Engineering a Book with Jennifer Swanson

by Kathy Halsey & Sue Heavenrich

illus. by TeMika Grooms; Peachtree Publishing 

When you hop into a car, chances are a chime will remind you to put on your seat belt. But cars didn’t always have seat belts. Or headlights, back-up cameras, or disc brakes. In fact, the first cars didn’t even have bumpers!

“…it took many years, and thousands of crash tests, to create the safe vehicle you ride around in,” writes Jen Swanson. Thousands of safety designers and other engineers – aided by anthropomorphic test devices (aka: the crash-test dummies) – had to define safety problems, imagine solutions, carry out the tests, and collect data so they could design safer cars.

In Save the Crash-Test Dummies, Swanson highlights the engineering that goes into car design, and introduces readers to the family of crash-test dummies, which has grown to now include the dad, mom, three kids sized to represent children aged ten, six, and three. And yes, they have a crash-test dog!

There are plenty of diagrams, a chapter on engineering self-driving cars, and an overview of the diversity of problems different types of engineers solve.

But enough about the book – let’s meet the author!

GROG: So Jen, is it easier now to entice editors with engineering topics? What is your approach in pitching such topics to editors? Has it changed now that you are better known for this genre?

Jen: Editors are more open to STEM topics than ever before. This is so exciting—especially for topics that focus on technology, engineering, and math. The pitch for an engineering-heavy book is really the same as any other: you need a really good HOOK. When I first started working on this book, I wanted to write about the self-driving car. But I needed something to make this topic stand out. It came to me one night while on a walk with my husband. Crash-test dummies! The perfect way to make the history of car safety engineering exciting and intriguing. See, it’s not just about the topic you want to write, it’s more about how it is presented. Go for the high-interest and out-of-the-box thinking every time. It works!

GROG: I've noticed that you use kid-friendly comparisons in your books. How do you come up with size comparisons? Do you just "guesstimate" a size of comparable objects by doing the math or is there a resource you've found for this?

Jen: I use kid-friendly comparisons in all of my books. Why not? The books are for kids. Since a lot of the concepts I talk about in my books are complex, I find that the easiest way to get my point across is to build an image of it for the reader. Sometimes that is an actual illustration. Other times, it’s a picture that I build in their head with my descriptions. I imagine my reader of about 9 or 10 years and I try to come up with ways to get them to understand something immediately. Instead of saying something is about 100 yards long, I say it’s as long as a football field. To get some comparisons, I search the internet. If I’m trying to estimate weight, I might query, “what weighs two tons?” The answer?  You can either say it’s a little bit more than a regular sized car or just under the weight of a fully-grown black rhino. I’ll bet those put those images in your head. Now you know exactly what size I'm talking about.

GROG:  How can we, as writers, encourage more girls to embrace engineering and math? What stories can we tell?

Jen Swanson speaking at the 2019 National Book Festival

Jen: I’d like all students to find STEM more interesting! I realize that there are fewer girls entering the STEM fields, and that needs to be addressed. The best way is to model what you want from your kids or students. I grew up in a family of three brothers. No sisters. I was never told that I couldn’t do the things my brothers did. In fact, I started a science club in my garage when I was seven. I picked up bugs, flowers, leaves, waded through streams, and climbed trees. My mom supported my curiosity and got me a microscope. I realize that I was lucky to have the parents I did and that many girls don't have those same experiences.

I hope that we, as authors, and just as women, can encourage girls and young women to follow their passion for STEM. Join clubs that allow you to be creative, whether that is a robotics club, an art and illustration club, or a club of hikers that go into the woods. Start a science club, or a club at the library where you read STEM/STEAM books and discuss them. Perhaps get together for a cause to help clean up a beach or a landfill or even to plant trees. And I hope that the adults in their lives will encourage and support them in doing this.

Thank You for joining us today, Jen! 
Jennifer Swanson is a prolific author and this year was invited to speak at the World Science Festival and the National Book Festival. She is also the creator and head wrangler of the STEM Tuesday blog. Learn more about Jen and her books at her website.

Explore more of Jen's books with these posts from the GROG. All writers can learn more about the craft of writing and engaging readers with STEM by reading these books! Click on the blog links below.

Geoengineering and Earth's Climate
Brain Games

Highlights of Nuts & Bolts of Science Writing 2018 by Kathy Halsey

What did I do on my summer vacation? One of the biggest highlights was my first Highlights workshop. In this post I'll share newbie tips along with writerly tidbits from our fab faculty. 

Newbie News

• Plan when you invest in your writing. I waited five years before I signed up for a Highlights workshop. I wanted to be better at my craft and have some projects that could benefit from being workshopped. I also looked for specific faculty and topics that would stretch me as a writer. I found the perfect fit with Nuts & Bolts Science. I knew Jen Swanson and Miranda Paul were excellent teachers since I've attended conferences where they'd been speakers. 
• Although I've read and studied nonfiction for children, I'd never written science, so I plunged into writing an informational picture book about gardens using a child's POV. My critique group and writer friends helped me revise and polish my WIP before I sent it to Highlights. My advice? Take a manuscript that you can't make any better on your own to a workshop. ( Be prepared with a second manuscript, too, just in case the opportunity arises for a second critique.)
• Although it's comforting to attend conferences/workshops with a writer buddy, sometimes going alone will push you to meet new people and network. Now I have a "tribe" of 20 new science writer friends: a snail scientist, an entrepreneur who created a STEM magazine for children, an Ohio writer who is now a contributing editor for Cricket Media, and the amazing author Sarah Aronson. (She gave advice about creativity, the writing doldrums, and shared pieces of her newest book JUST LIKE RUBE GOLDBERG.) Be open to meeting new people who will enrich your life. 

Sarah and Kathy

Fab Faculty TidBits

Take four wonderful professionals (Jen, Miranda, editor Sam Gentry, and Ohio author Tracy Vonder Brink ) together for almost five days, and soon you've had a master class in writing nonfiction, pitching, and a how-to on cracking the magazine market. There was so much insight from these women who generously shared time, knowledge, and books with us. I'll share a chunk of knowledge from all these super stars. (Newbie note - very dark skies in Honesdale PA, so you should plan to star gaze.)

Tracy Vonder Brink  

Jen Swanson, Miranda Paul, Samantha Gentry

• All lucky attendees received a critique from Samantha, plus we had our choice of two more critiques - one with Jen and one with Miranda, depending on whether we wrote middle grade or picture books. (This is why you bring several solid pieces.)
• Back matter REALLY matters to Miranda Paul. She had us do a useful exercise that helps writers get an overview of back matter. Take a stack of picture books, fiction and nonfiction, and read them quickly but study the back matter and make a list that includes type of back matter (author note, charts, fun facts, etc), how many pages of back matter, audience for the back matter (educators, parents, children) and if the tone/style fits the front matter.  
• Jen Swanson swoons for research to make science sing. She begins by going to the library to actually browse the nonfiction section. Serendipity is the name of the game. Jen enjoys hunt, finding both adult and children's books on her topic. For internet research she begins her working bibliography by adding raw links, footnotes at bottom, and then uses Citation Machine or another service. 
• Many of Jen's National Geographic middle grade books rely on interviewing experts. She has  many tips regarding experts (a person working in the field or a PhD.) You'll find them at universities or by googling your topic. Then email them to see if they have interest in  helping you and indicate what publisher you are pursuing. She recommends an email subject line like this, "children’s author working w/Nat Geo looking for an interview." Add your experts in the acknowledgements and give them a book. Best advice from Jen? Don't skimp on research. 

Attendees taking notes and absorbing information

• Samantha Gentry, Assistant Editor at Crown Books for Young Readers, Random House and PRH, engaged attendees by throwing a pitch party. We recreated a twitter pitch party in real life after Sam shared pitch strategies. Sam thinks having a social media presence is helpful for a writer. She suggests picking two options from what she labeled "the trifecta," Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Follow folks who do SM well, such as Josh Funk, Sarah Albee, and Jess Keating. She stressed creating a community network with local booksellers, libraries, schools, and your local writing community.
• Finally, Tracy Vonder Brink gave us a solid background in writing for children's magazines. She has a stellar acceptance rate. She's sold eleven stories and is now employed by Cricket Media. Writers can dig through manuscripts that didn't "work" as books or write a story with research that didn’t go into a book. Writers should analyze magazine issues in detail. Look for ratio of simple sentence to compound/complex sentences,  if questions to the reader are common, and if the reader is addressed as "you." Aim to mimic style, voice, tone, content as much as possible with your submission. Tracy feels she's been most successful when she takes a issue's main topic and thinks outside the box for a story. Her boss, Elizabeth Huyck at ASK, looks for magazine pieces that open out to larger questions or fundamentals. 

  

  Happy scientists and writers on the trail

Discovery!

Friendship

Astronaut Aquanaut - A Stellar Science Book and Mentor Text for Nonfiction Writers, Too by Kathy Halsey

I can honesty say that most of what I know about science comes from children's authors like today's featured guest, Jen Swanson. Had science books been as much fun as those she's written for National Geographic Kids, I may have been something more "science-y" than an English teacher. 

Recommended for Teachers, Librarians and Homeschoolers

I highly recommend ASTRONAUT AQUANAUT: HOW SPACE SCIENCE AND SEA SCIENCE INTERACT for school libraries, science classrooms grades 3-8. This book services a multitude of multimodal lessons.

• Teachers and parents have ready-made experiments/activities that are easy to replicate in almost every chapter. 
• The comparison/contrast structure of astronauts and aquanauts' training and experiences will get kids wondering and English/Language Arts teachers cheering. (Students at multiple grade levels need to write comparison/contrast compositions, and Jen's book lays out a fine example of the format.) 
• Science and E/LA teachers could easily expand on the chapter "Space and Deep Sea: More Alike Than You Imagine" for an interdisciplinary project including research.
• Additionally, web sites, a glossary, and astronaut/aquanaut biographies are added features that librarians and student researches will appreciate.

Recommended Mentor Text for Nonfiction Writers

Nonfiction folks, delve into an author study of Jen Swanson's books to see in-depth how she breaks down complex topics and makes them factual and kid-friendly. (Click here.) I've reviewed several of her books for the GROG.  Here are a few techniques that nonfiction writers will want to emulate. 

• When tackling dense topics such as space vs. oceans or nanotechnology, write simply and use a cohesive style/structure throughout the text. Predictive text structure help readers relax and concentrate on new material. Every chapter in this book is set up in a similar format with questions, interesting ancillary material in sidebars, an "explorer's notebook," and activities with questions to expand the reader's thoughts after the experiments.
• Drop definitions into the text deftly and think about alliterative titles, too. Here are some title examples that kids will appreciate: "Darkness Descents," "What Goes Up Must Come Down," and "Expanding Our Horizons." 
• Look at this example of a quick definition that doesn't stop the reader with an information dump. " 'Micro' is another way of saying 'very small,' so microgravity refers to extremely small gravitational forces."
• Think about you point of view. Ask questions to entice readers. Jen uses second person POV and as you'll see from our interview (Q & A below), National Geographic prefers this option also.  
• How you use comparisons matters. Jen creates her own concrete comparisons using ideas kids already know. In describing how pressure feels in the deepest ocean she says, "...the pressure is great than 15,7000 psi. That is a thousand times the amount of pressure you feel when standing on the ground." In a further comparison she states that amount of pressure is like "... one person holding up 50 jumbo airplanes."

Q & A with Jen Swanson

There have been several good blog interviews with Jen on ASTRONAUT AQUANAUT, so I chose to focus on questions nonfiction writers might find instructive. 

K: Do you outline/propose your books now to NatGeo or do you have specific editor w/whom you work?

Jen:  I have been lucky enough to work with one editor at  NGKids on several projects. We have a great, collaborative relationship which makes it really fun to work on books together. Because of this, my submission process is more relaxed. I may not create a full-blown proposal with completely outlined chapters, but more of a “this is what I want to do” sort of thing. It takes awhile to get to that point, and works well for the two of us, since we are also friends. But my agent is involved in the process and still handles all of the contract negotiations.

K: What informed your choice of 2nd person POV? 

J:  That is NGKids style. They love the 2^nd person, informal type of language. This allows the reader to feel as if they are going on the journey with the book as they read it. The goal is for them to experience life up in space and down in the ocean, just like the experts did!

K: Do you decide what information is in sidebars?  If not, who does that?

 J:  Everything you see in the book pretty much started with me. Of course, my editor may make suggestions for areas that might need more expansion or ways to improve the book, which I definitely pay attention to, but I wrote all the sidebars. Specifically, it was my idea to approach experts (astronauts and aquanauts) and ask them questions that I thought my readers might want to know. It took a lot of effort and a great deal of persistence to catch up with some of them. But I think it is well worth it.  

K: Where do you find those cool comparisons? On a web site? 

J:  Nope. I just come up with this all on my own. I’m trying to get the reader to understand how big or little something is and the best way is to compare it to something they already know. This is a great tool for writing science books for kids; one I use in all of my books. 

K: What “in-person” research did you do for the book?

J:  Unfortunately, traveling to these amazing environments was not a part of my research. Maybe someday. I did, however, travel to NYC to meet Aquanaut Fabien Cousteau in person. A thrill of a lifetime and the picture of us together with Liz Bentley-Magee, a female aquanaut featured in the book made it into the back page.

K: Your writing tips for tackling science for kids…

J: Think like a kid! Make your writing FUN and EXCITING! Science is best when it’s hands-on because kids can see it happening right in front of them. While you can’t always do that with a book, you can make them feel the excitement of trying it if your words are active and engaging.

K: What are you working on now? 

J: I’m so very excited about this book with Peachtree Publishers coming out next April. It’s called Save The Crash-Test Dummies and it’s a book about ENGINEERING and car safety. I write engineering in all caps, because it is really a big thing for an engineering book to be published by a trade publisher. This book is an out-of-the box and fun look at the history of car safety engineering.  It even has a snarky, talking crash-test dummy as your guide through the ages. I have see the initial layouts and they are stunning. I am REALLY looking forward to this book! Go Engineering!

Finally Jen and Miranda Paul will be teaching their "Nuts and Bolts of science Writing" at Highlights again this summer Attendees will learn the ins and outs of writing fiction and nonfiction science books and will be able to submit to 5 different trade editors. Check out more information here.