Linda Soules Releases 'So You Want To Be A Mathematician,' an Award-Winning Career Guide for Ages 10 to 14

Author Linda Soules has released So You Want To Be A Mathematician: A Kids' Guide to Numbers, Patterns, Proofs, and the Brilliant Problem Solvers Who Uncover the Hidden Rules of the Universe, a 47-page children's nonfiction book for readers ages 10 to 14. The title is available now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766872 (ISBN 978-1-972766-87-3). It is the latest entry in Soules's career-exploration series, So You Want To Be A…. The book has already won the Grand Prize in the 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards and a Silver Award in Children's Nonfiction at the 2026 CIPA EVVY Book Awards. It opens with a puzzle: right now, two people in New York City have exactly the same number of hairs on their heads, and a mathematician can prove it without counting.

The book arrives in a market where children often meet mathematics as a set of worksheets and memorization drills, and rarely as a field of inquiry with practitioners, open questions, and careers attached. Career-exploration titles for young readers tend to cover well-known professions, and mathematician is seldom among them. Part of the reason is that the work is hard to picture. A mathematician does not wear a uniform, drive a vehicle, or hold up a recognizable tool. Soules's book takes on that problem directly. It treats mathematics as a way of thinking and shows how that thinking turns into jobs, discoveries, and everyday technology, for readers who are old enough to handle real ideas and curious enough to ask why.

The book's core is hands-on. Rather than asking readers to memorize times tables, it sends them looking for hidden patterns, working through logic puzzles that stumped people for centuries, and testing ideas themselves through activities placed throughout the text. One chapter explains why cicadas emerge on prime-number cycles. Others trace mathematics through familiar sights, from the spirals in sunflowers to the snow in the animated film Frozen. The structure is designed so that readers act like mathematicians as they read: they form a guess, try it, find where it breaks, and revise. The stated aim is to build problem-solving skills through play, so that math feels closer to recess than to homework.

The book also introduces the people behind the ideas. Readers meet Emmy Noether, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Katherine Johnson, and Maryam Mirzakhani, and the book notes that several of the mathematicians it profiles were once told they were not good at math. That thread supports a central message: being stuck is not failure but part of learning. A separate career section gives what the book calls an honest, age-appropriate look at the job itself. It explains what mathematicians actually do, where they work, and how mathematics guides Coast Guard rescues, protects online payments, and powers GPS. An included answer sheet lets parents and educators check work.

Several features set the book apart from typical math enrichment titles. It is framed as career exploration, not as a tutorial, so the question it asks is what mathematicians do and why, not how to carry out a particular procedure. It is written for ages 10 to 14, a range that often goes underserved between picture books and textbooks, and it keeps to the series' stated rule of never talking down to young readers. It also pairs biography with practice: each historical figure sits alongside activities that let readers reproduce the kind of reasoning being described. The literacy-rich storytelling and maker-style projects are meant to reach children who learn by doing as well as those who learn by reading.

"Kids are told math is about getting the right answer fast. Real mathematicians spend most of their time stuck, and that is where the thinking happens," said Linda Soules, author of the So You Want To Be A… series.

The book is aimed at several overlapping groups. Gifted learners who finish grade-level material quickly can use its puzzles and proof-style reasoning as enrichment. Reluctant math students may find an entry point that does not depend on speed or memorization. Homeschool families get a self-contained, activity-driven resource with an answer key, and classroom teachers can use individual sections as discussion starters or short challenge exercises. Readers who already love brain teasers, logic, and word games are the natural core audience. The publisher-neutral description also positions the title as a gift for any budding scientist, engineer, or coder, since the career material connects mathematics to fields those readers may already be considering.

The recognition for the book comes from two separate programs. The Purple Dragonfly Book Awards named it a Grand Prize winner for 2026, and the CIPA EVVY Book Awards gave it a Silver Award in the Children's Nonfiction category. Both honors were announced for 2026 and apply to this title specifically. The book carries the same marker as other titles in the series, which Soules describes as award-winning. For librarians, educators, and parents who rely on third-party recognition when choosing books for young readers, the two awards offer an outside signal in addition to the book's own description and sample content.

Soules came to children's publishing after 25 years in law and finance, where she advised hedge funds and sophisticated financial institutions on legal and regulatory matters. She says that career taught her precision and discipline, along with how to translate intricate subjects into language anyone can use. Those skills carry directly into a book about proofs and patterns, where the challenge is explaining rigorous reasoning to a ten-year-old without simplifying it into inaccuracy. Soules lives in Seattle with her husband and two children. She says the questions her own kids ask every day continue to shape her writing, and the series reflects a belief that curiosity drives a meaningful life.

So You Want To Be A Mathematician is available now through the Amazon listing at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766872. The book runs 47 pages and carries ISBN 978-1-972766-87-3. Current pricing, available formats, and shipping options are shown on the listing page and may change. Parents, educators, and librarians can use the listing to preview the book's description and to purchase directly. Because the book includes an answer sheet and self-directed activities, it can be used at home without special preparation, or brought into a classroom or homeschool curriculum as a supplemental text. Review and interview requests can be directed to the author through the spokesperson contact for this release.

The mathematician title fits into a much larger project. Soules is the author and creator of the So You Want To Be A… series, which she envisions spanning more than 180 titles in total. More than 60 have been published to date, with new releases arriving on a steady cadence. Subjects already covered range from astronauts and marine biologists to magicians, stunt performers, and roller coaster designers. Each book pulls back the curtain on a real career, covering its joys, its challenges, and the path to get there. The long-term plan is a broad library that shows young readers how many kinds of work exist and how reachable they can be.

About Linda Soules and the So You Want To Be A… series: Linda Soules is the author and creator of 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 over 60 published, and covers careers from astronauts and marine biologists to magicians, stunt performers, and roller coaster designers. Her guiding principle is never to talk down to young readers, who she believes are smarter, more curious, and more capable than publishing often assumes. Before writing for children, she spent 25 years advising hedge funds and financial institutions on legal and regulatory matters. She lives in Seattle. So You Want To Be A Mathematician is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766872.