Linda Soules – författare

So You Want To Be A Ballet Dancer is an illustrated nonfiction guide that takes kids ages 10 to 14 behind the scenes of a career built on discipline, artistry, and an almost impossible standard of physical and creative excellence. If you love ballet — or even just wonder what ballet dancers actually do all day — this is the book that finally gives you a real answer.Most books about dance for young readers offer the highlight reel. This one starts at the barre and stays honest. You'll learn what rigorous training does to the body over years — how correct alignment becomes a dancer's natural resting state, how strength is built in muscles that never show, and how flexibility is developed in joints that must never fail. You'll discover why dancing on pointe requires far more than balance, why turnout is about anatomy as much as ambition, and how the physical toll and constant conditioning shape a career that begins earlier and asks more of the body than almost any other performing art.But technique is only half the story. Inside, young readers will explore the artistry that separates a good dancer from a great one — the musicality that comes from learning to hear not just notes but the architecture of a score, and the psychological resilience required to perform with full presence when the house is full and every hour spent in a studio comes down to what happens right now. You'll meet the team behind every performance: choreographers, directors, physical therapists, and fellow dancers whose behind-the-scenes coordination turns individual movement into a single living expression of music and narrative.The book also traces ballet's rich history, from the royal courts of seventeenth-century France to the legendary artists whose creative vision transformed it into one of the world's most demanding art forms. Children will see how the traditions they inherit in class connect to centuries of innovation, rebellion, and reinvention on stages around the world.Honest, specific, and quietly illuminating, this is a guide that doesn't talk down to its readers. It's written for the kid who watches from the wings and wonders what it would take to stand in that light — for girls and boys who sense that the beauty they see on stage is the visible half of something much larger. Whether your young dancer is just starting classes or already dreaming of a life on stage, these pages bring the full picture into focus.The barre is waiting. The music is about to begin. And somewhere in a studio with worn floors, a dancer is doing it again, doing it better, doing it one more time. Maybe that dancer is you.

You do not become a zookeeper because you like animals. You become one because you cannot imagine doing anything else.This illustrated nonfiction book pulls back the curtain on one of the most demanding and rewarding science careers a young person can dream about. Written for kids ages 10-14, it goes far beyond the surface of zoo life to reveal what animal care really looks like — the early mornings, the specialized knowledge, the deep responsibility of keeping wild creatures healthy and thriving under human care.What does a zookeeper actually do all day? It starts long before the gates open. Morning feeding rounds. Behavioral observations documented with scientific precision. Enrichment activities designed to challenge the minds of animals who evolved to hunt, forage, and roam. Health checks conducted on patients who cannot tell you where it hurts. Every task matters. Every detail counts. The animals are counting on you.But this book goes deeper than daily routines. Young readers will explore the science of animal behavior — learning to read the signals that tell a zookeeper whether a creature is content, stressed, curious, or unwell. They will meet the broader team that makes a zoo work: veterinarians, nutritionists, wildlife biologists, and conservation specialists all collaborating to protect species whose habitats are disappearing in the wild.Modern zoos are not just places to visit on a Saturday afternoon. They are frontline conservation organizations, running breeding programs for endangered species, funding habitat preservation, and contributing to scientific research that shapes how we understand and protect wildlife worldwide. Zookeepers are at the heart of that mission — and this book shows exactly how.It also addresses what kids wonder about most: How do I actually get there? What should I study? What skills do I need? What does the work feel like when it is hard — when an animal you have cared for does not make it, or when the job asks more of you physically and emotionally than you expected? The answers here are honest, specific, and never watered down.Illustrated throughout with real detail, this is STEM nonfiction that treats young readers like the thoughtful, curious people they are. No glossy simplification. No talking down. Just a clear-eyed, deeply respectful look at a profession built on science, patience, and an extraordinary commitment to the natural world.For the kid who already knows every species at the local zoo by name. For the one who watches the zookeeper as closely as the animals — and wonders what it would feel like to be on the other side of the glass.That world is closer than you think.

No one will see your face. No costume, no stage, no spotlight. There is a microphone, a script, and a booth the size of a closet. And from that closet, you will make someone believe in a dragon, a villain, a hero, a talking car — a character who exists nowhere in the physical world except in the sound of your voice.That is the magnificent reality of being a voice actor, and this illustrated nonfiction guide brings young readers ages 10 to 14 all the way inside it — not the cartoon version of the career, but the real one.Discover what voice acting actually demands: the years of vocal training before a performer ever books a professional job. The discipline of building a complete, emotionally alive character using nothing but breath, resonance, and imagination — no body language, no set, no scene partner to play off. Just the voice and everything it can do. You will meet the directors, sound engineers, casting agents, and animators who work in careful coordination so that the character on screen and the voice in the booth become a single living thing for the audience.This book covers the full range of voice-over work — from animation and video game characters to audiobook narration, commercials, and dubbing — and explains what each type of performance demands. You will learn how the human voice works as an instrument, how voice actors train it with precision, and how they protect it across a career that can span decades. You will explore the history of voice performance and the legendary actors whose characters became part of the cultural fabric of childhood for generations.But this is more than a career guide. It is an honest look at what the work costs, what it gives back, and why so many voice actors say the same thing: the moment a character they created makes a kid laugh, or gasp, or feel less alone — that invisible moment is worth everything.For the young reader who gives every character a different voice, every story a different sound, every room a running inner performance. For the kid who feels a pull toward something that lives entirely in sound, where imagination is the only special effect. Inside these pages, you will find out what it really takes — the vocal technique, the recording technology, the audition process, the creative fire — and whether this calling might be yours.Every unforgettable character began as silence. Then a voice actor opened their mouth. Maybe the next voice the world remembers is yours.Ages 10 to 14. Illustrated nonfiction. Careers and professions.

What does it really take to become a chef — not the television fantasy, but the actual, extraordinary, exhausting, creative truth?So You Want To Be A Chef answers that question honestly for young readers ages 10 to 14. This illustrated nonfiction book pulls back the curtain on one of the most demanding careers in the world and reveals every layer: the science, the sweat, the artistry, and the deep human generosity of feeding people well.Inside, kids will explore what happens in a professional kitchen long before the first guest sits down. You will follow the journey from curious young cook to trained chef — learning how culinary techniques are built across years of practice, how food science explains why ingredients behave the way they do, and how the chemistry of heat, fermentation, and flavor transforms cooking from guesswork into craft. Every chapter is grounded in real detail, from the physics of a perfect sear to the patience behind a slow-reduced stock.But this book goes beyond recipes and techniques. It explores the full range of the culinary world — fine dining, street food, baking, private cheffing, food research — and what each path demands and offers. You will learn about kitchen leadership: how a head chef coordinates a brigade of sous chefs, line cooks, pastry chefs, and porters with the speed and precision of a surgical team, making a hundred small decisions every hour while the dining room stays perfectly calm.You will also discover what young people can do right now to find out if this calling fits. The activities, habits, and ways of thinking that separate someone who loves to eat from someone who is ready to devote a life to cooking. The physical endurance the profession requires and how chefs sustain their creativity over a long career. The sacrifices and the rewards — told without sugar-coating, because kids who are serious about this dream deserve a complete and honest answer.This is nonfiction that refuses to talk down to its audience. It treats young chefs and future chefs with the same respect a mentor would — bringing them all the way inside the profession and trusting them to handle the truth.For the kid who tastes everything twice, who watches the kitchen instead of the dining room, and who already suspects that the best meal they will ever eat is one they have not made yet.

What if the next world-changing invention starts in the mind of a kid who hasn't built it yet? This fun, illustrated STEM children's nonfiction book takes young readers ages 10–14 behind the curtain of one of the most exciting careers on the planet — and shows them exactly what inventors really do, from first spark to finished creation.So You Want To Be An Inventor is a career book for kids who are done with the myth of the lone genius. Instead, it tells real stories — the ones where an idea starts as a restless question, gets tested through science experiments and failed prototypes, and slowly becomes something the world has never seen before. Kids learn how inventors, engineers, scientists, and designers work together to solve problems that everyone else decided were impossible.The science and engineering principles behind history's greatest inventions come alive here, not as dry facts but as fun tools young readers can understand and start using. Design thinking, creative problem-solving, hands-on activities, and the patent process that protects new ideas — it's all inside, explained with honesty and genuine respect for a young person's intelligence. This STEM children's book treats its audience like the future innovators they might actually become.What makes this career book different is what it doesn't do. It doesn't pretend inventing is easy or glamorous. It shows the cost — the late nights, the versions that don't work, the discipline of failing instructively and learning precisely why something broke. And then it shows the reward: that moment when a thing you imagined becomes a thing that exists. Every inventor featured in these pages will tell you there is no feeling like it anywhere.Kids curious about STEM careers will find a roadmap here, not a lecture. Kids learn what young people can do right now — the questions to ask, the experiments to try, the skills to build — to find out whether inventing might be their calling. They meet remarkable people who changed everyday life through relentless creative persistence and a refusal to accept that the world had to stay the way it was.This is a career guide built for kids who take apart toasters to see how they run, who sketch better versions of ordinary objects in notebook margins, who learn by doing and won't stop asking why. Vivid illustrations and specific, honest detail make every page feel like a conversation with someone who genuinely wants you to understand this work. Because children's natural curiosity about how things work is exactly where great inventors begin — and kids deserve a book that takes that curiosity seriously.The next great invention is already forming as a question in someone's mind. It might just be yours.

Forty seconds after the throttle goes forward, the ground falls away — and the kid who spent years dreaming about flight is finally a pilot.So You Want To Be A Pilot is for curious, smart kids ages 10 to 14 who do not just want to watch airplanes cross the sky. They want to know how flight actually works, what pilots really do, and what it takes to earn a seat on the flight deck. If your young reader has ever asked those questions, this book delivers real answers.Start with the science. You will explore the aerodynamics that lift four hundred tons of aircraft off the ground, the meteorology that pilots study so they can read dangerous weather before it arrives, and the navigation and instrument systems that allow them to fly when visibility drops to zero. These are not simplified facts stripped of detail — they are the genuine foundations of aviation, explained clearly and illustrated so you can see how every system connects.Then go deeper into the profession itself. You will follow the full arc of a pilot's career, from first solo flight through years of training and logged hours to the flight deck of a commercial aircraft. You will discover why crew coordination on the flight deck is a precise system, not a casual conversation. And you will learn about the physical and mental demands of the job — the rigorous standards every pilot must meet and maintain, flight after flight, year after year.This book also opens up the wider world of aviation careers most kids never hear about. Commercial airlines are only one path. There is cargo flying, bush flying, test piloting, and more — each with its own mysteries, rewards, and challenges. The stories of what pilots face in the air, from flights that go perfectly to plan to the ones that call on every skill they have ever learned, bring these careers to life in a way that is honest and completely compelling.You will also find practical guidance on what young people can do right now to start exploring aviation as a future career. Whether you are building model airplanes, studying weather patterns, or simply asking every question you can think of about how things fly, this book shows you that the path to becoming a pilot begins long before you ever touch the controls.So You Want To Be A Pilot is STEM nonfiction that does not talk down to its readers. It is specific, illustrated, and written for the kind of kid who wants the real story, not a watered-down version. A thoughtful gift for any young reader who feels the pull toward something vast, precise, and completely alive.The sky is full of invisible highways, invisible rules, and pilots who trained for years to navigate both. Maybe one of them will be you.

The script is memorized, the costume fits, and the stage is set — but none of that is the real work of becoming an actor.So You Want To Be An Actor pulls back the curtain on one of the oldest and most demanding performing arts careers on earth — not the red-carpet fantasy, but the real one. Written for young readers ages 10 to 14, this illustrated nonfiction guide takes kids and tweens inside the rehearsal rooms, audition halls, and theater stages where actors learn their craft from the ground up. It's honest, specific, and built for the curious mind that wants to know what this profession actually looks like before the applause starts.Inside these pages, young actors and aspiring performers will discover how real training works — the voice and movement exercises that turn a body into an expressive instrument, the script analysis that reveals what a character is truly saying beneath the words, and the drama techniques that let a performer live truthfully in someone else's circumstances. From stage to screen to voice work to physical theater, this book covers the full range of the acting world and what each path demands.But this isn't just a guide to technique. It's a book about resilience. Actors face rejection not as a rare setback but as the daily texture of a working life. Young readers will learn how performers build the emotional strength to audition again and again, how they prepare scenes and monologues with discipline and imagination, and why the people who stay in this profession say that when a performance truly lands — when the room goes still and something shifts — nothing else comes close.Whether your child has been cast in every school play since second grade or is quietly reading every part in every story they encounter, this book meets them where they are. It doesn't talk down. It doesn't oversimplify. It treats kids as capable of understanding the real demands of a career in acting — the physical, vocal, and psychological work that sits behind every performance that looks effortless.Comedy or drama, stage or screen, the greatest performance anyone has ever seen began with someone who was willing to go somewhere true. For the young performer ready to find out if that someone might be them.Ages 10 to 14. Illustrated nonfiction for kids who take their dreams seriously.

Somewhere right now, a space telescope is staring at a single patch of sky and tracking thousands of stars at once — watching for a flicker of dimming light so faint that one part in ten thousand counts as a signal. That flicker might be noise. Or it might be the shadow of a world no human has ever seen, crossing in front of its star hundreds of light-years away. Welcome to the real work of exoplanet hunting — one of the most exciting frontiers in space science.So You Want To Be An Astronomer and Exoplanet Hunter takes curious young readers ages 10 to 14 inside this extraordinary profession, not the Hollywood version but the real one. The years of physics, math, and patience that come before an astronomer ever points a telescope at the night sky. The painstaking art of finding new planets by measuring changes in starlight so small the human eye could never detect them. The long observation runs planned years in advance to gather photons that left their stars before humans existed. This is a career guide built on honesty and genuine wonder.Inside, you will explore how the transit method catches a planet's shadow crossing a distant star, how spectroscopy reads the chemical fingerprints of alien atmospheres, and how radial velocity captures the faint stellar wobble that gave away the very first exoplanet. You will learn about the space telescopes scanning entire sections of the sky and the mountaintop observatories perched above the clouds where astronomers work through the night collecting data on stars, planets, and galaxies far beyond our solar system.But this book does more than explain the science. It profiles the legendary astronomers who opened the universe to human understanding — including women who broke through institutional barriers to make discoveries that changed everything we know about dark matter, comets, and distant worlds. Three of the five featured scientists are women whose persistence reshaped the field.The most surprising fact in these pages may be this: you do not need a degree to start hunting for exoplanets. Real telescope data is publicly available, and citizen science platforms have already helped ordinary people without astronomy training confirm the existence of real planets orbiting distant stars. The book lays out practical steps you can take right now: learn the constellations, try a small telescope to spot Saturn's rings or Jupiter's moons, explore real datasets online, and start building the math and coding skills that professional astronomers depend on every day.A detailed day-in-the-life section walks you through a real observing night from dome opening at sunset through calibration, a twelve-target run, weather interruptions, and the morning data analysis that follows. Fun facts scattered throughout reveal the astonishing strangeness of known exoplanets — worlds where it rains molten iron, where glass flies sideways in screaming winds, and where double sunsets light up alien skies.Written in a warm, direct voice that trusts young readers with real science and real vocabulary, this book does not talk down to kids — it brings them all the way in. It blends stargazing inspiration with a space science deep dive, and an honest look at what it takes to turn curiosity about the night sky into a life spent exploring the universe.For the young person who looks up and does not just feel the wonder but immediately wants to know what is out there — and whether we might finally answer the biggest question in astronomy: are we alone?Ages 10 to 14. Illustrated nonfiction. Science and nature.

FINALIST — 2026 Literary Global Children's Book Awards (Adventure Category)Somewhere beyond the edge of every map, there are places no human has ever seen — and the next great explorer to find them might be a kid reading this book right now.So You Want To Be An Explorer is the ultimate guide for young adventurers ages 10 to 14 who feel the pull of the unknown. This isn't a fairy tale about treasure maps and pirate ships. It's an honest, illustrated look at what real explorers actually do — the years of scientific training, the physical preparation, the survival skills, and the mental toughness required to venture into environments that were never designed for human beings. From deep ocean trenches to polar ice fields, from uncharted jungles to the edges of our own solar system, this book takes kids inside the full range of modern exploration and the extraordinary careers it offers.What does an explorer's daily life actually look like? How do expedition teams — scientists, navigators, survival specialists, and local guides — prepare for months of fieldwork in extreme and remote places? How do explorers document their discoveries so that what they find becomes part of the permanent human record? And what does it feel like to stand somewhere no person has ever stood, or to understand something no one has ever understood before? These are the questions young readers are really asking, and this book gives them real, specific answers.Inside, kids will discover how explorers master geography, navigation, and survival science before a single expedition departs. They'll learn about the physical and psychological demands of operating in extreme environments — and how explorers prepare both body and mind to meet them. They'll meet remarkable figures from the history of exploration whose daring adventures expanded the boundaries of what humanity knows about its own planet. And they'll find out what young people can start doing right now to discover whether exploration might be their own calling.This is a book that treats kids as equals. It doesn't simplify the hard parts or skip over what the work truly costs. It brings young readers all the way inside the world of exploration — the fun of discovery, the weight of responsibility, and the deep rewards of contributing something new to human knowledge. Every page is illustrated with care, making the science, the geography, and the adventures come alive in ways that stick.For the kid who reads every map to its edges and immediately wonders what lies beyond. For the young reader who wants more than a dream — who wants to know exactly how to make it real. There are still questions no one has answered and places no one has reached. The next explorer to change what we know about this world is growing up right now.

Somewhere beneath layers of ancient rock, a dinosaur has been waiting sixty-five million years for someone to find it. This book is about the scientists who spend their lives doing exactly that — and what it really takes to become one of them.So You Want To Be A Dinosaur Hunter brings kids ages 10 to 14 face to face with the real world of paleontology. No shortcuts, no movie magic — just the fascinating, grueling, deeply rewarding science of uncovering prehistoric life. Young readers will learn how paleontologists read geological layers the way most people read books, how they use painstaking excavation techniques to free fossils from stone, and why a single bone fragment can rewrite everything we thought we knew about dinosaurs.The facts inside are specific and surprising. Readers will discover how fossils actually form, what ancient teeth and tracks reveal about creatures like T. rex and Triceratops, and how laboratory analysis transforms a chunk of rock into a scientific breakthrough. They will explore the history of legendary fossil discoveries that changed our understanding of prehistoric creatures — and learn why the dig that yields nothing can matter just as much as the one that changes everything.But this is more than a dinosaur encyclopedia or a collection of amazing species profiles. It is an illustrated guide to a real career, written with honesty and depth. Young readers will find out what physical endurance the fieldwork demands, what intellectual rigor the science requires, and what drives paleontologists to call themselves the luckiest scientists alive. They will also discover what kids can do right now — the skills to build, the questions to ask, the places to explore — to find out if this profession might be their future.Every page respects the intelligence and curiosity of its readers. This book does not simplify the science into something unrecognizable. It does not gloss over the hard parts. It brings young people all the way inside the work, because the child who dreams of hunting dinosaurs deserves to know what that dream actually looks like when it becomes a life. For the kid who has always been drawn to something ancient and vast.For the one who picks up every rock and wonders what might be hidden inside. The fossil has been there for sixty-five million years — waiting for someone exactly like you to find it.Ages 10 to 14. Illustrated nonfiction. Science careers, fossils, and the prehistoric world.

The pathogen is identified. The team begins searching for a target — a single protein on the virus's surface, the molecular handle the immune system can be taught to grab. Finding it takes patience, structural biology tools that can see a germ atom by atom, and a willingness to follow the science wherever it leads. And then comes the real work. Years of it. And somewhere on the other end of all that effort is a child who will never get sick from a disease that once killed millions.So You Want To Be A Vaccine Developer takes young readers ages 10 to 14 inside one of the most demanding and genuinely world-changing careers in all of science. Not the headline version — the real one. The years of immunology, microbiology, and medical research that happen before a scientist ever designs a vaccine candidate. The painstaking discipline of teaching the human immune system to recognize a threat it has never encountered, by presenting it with something that mimics the danger but cannot cause the disease.This book goes far beyond how vaccines work. It follows the entire journey — antigen design, laboratory science, preclinical studies, clinical trials across thousands of volunteers, manufacturing scale-up, cold-chain logistics, and the regulatory review that ensures every single dose reaching a clinic anywhere in the world is safe and identical. It introduces the team behind that work: immunologists, virologists, structural biologists, statisticians, manufacturing scientists, regulatory specialists, clinical researchers, and the people who navigate the intersection of medical ethics and public health.Young readers will also explore the history of vaccination — from the legendary curiosity that led to the eradication of smallpox and the dramatic decline of polio, to the decades of stubborn mRNA research that made the COVID-19 vaccines possible in less than a year. They will discover what it actually takes to build this career: the scientific rigor, the patience through setbacks and failed candidates, and the moral seriousness required when your work determines whether an outbreak starts or never happens at all.Illustrated and written with the honesty that kids this age deserve, this book does not talk down to its readers. It brings them all the way in. It explains how the immune system learns, remembers, and defends. It shows why vaccines are among the most powerful tools in the history of medical science. And it offers real guidance for young people curious about whether this STEM career might be their calling.For the kid who hears about a disease being defeated and does not just feel relief — they immediately want to know how it was done, and who did it. Every vaccine ever made began with someone who turned curiosity into discipline, ran the experiments, and stayed with the work for the years it took.Maybe that someone is you.

What if your job was preventing wars no one will ever know about?Somewhere in the world right now, it is the middle of the night, and a diplomat is on a quiet phone call nobody will read about tomorrow — preventing something that will never happen. That is most of the job. Diplomats work in the hopeful space between countries — listening, negotiating, and quietly building the agreements that hold the world together. Most of their work never makes the news. Some of it changes everything. This is the story of how international relations actually happen, told through the extraordinary tales of the people who made them possible.So You Want To Be A Diplomat is a beautifully illustrated guide for curious kids ages 10 to 14 who want to understand how the world really works beyond their own borders. It reads like the best nonfiction adventures for young explorers — surprising, vivid, and impossible to put down.Inside, you will walk through a real day in the life of a working diplomat, from the 6:30 AM cable traffic to the 10 PM encrypted call back to the capital. You will step inside embassies, foreign ministries, and the quiet hotel-lobby corners where history is actually decided. You will meet four extraordinary diplomats who shaped international relations forever — Eleanor Roosevelt, who chaired the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through three years of disagreement and was told as a young woman that she was too plain, too anxious, too earnest, and kept working anyway; Ralph Bunche, raised by a grandmother born into slavery and the first Black person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; Dag Hammarskjöld, the only person to receive the Peace Prize after his death; and Kofi Annan, who rose from junior staff to Secretary-General of the United Nations over forty patient years. Four lives that show exactly why their courage still matters today.You will also learn how a borrowed bus ride between ping-pong players cracked open over twenty years of silence between the United States and China, why pandas in foreign zoos are technically on diplomatic missions (with cubs born abroad recalled home like any other diplomat finishing a posting), what is hidden inside the sacred diplomatic bag that no country on Earth is allowed to open, and how a single mistranslated word shaped thirty years of the Cold War. These are the tales kids retell at dinner, carry into social studies class, and remember for years.But this is not just a history book. It is a guide to peacemaking and conflict resolution as real, learnable skills. It explores the qualities a diplomat actually needs — a sharp memory for names, the patience to listen when everyone else wants to shout, the discretion to hold secrets for a lifetime, and a strong stomach when your host serves hundred-year eggs or fish-eye soup. It treats young readers as the thoughtful, capable people they already are, with honest literary prose that never talks down.Whether your young reader dreams of a career in international relations, human rights, or the foreign service, or simply wants to understand how nations talk instead of fight, this book opens that door with warmth and intelligence. Teachers use it for middle school social studies units, Model UN clubs, school projects, and book reports. It is the kind of educational nonfiction adventure that belongs in every school library and every home where curiosity is welcome.The work of diplomacy is patient. The applause is rarely loud. But the world stays in conversation rather than at war because somebody chose to do it.Maybe that someone is you.

The hand that draws your eye is not the hand that matters — and that single idea is the gateway to one of the most fascinating careers a young person can explore.So You Want To Be A Magician takes kids ages 10 to 14 inside the real world of professional magic — not the mystery, but the craft. The thousands of hours of practice before a single trick is ever performed for an audience. The discipline of training hands, eyes, timing, and psychology all at once, because a great illusion is never just a technique. It is a story told so well that the audience chooses to believe it.This illustrated nonfiction book reveals what magicians actually do: the sleight of hand developed through endless repetition until the move lives in the muscles, the psychological principles that guide attention and shape perception, and the stagecraft and performance skills that let one person hold an entire room spellbound. You will discover how magic tricks that look easy and effortless on stage are built from layers of science, creativity, and relentless practice.Young readers will learn what a real magician's training looks like from first flourish to standing ovation. They will explore the psychology of misdirection — how performers use the science of the human mind as their primary instrument. They will meet the legendary figures who transformed street corners and parlors into theaters of the impossible, and they will understand the physical demands that make difficulty disappear before an audience's eyes.This is also an honest book about what the work costs and what it gives back. The solitary rehearsal sessions. The trick that falls apart and teaches you something no instructions ever could. And that precise moment when a spectator's face changes — genuine astonishment — which performers say is unlike anything else in the world.Written for kids who watch an amazing illusion, feel the wonder, and immediately need to know how it happened, this book treats young readers as equals. It brings them all the way inside the craft with clear, step-by-step insight into what it truly takes to pursue magic as a calling. The vivid illustrations throughout bring every concept to life, making even the most technical ideas accessible and exciting.The greatest illusion ever performed has not been invented yet. It is waiting for someone with the patience, the craft, and the vision to create it — and maybe that someone is you.

A scientist is not the person with all the answers — a scientist is the person who cannot stop asking the questions.So You Want To Be A Scientist is an illustrated guide for curious kids ages 10–14 who want to know what it really means to pursue a life in science. Not the simplified version. The real one — with all its rigor, its wonder, and its hard-earned rewards.Young readers will learn how scientists think, work, and discover. They'll follow the full journey from forming a hypothesis to designing experiments, analyzing data, and sharing findings with the world. They'll see how a single well-formed question can open doors that no one knew existed — and how a poorly formed one, no matter how brilliantly pursued, leads nowhere. That distinction matters, and this book takes the time to explain why.The science careers explored here span biology, chemistry, physics, neuroscience, climate science, and more. Each field demands its own blend of creative imagination and intellectual discipline. Readers will meet the remarkable scientists throughout history whose questions — and whose courage to follow the evidence wherever it led — reshaped our understanding of everything from cells to stars.This book also tells the truth about what the work requires. The experiments that fail before one succeeds. The peer review process that holds every claim to a standard before it earns the name of knowledge. The teamwork among researchers, statisticians, and fellow scientists that turns one person's discovery into something the whole world can build on. It's demanding, sometimes frustrating, and deeply rewarding in a way that nothing else quite matches.Written with honesty and warmth, this illustrated nonfiction book treats its young audience as the thinkers they are. It doesn't gloss over the difficult parts or dress up the science in costumes. It brings children all the way inside the work and lets them decide for themselves whether this might be their calling.For every kid who needs to know why things work the way they do. For the one whose curiosity runs deeper than any textbook can satisfy. The next great discovery starts with a question — and someone brave enough to chase it.

What if your dream job was riding waterslides all day — and it turned out to be actual science?It sounds like the most fun career in the world. And for thirty seconds at a time, it is. But before any waterslide opens to the public, someone has to ride it. Again, and again, and again. Someone has to feel exactly where the curve grows too tight, where the water layer goes thin, where a body shifts in a way a designer sitting in an office could never have predicted. That someone is a waterslide tester — and the work they do is anything but play.This career exploration guide introduces kids to one of the most awesome and surprising jobs on the planet. Part adrenaline, part physics, part quiet courage, waterslide testing is real engineering work disguised as a dream day at the water park. Your readers will discover what testers actually do on every ride — checking speed, water flow, G-forces, surface friction, and landing impact. They'll learn why that thin sheet of water rushing down the slide surface is the single thing standing between a thrilling ride and a second-degree friction burn. And they'll find out why testers have to ride the way kids really ride: sideways, arms crossed, holding hands in tubes, doing everything a ten-year-old would try on opening day.But this book goes deeper than cool facts. It's built around a central idea that sticks: safety and joy are not opposites. They are the same thing. A truly safe waterslide is one you can throw yourself into with complete physical abandon — and someone made that possible by doing careful, invisible, unrecognized work before you ever arrived.Inside, young readers will find a timestamped day-in-the-life log following a tester from the 8:30 AM briefing at a still-empty water park through certification runs and the final safety report at 4:30 PM. They'll meet Tommy Lynch, who spent four years and 108,000 miles testing slides at twenty resort properties across Europe, Egypt, the Caribbean, and beyond. A glossary breaks down profession-specific terms like banking angle, centripetal force, hydroplaning, flow rate, and transition — making this an educational resource that builds real STEM vocabulary. Hands-on activities let readers explore the science at home, from a backyard slip-and-slide experiment and water-flow demonstration to observation exercises at a real water park.This is a nonfiction career exploration book for kids ages 10 to 14, with insights and surprises that hold attention well beyond that range. It's written in direct second-person address — talking to your child not as a student, but as a future colleague being briefed for their first day. It belongs on the shelf of any kid who notices things other people walk right past, and any reader who has ever wondered what they might grow up to do if the answer didn't have to be ordinary.For every parent, teacher, or librarian looking to spark a conversation about careers where careful, quiet work saves lives — even when no one ever knows your name.

Every animated character you have ever loved started as a sketch in someone's notebook. So You Want To Be An Animator is the complete guide that shows kids ages 10-14 what it actually takes to bring drawings to life — not the glossy highlight reel, but the real work — from the first pencil stroke to the frame an audience finally sees.Animation is one of the most creatively thrilling and technically demanding careers in the arts. But what does an animator's day actually look like? What skills do they build over years of practice before they ever touch a professional production? And what can a young person who feels drawn to this world start doing right now? This book answers all of it with honesty, depth, and respect for the reader's intelligence.Inside, you will discover the foundational principles that every animator ingrains through relentless study and practice — squash and stretch, follow-through, timing, and the observational discipline of watching how everything in the physical world moves so you can make the impossible feel inevitable on screen. You will learn how character rigging, digital skeletons, and evolving software tools fit into a modern animation pipeline, and why technical fluency matters just as much as artistic talent.But this is more than a guide to craft. It is a book about what the career demands and what it gives back. You will meet the reality of working on a team of directors, riggers, sound designers, writers, and fellow animators — dozens of people making thousands of individual decisions over months or years to create a single seamless world. You will understand why creative resilience, patience, and visual intelligence are just as essential as drawing skill. And you will see how the history of animation, from its earliest pioneers to the storytelling medium it has become today, shapes every frame of the work being done right now.This is not a book that talks down to young readers or offers vague encouragement. It brings you all the way inside the craft and the career — from hand-drawn 2D and stop-motion to 3D computer animation, and the studios and teams where that work gets made. Whether you are a beginner filling sketchbook after sketchbook or someone already experimenting with digital tools, the stories and insights here will sharpen your understanding of what this path truly requires.For the kid who pauses a film to study how a character moves. For the one who fills every margin with drawings no one else has seen yet. The animator who will create the character a generation grows up loving is out there somewhere, sketching right now. Maybe that animator is you.Ages 10-14. Nonfiction. Careers and creative arts. Illustrated.

WINNER — 2026 Literary Global Children's Book Awards (Sports Category)Two hundred miles per hour. Forces strong enough to blur your vision. Split-second decisions that separate a podium finish from a wall. Welcome to the real world of race car driving.So You Want To Be A Race Car Driver is an illustrated nonfiction guide that takes kids ages 10–14 deep inside one of the most thrilling and demanding careers on the planet. This is not a book of fun trivia alone — though it is packed with jaw-dropping facts about the fastest cars, the most powerful engines, and the incredible vehicles that have shaped motorsport history. This is a book about what it actually takes to become a professional race car driver, told with honesty, depth, and genuine respect for young readers who want the real story.Start with the science. Modern race cars are rolling laboratories of physics and engineering. Aerodynamics press them into the pavement. Tires grip and release in ways that change lap by lap. Formula-style open-wheel machines and stock cars demand completely different driving techniques, and understanding why is part of what separates a talented kid in a kart from a future professional. Young enthusiasts will discover how drivers learn to feel what the car is telling them, translate that into precise language for their engineers, and use that communication to shave fractions of a second from every corner.Then there is the human side. Race car drivers are elite athletes. They endure punishing g-forces, extreme heat, and heart rates that spike above 170 beats per minute — for hours. This book explores how drivers condition their bodies, sharpen their reaction times, and train their minds to manage fear and focus simultaneously. It covers the mental preparation that lets a driver stay calm when a race that went exactly to strategy suddenly comes apart in the final corner, and pure instinct is all that is left.Inside, young readers will explore what real preparation looks like, from simulator learning to race-day strategy. They will meet the team behind every driver — the engineers, mechanics, strategists, and coaches whose work makes speed possible. They will trace the history of motorsport and the legendary drivers who redefined the limits. And they will find concrete steps kids can take right now to discover whether this might be their calling.Children who are drawn to cars and competition deserve a guide that takes their curiosity seriously. This illustrated book does exactly that — honest, specific, and written to light something up in the reader who already feels the pull toward the track.Some kids watch race cars scream past and feel the ground shake. Others feel something deeper — a future taking shape. This book is for them.

What does it actually take to dive to the bottom of the ocean — and do a job there? Not in a movie. Not in a cartoon. In real life, where pressure reshapes what your body can do and a single mistake has consequences the surface world cannot reach in time.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.

The call can come at any hour. By the time you arrive, the scene has already begun to change — evidence shifting, fragile traces fading, conditions that will never be exactly this way again. Welcome to the real world of crime scene investigation, where curious minds and careful science meet the highest possible stakes.So You Want To Be A Crime Scene Investigator takes young readers ages 10 to 14 inside one of the most demanding and fascinating careers in forensic science — not the glossy television version, but the true discipline behind it. This is a book about what crime scene investigators actually do: the methodical fieldwork, the scientific skill that takes years to build, and the mental steadiness required long before an investigator ever works a case that goes to trial. It is honest, specific, and built for kids who want real answers about a real career.You will follow the full arc of an investigation from the moment the tape goes up. Evidence collection techniques executed with a precision so practiced they become second nature. Documentation discipline that preserves a chain of custody strong enough to withstand challenge in a courtroom. The science of how the physical world records every action — fingerprints left on a surface, DNA transferred in a split second, trace evidence that tells a story no witness ever could. And the detective work of reading a scene before anyone else has thought to ask the right questions.Inside, young readers will discover how forensic science transformed criminal justice from witness testimony into evidence-based truth. They will explore the pioneering investigations that changed everything — and the specialized corners of forensic work, from forensic linguistics and odontology to the labs where fingerprint examination and DNA analysis happen under exacting standards. They will meet the team that makes justice possible: scene investigators, forensic specialists, medical examiners, detectives, and prosecutors working in careful coordination.But this is also a book about the mind behind the work. How investigators develop the focus, objectivity, and analytical thinking the job demands. What the career costs, what it gives back, and why the cases no one else could solve are the ones that make the work matter. The mental discipline required to move through chaos without disturbing it, to stay calm when the pressure to get it right is absolute.And for the curious kid who feels the pull? This book lays out what you can do right now to discover whether forensic investigation might be your calling. Hands-on activities you can try at home. Subjects to study in school. Ways to build the habits of observation and critical thinking that separate a great investigator from everyone else. Activities and hands-on thinking that make the science feel close enough to touch — because the best crime scene investigators started exactly where you are, noticing what everyone else walked past.Written for grades five through eight, So You Want To Be A Crime Scene Investigator does not talk down to its readers. It brings them all the way in. Because the child who wants to know what this work is truly like deserves a true answer — not a watered-down version of a career that demands everything.The scene is waiting. The clues are there. And somewhere right now, the investigator who will crack the case no one else could is just beginning to learn how to see. Maybe that investigator is you.

Computer programming is the closest thing the modern world has to magic — and this beautifully illustrated guide invites curious kids ages 10 to 14 to discover how that magic actually works.So You Want To Be A Coder (Computer Programmer) takes young readers behind the screen and into the real lives of the people who build the software running our world. What does a typical day look like for a software developer? What does it feel like to write your first line of code, watch it fail, fix it, and watch it come alive? This book answers those questions with warmth, honesty, and the kind of encouragement that makes beginners feel like they belong.Inside, readers will explore what coders really do all day — the tight loop of writing, testing, debugging, and trying again. They will discover the tools of the trade, from code editors and terminals to debuggers and Git version control. They will follow a programmer's typical day, from the morning standup to evening side-projects started for no reason except curiosity. And they will meet the pioneers who got us here — Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Margaret Hamilton, and Tim Berners-Lee — and understand how their logic, courage, and creativity shaped the technology we depend on today.But this is more than a career guide. It is a book about thinking clearly, solving problems step by step, and building things that matter. Young readers will learn the qualities that define every great programmer: patience with failure, curiosity about how things work, logical precision, and the comfort of saying "e;I don't know yet — but I'll find out."e; They will discover how coding connects to the games, apps, websites, and interactive projects they already use every day. They will find fun facts, a glossary of essential programming terms, and real, concrete activities they can start doing right now — no prior experience needed.Whether your child is curious about Python, Scratch, or simply wants to understand how software works under the hood, this book meets them right where they are. It is written for curious kids, but parents and teachers will find just as much to love. The language is clear and easy to follow. The illustrations bring every concept to life. And the message at its heart is one every young person deserves to hear.There is no gatekeeper to coding. No license. No degree. No permission required. A twelve-year-old working alone in a bedroom can write software that hundreds of thousands of people will use within a year — and some of them are doing it right now. A single piece of code, written once, can run a million times, doing work for people the writer will never meet. There is almost no other kind of work where one person can help so many others.Every programmer who ever lived started exactly where your child is right now — with a curious mind, an empty screen, and the small, brave act of typing the first line. This is the book that says: you do not have to wait to start building the future. The STEM skills your child learns here — logic, problem-solving, creativity, persistence — will serve them in any path they choose, whether they become a software developer, a designer, a scientist, or something no one has imagined yet.With warmth, wonder, and the quiet encouragement that has become the hallmark of the So You Want To Be A... series, this is the invitation your young learner has been waiting for.

FINALIST — 2026 Literary Global Children's Book Awards (Educational and Nonfiction Categories)What if the career you were born for hasn't even been fully invented yet? Robotics engineering is one of the fastest-growing STEM fields in the world, and the people shaping it are equal parts scientist, coder, inventor, and creative problem solver. This book shows kids exactly what that work looks like — no sugar coating, no science fiction, just the real thing.So You Want To Be A Robot Builder brings young readers ages 10 to 14 inside the daily life of robotics engineers: the mechanical systems they design, the code they write, the artificial intelligence they build into machines so robots can sense, learn, and adapt. It's a career where computer science meets hands-on engineering, where you might spend your morning debugging software and your afternoon testing a prototype that finally — finally — walks across a room without falling over. Every page is packed with facts, real-world detail, and the kind of specific information that makes this profession feel vivid and reachable.Kids will discover how robots actually get built, from the earliest design sketches to field testing in unpredictable real-world environments. They'll learn why robotics demands teamwork across disciplines — mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software development, and AI — and how each specialist contributes something essential. They'll explore the history of robotics, meet the visionary builders whose machines changed everything we thought technology could do, and understand why today's robots are more capable and more surprising than ever before.This is also a book about what it takes. The patience to start over when a prototype fails. The analytical thinking to diagnose problems you've never seen before. The creative tenacity to keep building something that has never existed. For kids who love science and coding, who get excited by engineering challenges, or who spend their free time figuring out how things work, this is the kind of career guide that doesn't talk down — it brings you all the way in.Inside, young readers will find activities and ideas that encourage them to think like real engineers: observe, question, experiment, build, and iterate. Whether your child already dreams of building robots or is just beginning to explore STEM careers, this illustrated nonfiction guide offers an honest, engaging, and genuinely illuminating look at one of the most exciting professions of our time.The robots that will change the world are still waiting to be built. All they need is someone with the curiosity and vision to create them.Ages 10-14. Illustrated nonfiction. Science, engineering, and careers for kids who want to build the future.

Somewhere beneath an ordinary field, an object last touched by human hands a thousand years ago is waiting to be found. The question is: could you be the one who finds it?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.

What does it really take to run into a burning building when everyone else is running out? If you've ever watched a fire truck roar past and felt something stir — curiosity, admiration, maybe even a spark of recognition — this book was written for you.So You Want To Be A Firefighter is a career exploration guide for kids ages 10 to 14 who want the truth about one of the world's most respected and demanding professions. No sugarcoating. No shortcuts. Just an honest, richly illustrated look at what firefighters do, how they train, and what drives them to keep showing up when the stakes couldn't be higher.Inside, you'll discover what a real firefighter's day looks like from dawn to well past midnight. Morning drills and equipment checks. The science of fire behavior — how flames move, how buildings fail, and why understanding both can save lives. Emergency medical response, hazardous materials training, and rescue techniques practiced again and again until they become second nature. This isn't a surface-level overview. It's the kind of deep, detailed look that treats young readers like the capable, curious people they are.You'll also learn about the tools and technology firefighters depend on, from thermal imaging cameras to the sixty-plus pounds of protective gear they wear into every blaze. You'll meet some of the legendary figures who shaped the history of firefighting and see how the profession has transformed over centuries into one of the most technically skilled jobs in public safety.But gear and gadgets are only part of the story. This book digs into the human side of the fire service — the physical and psychological demands that test every firefighter, the trust forged between crew members who share meals, quarters, and life-or-death moments, and the deep sense of purpose that keeps veterans coming back shift after shift. It explores why this career calls to certain people and what that pull actually means.Most importantly, it shows kids what they can start doing right now to explore whether firefighting might be part of their future. Fitness benchmarks. Volunteer opportunities. The mindset and habits that set future first responders apart long before they ever set foot in an academy.So You Want To Be A Firefighter is the book for every young person who wants more than a daydream — who wants a real, unflinching look at what it means to answer the call. Because the fire doesn't wait, and neither does the kind of kid who's ready to discover what they're made of.Ages 10 to 14. Nonfiction. Careers and Professions. Illustrated.

The ride lasts ninety seconds. The work behind it lasted seven years.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.

Every voice that has ever stopped a room started the same way — as a young person singing alone, wondering if the sound they heard inside themselves could become something real.So You Want To Be A Singer is the honest, illustrated guide that takes kids ages 10 to 14 inside one of the most demanding and deeply human performance careers on earth. Not the talent-show version. The real one. The years of vocal training, the science of how a singing voice actually works, and the discipline it takes to turn a body into a reliable, expressive musical instrument.Your voice is shaped by everything — your breath, your anatomy, the songs you love, every cold you catch, every emotion you carry into the room. This book explains the vocal technique behind that instrument: breath support, resonance, register, and placement. It shows young readers how singers learn to use their voices fully without damaging them, and why understanding the science of sound is just as important as feeling the music.But singing is more than technique. This guide explores what it really means to inhabit a song — to bring emotional truth to material you may have performed a thousand times, whether on a musical theatre stage, in a recording studio, or at an audition that could change your life. From classical and jazz to pop and session work, each style demands something different from the voice and the performer, and this book lays out what those demands actually look like.Young readers will also meet the team behind every great singer — vocal coaches, accompanists, sound engineers, and musical directors — and discover how these collaborators work together so that one voice, in one moment, can do something extraordinary. The book covers what a real singer's training life involves, from first lessons to professional performance, and what kids can do right now to explore whether this might be their calling.Written for children who deserve real answers, not simplified ones. The illustrations throughout bring every concept to life, and the tone never talks down to its reader. This is a book about what singing careers actually cost, what they give back, and why the singers who do this work say a great performance — the kind where the music moves through you — is the closest thing to pure human connection that exists.For the kid who sings everywhere — in the car, in the shower, alone in their room when no one is listening — and feels something shift. That voice is already yours. This book shows you how to build it.

FINALIST — 2026 Literary Global Children's Book Awards (Adventure and Sports Categories)What does it actually take to fall off a building for a living — and walk away every single time?Stunt performers are among the most skilled, disciplined, and invisible professionals in the movie industry. They train for years across martial arts, gymnastics, precision driving, high falls, wire work, fire, and water — mastering each discipline so completely that real danger is replaced by extraordinary preparation. And yet most audiences never think about them at all. That is the job done right.So You Want To Be A Stunt Performer opens this fearless, fascinating career for kids ages 10 to 14 who want to know how it really works. Not just the spectacular moments caught on camera, but the months of choreography, rehearsal, physics, and problem-solving that make those moments possible. This is nonfiction that treats young readers as equals — curious, capable, and ready for the real story.Inside, you will learn how fight choreography is designed across multiple combat styles so every hit looks devastating but no one gets hurt. You will discover how stunt performers train in precision driving and motorcycle work at speeds that would be catastrophic without total technical mastery. You will see how high falls are calculated so the physics of impact is never left to chance, and how fire stunts are performed with a calm built entirely on preparation rather than recklessness.You will also meet the team that surrounds every stunt — coordinators, riggers, safety specialists, and camera operators working together so that a three-second moment in a movie is planned and executed with surgical precision. You will explore the history of stunt performance and the legendary performers who shaped the action filmmaking we know today. And you will find out what young people can start doing right now — the sports, the training, the mindset — to discover if this career might be their path.Richly illustrated and thoroughly researched, this guide covers the science behind controlled danger, the physical and mental demands of the profession, and the real jobs and career steps that lead from training to the set. It is honest about what the work costs and what it demands, because kids who dream big deserve answers that match the size of their ambition.The greatest compliment a stunt performer can receive is an audience that never once thinks about them — because all they see is the story. If you are the kind of reader who watches the impossible and immediately wonders how it was done, this book was written for you.

Most people see a shark fin and swim the other way. You grab your underwater camera, your data tag, and your research question — and swim toward it.So You Want To Be A Shark Researcher is the ultimate guide for young readers ages 10 to 14 who want to know what it truly takes to study the ocean's most misunderstood apex predators. This is not the made-for-TV version of shark science. This is the real thing — patient, precise, and conducted entirely on the animal's terms. If your idea of fun is learning how a great white navigates an entire ocean basin, this book was written for you.Inside these richly illustrated pages, you will discover fun facts about shark biology that most adults do not know — how sharks have been perfecting their existence for four hundred and fifty million years, how tiger sharks hunt across geographic ranges that span thousands of miles, and why almost everything the world believes about these animals is wrong. From hammerheads to whale sharks, every word and every illustration guides you deeper into the real science behind each species. This is not a coloring book or a collection of mazes and activities — it is something far more valuable. It is an honest look at one of the most important careers in the ocean.But this book goes beyond facts and species profiles. It walks you through the physical demands of open-water research, the scientific rigor required to gather population data, and the urgent conservation crisis facing shark populations on a national and global scale. Sharks are disappearing faster than scientists can study them, and the researchers fighting to reverse that decline need sharp minds, steady nerves, and genuine passion. You will follow the full arc of the work — tagging expeditions, behavioral studies, laboratory data analysis, and the passionate scientific advocacy that shark conservation demands.What makes this the ultimate shark career book for kids is what it refuses to do. It does not talk down to young readers. It does not simplify the science into something unrecognizable. It brings you all the way inside the field and treats you as someone capable of understanding all of it — the geographic scope of migration research, the word-by-word precision of scientific reporting, and the real activities researchers perform every single day in the water. Among the many guides to marine life written for young people, this one stands apart because it tells the truth.For the kid who watches a fin cut the surface and feels not fear but a specific hunger to know more. The ocean's oldest predator has survived five mass extinctions. Now it needs something it has never needed before — someone to speak for it.

FINALIST — 2026 Literary Global Children's Book Awards (Educational)What if the most exciting career in the world was one nobody could ever know you had?Forget the movie version of spies with their flashy gadgets and impossible stunts. Real intelligence work is quieter, smarter, and far more fascinating. So You Want To Be A Spy (Intelligence Agent) pulls back the curtain on one of the most secretive professions on the planet and gives young readers ages 10 to 14 a genuine, no-nonsense look at what it actually takes to join the world of espionage. Part spy school crash course, part history for kids who crave the real story, this illustrated nonfiction book is packed with action, adventure, and the kind of truth that is way more gripping than fiction.This is a book about the real skills behind secret missions — the foreign languages that intelligence professionals spend years mastering, the analytical thinking that turns scattered clues into actionable intelligence, and the psychological training that teaches spies to read people the way most of us read books. It covers the history of espionage from wartime codebreaking operations and war-era spy networks that changed the course of entire nations to the modern intelligence community, where field officers, cryptanalysts, and geospatial analysts work together in careful coordination — most of them never known by name.Kids who are curious about how secret agents actually operate will find honest answers here. How do spies communicate without being detected? What does counter-surveillance training look like in real life? How do analysts sort through mountains of information to find the one detail that matters? And what kind of person thrives in a career where discipline, precision, and quick thinking are everything?Inside, young readers will discover what a real intelligence professional's training looks like — think of it as the ultimate spy school where language immersion, analytical tradecraft, and action under pressure are the daily curriculum. They will explore the science and psychology behind reading people, assessing threats, and understanding how the world's major players think and move. They will learn about the pivotal operations and secret missions that shaped the modern world. And they will find out what they can start doing right now — in school and beyond — to discover whether this career might be their calling.This is not a watered-down adventure story dressed up as nonfiction. It is a richly illustrated, deeply researched book that respects the intelligence of its readers. It covers the real costs of the work, the sacrifices it demands, and why the people who do it consider it the most consequential work they can imagine. The writing is fun, direct, and never talks down — because history for kids should be just as riveting as the real events it describes.For the kid who watches a room and notices what everyone else misses. For the young mind drawn to mystery, code breaking, and the hidden machinery that keeps the world turning. The world runs on information — and someone has to understand it well enough to protect what matters. Maybe that someone is you.

The best toy ever made feels like it always existed — but someone had to invent it. So You Want To Be A Toy Designer takes kids ages 10-14 inside one of the most creatively demanding careers in all of product design, and it does not hold back.This is not a simplified, watered-down look at a fun job. It is a real, honest guide to what toy designers actually do — the years of industrial design training, the child development study, the materials engineering, and the iterative prototyping that happen long before a single toy reaches a shelf. You will discover how designers learn to see the world through a child's eyes while solving complex engineering problems, and why that combination of imagination and technical skill makes toy design one of the most unique professions a young person can pursue.Inside, you will follow the full design process from first sketch to working prototype to safety testing. You will learn how designers draw on child psychology to understand how play shapes learning at every age. You will see how teams of engineers, creative designers, and manufacturing specialists work together to turn an idea into something a six-year-old picks up, plays with for hours, and refuses to put down. And you will meet the visionary inventors whose toys became the defining objects of childhood for generations.But this book goes further than most career guides for kids. It explores the real skills toy designers build — sketching, 3D modeling, materials science, understanding how small hands interact with objects — and shows what young readers can start doing right now to develop those same abilities. Whether you love to draw, build, tinker, or simply take things apart to understand how they work, this book helps you see how those instincts connect to a real profession.Illustrated throughout with detailed, engaging artwork, this nonfiction guide treats its readers as equals. It brings the same depth and honesty that boys and girls ages 10-14 and up deserve when they ask a serious question about their future. No talking down. No sugarcoating. Just a clear, fascinating window into the craft behind the toys you grew up loving.The toy that will define the next generation of childhood has not been designed yet. It is waiting for someone with the curiosity, the craft, and the joy to bring it into the world — and that someone might be you.