules repeatedly returns to listening, fairness, trust, restraint, cultural knowledge, and the ability to stay calm under pressure. The discussion of mental health calls, crisis response, stress, and collaboration with social workers gives readers a broader understanding of what officers may encounter. The section on eyewitness testimony and wrongful convictions is especially notable because it introduces the idea that evidence and memory can be complicated, even when people feel certain about what they saw. That adds some welcome depth to a book written for children and helps connect police work with questions of responsibility and careful decision-making.
The handbook-style structure works well for the subject. Chapters on tools, qualities of a good officer, famous figures in policing history, fun facts, vocabulary, and practical exercises give readers several ways into the material. I especially liked the activities that encourage observation, active listening, learning about one’s neighborhood, hearing both sides of a disagreement, and talking to a police officer about the realities of the work. These exercises turn the book from something a child simply reads into something they can respond to and practice. The author’s closing note also gives the book a clear moral center by emphasizing that authority belongs to the community and carries an obligation to act with fairness, honesty, and accountability.
I’d recommend So You Want to Be a Police Officer most strongly for curious readers around the upper-elementary and middle-school years who are interested in policing, public service, criminal justice, or community safety. It would also work well for parents, teachers, librarians, and career-exploration programs because it gives adults plenty of openings for conversations about authority, trust, stress, ethics, and service. The book’s combination of colorful illustrations, straightforward explanations, career information, and reflective questions makes it especially suited to kids who like nonfiction that helps them imagine themselves in a future role. Soules describes the broader series as being designed primarily for ages 10 to 14, and this volume feels well matched to readers who are old enough to appreciate both the appeal and the responsibility of the profession.
Pages: 38 | ISBN : 978-1972766170
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
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 Surgeon
So You Want To Be A Surgeon, by Linda Soules, is an engaging and impressively detailed nonfiction guide for young readers who are curious about medicine. Written for children ages 10 to 14, the book takes readers beyond the dramatic television version of surgery and into the real world of operating rooms, medical training, anatomy, teamwork, and patient care. Soules explains what surgeons actually do, from diagnosis and preparation to the operation itself and the follow-up care that helps patients heal. The result is a clear, fascinating look at a demanding career that requires far more than steady hands.
One of the strongest parts of this book is how honestly it presents the long road to becoming a surgeon. Readers learn about the thirteen-to-fifteen-year path through college, medical school, and residency, as well as the thousands of hours of practice needed to build true skill. Soules also highlights the atmosphere of the operating room, including the cool temperature, bright lights, sterile field, surgical tools, robotic instruments, and precise communication among the medical team. These details make the profession feel real and understandable without oversimplifying it. The book respects its young audience by giving them serious information in language they can follow.
The book also succeeds because it shows the human side of surgery. Soules emphasizes that great surgeons need focus, stamina, confidence, compassion, and the ability to stay calm when something unexpected happens. I especially liked the section titled “The People You Work With,” where Linda states, “A doctor is never working alone.” This stood out to me because it shows young readers that surgery is not just about one skilled doctor making important decisions. It’s also about teamwork, trust, and communication. I appreciated how this section helps children understand that saving lives is a shared effort, and that being a great surgeon also means knowing how to work well with others.
Colorful and bold illustrations make the material even more accessible, helping readers picture the operating room, medical tools, and complex procedures. The ‘What You Can Do To Prepare Right Now’ section gives curious children practical ways to explore the field right away. So You Want To Be A Surgeon is educational, realistic, and encouraging. It’s an excellent choice for classrooms, homeschooling families, career units, and any child interested in science, medicine, or helping others through a life-saving profession.
Pages: 38 | ISBN : 978-1972766224
So You Want To Be A Waterslide Tester
So You Want To Be A Waterslide Tester, by Linda Soules, is an engaging and informative children’s nonfiction book that turns a dream job into a fascinating STEM lesson. At first, waterslide testing sounds like nothing more than riding slides all day, but this book quickly shows young readers that the job involves physics, engineering, careful observation, and a serious commitment to safety. Soules presents the work of waterslide testers as both exciting and important, helping kids understand that the fun they experience at a water park is made possible by people doing detailed behind-the-scenes work.
One of the book’s strongest qualities is the way it explains complex ideas in language children can understand. Readers learn about water flow, speed, surface friction, G-forces, hydroplaning, banking angles, and landing impact without feeling overwhelmed. The book also makes the science feel practical by showing how testers ride slides repeatedly, checking every curve, transition, and splashdown area to make sure the ride is safe for real kids and families. The day-in-the-life structure, from the morning briefing to the final safety report, gives the book a clear sense of purpose and helps readers see how much preparation goes into opening a waterslide to the public.
I’ve read many books in this series, and I always appreciate the inclusion of “The Hardest Parts of the Job” section because it shows that the book is honest about the challenges of each career rather than presenting only the fun parts. In this book, the line “Testing the same slide two hundred times is also as repetitive as it sounds” is a great example of how it balances excitement with reality.
The colorful illustrations add to the appeal and help keep the subject lively for younger readers. They make the technical information easier to follow while maintaining the playful energy of a book about water parks and slides. The glossary, fun facts, and hands-on activities are also valuable additions, especially for children who enjoy asking how things work or who are curious about building, design, and unusual careers.
So You Want To Be A Waterslide Tester is a wonderful choice for curious kids, especially those between the ages of 10 and 14 who enjoy science, engineering, theme parks, or learning about jobs they may never have imagined existed. It captures the fun of waterslides while emphasizing that safety and joy are connected, not separate. Parents, teachers, and librarians will appreciate how the book encourages curiosity, observation, and respect for quiet, careful work that keeps people safe. This is an entertaining and educational read that makes science feel adventurous, memorable, and fun.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B0H29FGGFX
So You Want To Be A Ballet Dancer
I found Linda Soules’s So You Want To Be A Ballet Dancer to be a thoughtful and refreshingly honest introduction to the world children step into each time they come to ballet class. This illustrated guide doesn’t present ballet as a simple dream of tutus, applause, and effortless grace. Instead, it begins where real training begins: at the barre, with repetition, discipline, alignment, and patience. For young readers ages 10 to 14, Soules explains ballet in a way that is clear and inviting without hiding how demanding the art form truly is.
What impressed me most was the book’s respect for the dancer’s body. Soules explains concepts such as turnout, pointe work, flexibility, strength, stamina, and injury prevention with enough detail to help children understand that ballet dancers are artists and athletes. I especially appreciated the attention given to tools of the trade, from pointe shoes and rosin to mirrors and the dancer’s own muscles. Young dancers often see the finished product on stage, but this book helps them understand the years of conditioning, correction, and quiet effort behind every polished performance.
The book also captures something ballet teachers teach in every class: technique alone is not enough. Soules explores musicality, emotional expression, stage presence, and the mental resilience needed to perform under pressure. She also introduces readers to the many people who make ballet possible, including choreographers, directors, physical therapists, and fellow dancers. The sections on ballet history, from the court of Louis XIV to modern stages around the world, help students see that each plié and pirouette belongs to a much larger artistic tradition that continues to evolve.
So You Want To Be A Ballet Dancer is an excellent starter guide for children who are curious about ballet, whether they are brand-new beginners or already dreaming of performing in productions like The Nutcracker. Soules’s tone is encouraging but realistic, which is exactly what young dancers need. She shows that ballet welcomes dedication, curiosity, and artistry, while also making clear that it requires hard work, sacrifice, and perseverance. I would gladly recommend this book to ballet students and their families because it gives children a fuller understanding of ballet as a language of movement, discipline, beauty, and storytelling.
Pages: 38 | ISBN : 978-1972766354
