In an earlier blog post, I wrote about how many science-related books I found for young children. At the time, I thought any project to write new books was unnecessary. However, I have reconsidered.

Who sees and knows about scientists?

If you do not work at a university or are not yourself a STEM professional, how many scientists do you see each week? And how many do you see actually doing scientific activities in some way? My guess is that the answer is pretty small for most people. I think that’s true for children as well. Kids see teachers, storekeepers, first responders, truck drivers, business people and many others. They see them in real life and on television/videos. However, scientists acting in their roles as scientists are not very visible in any medium or real life.

A different kind of science book for kids

Based on the idea that scientists and what they do are hidden, I think there is a need for science books for kids that show what scientists do. I don’t mean textbooks, but fiction, in picture books, with plots and twists and all the good stuff, but featuring scientists and their work.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, there are already plenty of books that show the science, but not about who made the observations, measurements, came up with the theories and tested them.

Science biography: Do these books already exist?

In a word, yes. However, there are gaps.

When I first got this idea of children’s books about scientists, I went online and found a group of local children’s books writers. One of them was gracious enough to talk to me about the project. She questioned my premise, suggesting that there were plenty of biographies of scientists for children.

I went on Amazon, as one does, and indeed found such biographies. The first thing I did was purchase one, so I could see if it really did talk about what the scientist did. The book, Shark Lady, by Jess Keating and illustrated by María Álvarez Miguens, is absolutely fantastic. It was all I hoped for regarding showing kids how a field scientist worked.

Where are the gaps?

While Shark Lady is a great book, I wondered if more of the biographies related to animals. I think kids do find animals fascinating. I know I do. So maybe there were plenty of books about animal scientists, but not so many about the other sciences.

I found the top 100 best-selling children’s science-related biography books on Amazon. From these 100, I discarded anthologies, as these would have at most a page or two on each scientist. I also discarded a few I did not consider scientists, such as aviators. Pilots and others in that industry use science, but are not themselves scientists, at least in my mind. I did, however, include mathematicians and engineers, as I wanted to include all STEM fields.

I looked at both subject matter, figure one, and subject of the biography, figure 2.

Results of the analysis

As you can see from the graph, engineering (includes inventors), biology and physics top the subject matter list. Chemists, near and dear to my heart, were in very few books.

Just a few individuals accounted for many of the biography subjects. The physicists in the group, namely Albert Einstein, leave out much of modern physics. I’m thrilled that these scientists are famous enough,and their work interesting enough, to engender so many books. However, there are many other scientists doing an amazing variety of work.

What’s next

Now that I know what books about scientists aren’t available to children, I can start writing. The first step is to research chemists, microbiologists, molecular biologists, and modern physicists. These are the scientists I don’t see represented in the books I analyzed. Check back for more as I learn more about these people, their work, and the best way to include them in fun books for kids.