Linda Soules Releases Kids' Career Guide 'So You Want To Be A Robot Builder' After Four 2026 Book Honors

Author Linda Soules has released So You Want To Be A Robot Builder (Robotics Engineer): A Kids' Guide to Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, STEM Skills, and the Innovative Engineers Who Build the Machines of Tomorrow, a 38-page illustrated nonfiction book for readers ages 10 to 14. The book is listed at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766090 (ISBN 978-1-972766-09-5). It describes the working life of a robotics engineer: the mechanical systems they design, the code they write, and the artificial intelligence that lets machines sense, learn, and adapt. The book arrives with four 2026 honors, including first place in the STEM category of the Purple Dragonfly Book Awards and a Mom's Choice Awards Gold recipient designation. It is the latest installment in Soules's So You Want To Be A... career-exploration series.

Robotics engineering sits where several disciplines meet. Mechanical design, electrical engineering, software development, and artificial intelligence all feed into a single machine, and the book's description characterizes the field as one of the fastest-growing in STEM. For most middle-grade readers, though, the profession is largely invisible. What they know of robots tends to come from films, toys, and video games, not from the people who debug a control program in the morning and test a prototype in the afternoon. Soules built the book to close that gap. Instead of offering a broad list of jobs, it takes one career and examines it closely. Its stated premise is that the career a young reader is suited for may not yet be fully invented, and that an honest look at the work is the best way to find out whether it fits.

The book follows the life of a robot from concept to deployment. Readers see how a machine moves from early design sketches to prototypes and then to field testing in unpredictable real-world environments, where conditions rarely match the lab. Along the way, the text explains how engineers combine mechanical systems with software so a robot can perceive its surroundings and respond. It also describes how artificial intelligence is built into machines so they can learn and adapt instead of simply repeating fixed instructions. The treatment is deliberately concrete. The book describes the unglamorous parts of the job, such as a prototype that fails, a bug that resists diagnosis, and the decision to start over, alongside the moment when a machine finally walks across a room without falling over.

Teamwork is a second thread. The book explains why robotics depends on collaboration across mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software development, and AI, and what each specialist contributes. It also surveys the history of robotics and introduces the visionary builders whose machines changed assumptions about what technology could do. Throughout, the book names the qualities the work demands: patience to begin again after a failed prototype, analytical thinking to diagnose problems that have not been seen before, and what it calls creative tenacity, the willingness to keep building something that has never existed. Activities and prompts invite readers to practice the engineer's loop of observing, questioning, experimenting, building, and iterating, so the book works as a hands-on introduction as well as a reading experience.

The title has drawn recognition from several juried programs this year. It won first place in the STEM category of the 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards and received the Mom's Choice Awards Gold honor. It was named Gold Winner in the Ages 8-12 category of the 2026 Readers' Choice Book Awards and a finalist in the Educational and Nonfiction categories of the 2026 Literary Global Children's Book Awards. The series as a whole has also been recognized. It received the Grand Prize at the 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards and a Silver Award in Children's Nonfiction at the 2026 CIPA EVVY Book Awards. Together, the honors place the robotics volume within a series that award programs have repeatedly singled out for its educational value.

Many children's career books lean on cheerful generalities, with a job title, a uniform, and a list of tools. Soules takes a different position. The book's own description promises "no sugar coating, no science fiction, just the real thing," and the text follows through by describing the tedious and frustrating parts of engineering next to the rewarding ones. It treats the reader as capable of handling real detail about debugging, testing, and failure. Its scope is also deliberately focused. Rather than covering all of technology, it concentrates on the person who builds robots and the habits of mind that person needs. That specificity is the main distinction from general STEM overviews, and it reflects the series philosophy of never talking down to young readers.

"Kids are smarter and more curious than publishing often assumes, and they can handle the real story of a career, including the parts where the prototype fails," said Linda Soules, author of the So You Want To Be A... series.

The book is written for readers ages 10 to 14 who already lean toward science and coding, enjoy engineering challenges, or spend free time working out how things function. It also serves children who have not yet settled on a direction and want a clear view of one STEM path. Parents can use it to start a conversation about what an engineering career involves, and teachers and librarians can place it alongside robotics clubs, coding units, and career-exploration lessons. The activities give a classroom or a kitchen table something to do with the ideas. A young reader curious about artificial intelligence, for example, can see how sensing and learning are designed into a machine, and a reader drawn to hardware can follow how a design becomes a testable prototype.

So You Want To Be A Robot Builder (Robotics Engineer) is available through its listing at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766090. The book runs 38 pages, is illustrated, and carries ISBN 978-1-972766-09-5. It is classified as children's nonfiction and is aimed at ages 10 to 14. Current format options and pricing are shown on the product page. Because the series is built around short, focused career guides, the book is suited to gift-giving, school and library collections, and homeschool reading lists that include STEM career material. Educators and librarians who want to review the title can do so through the same listing, which also carries the full book description and the complete list of awards.

The robotics volume is one part of a much larger plan. Soules envisions the So You Want To Be A... series spanning more than 180 titles in total, with more than 60 published to date and new releases appearing on a steady cadence. Subjects already covered range from astronauts and marine biologists to magicians, stunt performers, and roller coaster designers, which shows the series is not limited to a single field. Each book follows the same approach of pulling back the curtain on a real career and describing its joys and challenges. As the series grows, readers can compare how very different professions share traits such as persistence, problem-solving, and curiosity, which the robotics book highlights as essential to building machines.

About Linda Soules and the So You Want To Be A... series: Linda Soules is the author and creator of the So You Want To Be A... series, a growing collection of career-exploration books for readers ages 10 to 14 and beyond. The series is envisioned to span more than 180 titles, with more than 60 published to date, covering careers from astronauts and marine biologists to magicians, stunt performers, and roller coaster designers. Her philosophy is that young readers deserve books that respect their intelligence while sparking real enthusiasm, and each title is written to show a career as it is actually practiced. The newest release, So You Want To Be A Robot Builder (Robotics Engineer), is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766090.