So You Want To Be A Scientist is the latest entry in the “So You Want To Be A…” series by Linda Soules, an illustrated career-exploration line for young readers that now spans nearly 200 titles, covering everything from astronauts to zookeepers. I’m reviewing this book alongside another entry in the series, So You Want To Be A Professional Athlete, as a dual look at how the series handles two very different career paths. The two books share a close structural template and are relatively short, which would surely make reading a few of them together a good idea for kids.
The book opens with the inspiring remark that if a child has ever turned over a rock to see what’s underneath, they’ve already done fieldwork. From there it walks through the incredible history of scientific discovery, using specific, well-chosen episodes. These include Alexander Fleming’s overnight petri dish and the mold that became penicillin, Percy Spencer’s melted pocket chocolate bar that led to the microwave, and chemist Stephanie Kwolek’s 1965 batch of “wrong-looking” cloudy plastic that everyone told her to throw out, which she tested anyway and which became Kevlar.
Inspiration for younger kids is where this book really earns its keep, as well as showing them learning can be fun, much like the Horrible Histories series did for me when I was a child. There’s the trivia of the “Fun Facts” section, which includes such facts as CERN accelerates protons to 99.9999991 percent of the speed of light, the uncoiled DNA from a single human cell would stretch to the sun and back more than sixty times, and scientists have revived bacteria found dormant in 250-million-year-old salt crystals. But the book goes further than random trivia. The book closes with a brief set of italicized questions a scientist actually asks themselves and a “What You Can Do To Prepare Right Now” checklist that points kids toward real citizen-science projects like counting birds for Cornell’s eBird or classifying galaxies through Galaxy Zoo.
So you want to be a scientist. Good. Because you already are one.
Nonetheless, the book is honest about the less glamorous parts of the job, without being overly discouraging for younger readers’ dreams, from Thomas Edison’s 6,000 failed filament materials to the months-long peer review cycles that can end in rejection after extensive revision. The middle section gets a tad more specific about the mechanics of the job, such as explaining that psychology studies replicate only about six times in ten and cancer studies fewer than half the time, using that as a teaching moment about why science is a slow, collective process. It also introduces kids to beloved figures like Marie Curie, Carl Sagan, and Tu Youyou by name, giving each a page-length account.
The book’s biggest asset is its educational nature and simple, accessible writing for kids. It has plenty of real names, real numbers, real dates, rather than vague gestures at “science is cool.” It introduces a demanding career without ever talking down to its readers. The illustrations deserve real credit too. They may not all be human-made, but the author is transparent regarding that in the “about section”, and they do a good job bringing the book to life, and bringing science alive in a way that plain text alone couldn’t manage. Either way, the good thing is if you or your child are not interested in pursuing life as a scientist, there are plenty of other career entries in the series to read and enjoy.
On the downsides, the small font and lack of colourful or varied typography feel less suited to less advanced younger readers. In my opinion, the book also might have benefited from a bit more space distinguishing the major branches of science from one another, with a clearer sense of what a physicist’s day looks like next to a biologist’s or a chemist’s, rather than treating “scientist” as one largely interchangeable role. That said, the full glossary at the back works in the book’s favor, and the short length is also ideal for kids with low attention spans who struggle to finish books.
Taken as a whole, So You Want To Be A Scientist makes a technical, often slow-moving career feel like an exciting life path to a child without lying to them about the tedium involved. It doesn’t oversell the glamour of discovery, and it doesn’t undersell the patience the work demands, but it could easily inspire young kids. It’s a book I can easily imagine finding in a school library as a child, and going on to become the next Stephen Hawking.
Final verdict: For fans of Ada Twist, Scientist and the Scientists in the Field series, this book would be a great choice for adult scientists looking to teach their kids about their professions, or young people already thinking about careers. A perfect pick for households with a kid who asks “why” one too many times.
You can get your copy of So You Want To Be A Scientist by Linda Soules here!
