Linda Soules Releases 'So You Want To Be An Architect,' a Kids' Career Guide Built Around Empathy

Author Linda Soules has released So You Want To Be An Architect: A Kids' Guide to Architecture, Building Design, Blueprints, and the Creative Thinkers Who Imagine and Shape the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play, a 42-page children's nonfiction title for readers ages 10 to 14. The book is available now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766600. It is the latest entry in her So You Want To Be A… career-exploration series. The book argues that architecture begins with listening, not drawing, and that empathy is the profession's central skill. It has won the Literary Titan Gold Book Award, 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.

The ISBN is 978-1-972766-60-6. The book is aimed at young readers who build with blocks, redraw their family's floor plan for fun, or notice how a room feels the moment they walk into it. It is also written for the parents, teachers and librarians who guide those readers toward careers they may not know exist.

Career books for young readers often present professions as a list of tasks and a salary range. For architecture, that approach tends to reduce a complicated field to a single image: someone at a drafting table sketching a handsome building. Middle-grade readers are at an age when they begin forming ideas about what adults actually do all day. Many of them also have access to design tools through games such as Minecraft and through building sets such as LEGO. Those tools give them a feel for spatial thinking, but they rarely show how a design becomes a real building that real people must live in, work in or learn in.

Educators and families looking for STEAM-aligned reading at home, in homeschool settings or in classrooms also face a thin shelf of narrative nonfiction for this age group. Books that treat readers as capable of understanding a profession's trade-offs, rather than simply admiring its results, remain relatively uncommon. So You Want To Be An Architect is written to fill that gap. It presents architecture as a discipline that combines art, technology and an understanding of how people actually live.

The book's organizing idea is stated early: a great building does not start with the building. It starts with people. Before an architect draws a single line, the book explains, she asks how a family really lives, what its members need and what they love. From that premise, the book builds its case that the most important skill in the field is not drawing but empathy. Readers are introduced to the idea that architects shape how people heal, how they learn and how they gather, and that those outcomes depend on design choices made long before construction begins. The book also invites readers to consider whether they have the curiosity, patience and attention to people that the work demands.

On the practical side, the book walks readers through what architects do, from the first pencil sketch on a napkin to the software that assembles an entire structure inside a computer. It names AutoCAD, Revit and SketchUp, and it covers the tools of the trade, including sketching, physical models and 3D printing. It also describes what it calls an architect's most underrated instrument: their own senses.

Storytelling carries much of the book's content. Readers encounter a London skyscraper that melted a car, a tower with a giant swinging ball called Damper Baby, the world's thinnest house and Gaudí's upside-down Sagrada Família. A profile section covers six figures who shaped skylines and the profession: Filippo Brunelleschi, Frank Lloyd Wright, Maya Lin, Zaha Hadid, Jørn Utzon and Norma Merrick Sklarek.

The book includes a "Day in the Life" feature, a glossary of architect words and a practical guide to what any curious kid can start doing right now. These sections are designed to give readers a next step beyond the final page. The glossary introduces professional vocabulary so that readers can follow conversations with architects, teachers or family members who work in design and construction. The "Day in the Life" feature shows that the work involves meetings, revisions and collaboration, not only moments of inspiration.

Most architecture books for young readers fall into two groups: picture books about famous buildings and activity books about construction. This title takes a different position by treating architecture as a people-centered profession and a career a reader might pursue. It names the actual software professionals use. It includes architects of different eras and backgrounds, among them Maya Lin, Zaha Hadid and Norma Merrick Sklarek. It frames listening and empathy as technical competencies rather than soft extras. The book is also candid that architecture is not only about drawing attractive buildings. That candor reflects the philosophy behind the series, which holds that young readers can handle an honest account of a career, including its challenges, and should not be talked down to.

"Before an architect draws a single line, she listens. The most important skill in architecture isn't drawing. It's empathy, and kids can start practicing it today," said Linda Soules, author and creator of the So You Want To Be A… series.

The book is intended for several audiences. Children who love building, drawing, LEGO, Minecraft and design can use it to see how those interests connect to a profession. Parents and homeschooling families can use it for STEAM learning and career exploration. Teachers and librarians looking for middle-grade nonfiction can add it to classroom and library collections, where it can support units on design, engineering, history and community planning. The book is also positioned as a gift for future architects, engineers and makers between ages 8 and 14. Because it describes how spaces affect learning, healing and gathering, it can open discussions about the schools, hospitals and libraries readers already use. A reader might finish the book and look at their own bedroom, classroom or neighborhood library with a more deliberate eye.

So You Want To Be An Architect is available now through its listing at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766600, where current format and pricing details are posted. The book's ISBN is 978-1-972766-60-6, which librarians, educators and booksellers can use to locate or request it through their usual purchasing channels. At 42 pages, it is designed to be read in a sitting or revisited section by section, with the glossary and the "what you can do now" guide serving as reference points. The listing also carries the award designations the book has received, including the Literary Titan Gold Book Award, the 2026 Purple Dragonfly Grand Prize and the 2026 CIPA EVVY Silver Award for Children's Nonfiction.

The architecture title belongs to a series that Soules envisions spanning more than 180 books. More than 60 have been published to date, with new releases arriving on a steady cadence. Subjects range from astronauts and marine biologists to magicians, stunt performers and roller coaster designers. Each book follows a consistent approach: pull back the curtain on a real career, describe its joys and challenges, explain the path to get there and leave readers with a sense that the world is wider and more reachable than they imagined. The series is built for readers ages 10 to 14 and for older readers who share their curiosity. With each new volume, the collection grows into a broader reference for families and educators exploring the range of work that young people might one day pursue.

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. Before turning to children's publishing, she spent 25 years in law and finance, advising hedge funds and sophisticated financial institutions on legal and regulatory matters. Her philosophy is to never talk down to kids and to write books that respect young readers' intelligence while sparking their enthusiasm. So You Want To Be An Architect is available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1972766600.