Exploring the Intersection of History, Science, and Creativity in Children’s Literature
Sarah Albee is the New York Times bestselling author of over 150 captivating books for children, spanning from preschool to middle grade. Her recent nonfiction works have garnered accolades such as Junior Library Guild, Bank Street College of Education Best Books, and Notable Social Studies Trade Books selections, along with winning the esteemed Eureka! Nonfiction Children’s Book Awards. With a penchant for intertwining history and science, Albee crafts educational experiences that spark curiosity and engage young minds.
Before delving into the world of full-time writing, Albee embarked on diverse adventures that shaped her unique perspective. From shooting hoops on college courts to playing semi-professional basketball in Cairo, Egypt, her experiences cultivated a rich tapestry of insights and inspirations. Notably, her nine-year tenure at Children’s Television Workshop, the powerhouse behind Sesame Street, honed her ability to think like a child and infuse her writing with humour, resonating deeply with young readers.
Albee’s creative process is a testament to her boundless curiosity and analytical mind. From her book “Fairy Tale Science,” where she melds beloved tales with scientific inquiry, to her unconventional explorations of history in works like “Bugged: How Insects Changed History” and “Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up,” she consistently unveils the lesser-known facets of the past. Through accessible storytelling and hands-on experiments, she transforms seemingly mundane topics into captivating narratives that captivate and educate young readers.
Her forthcoming projects promise to captivate audiences anew. With upcoming releases such as “The Painter and the President: Gilbert Stuart’s Brush with George Washington” and “Bounce! A Scientific History of Rubber,” illustrated by acclaimed artists Stacy Innerst and Eileen Ryan Ewen respectively, Albee continues to push the boundaries of children’s literature.
Intrigued by topics that pique her interest, whether it’s the evolution of sanitation or the challenges faced by historical women navigating societal norms, Albee’s writing transcends conventional boundaries. With each book, she endeavors to instill a sense of wonder and curiosity in her readers, guiding them on a journey through the fascinating intersection of history and science.
How did your diverse experiences, from playing basketball in Egypt to working at Sesame Workshop, influence your journey towards becoming a prolific children’s nonfiction author?
I’m never sure if I can draw a direct causal link between a life experience and a cool book idea, but I do think it’s been helpful to have had lots of different jobs and to have lived in many different places. I learned Arabic while playing on a basketball team with a fantastic group of Egyptian women, and I also pursued my lifelong interest in archaeology while there. (I’d also taken a year off from college to work at an archaeology institute in Italy.) That’s probably a good origin story for my book Accidental Archaeologists. And my nine years at Sesame Street trained me to think like a kid, write for kids, and, happily, to appreciate that I can write with humor, because kids love to laugh just as much as adults do.
Your books often blend history with engaging storytelling and hands-on experiments, such as in “Fairy Tale Science.” Can you share insights into your creative process for developing these unique educational experiences?
I absolutely loved fairy tales as a kid, but I always had a rather—cough!—analytical mind, and was constantly interrupting my parent or babysitter with questions: “Could a pair of glass slippers survive an evening of ballroom dancing?” or “What kind of poison was in the apple that Snow White ate?” or “Could Rapunzel’s hair support the weight of a prince?” Whether or not they found such questions charming, they did not adequately answer them, so I filed these questions into my brain database and then explored them as an adult. So Fairy Tale Science was a natural consequence—I have a synopsis of each fairy tale, and then ask one or more scientific questions about it, and then kids can do experiments to test it out.
From Bugged: How Insects Changed History to Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up, to Troublemakers in Trousers: Women and What They Wore to Get Things Done, your book topics are both fascinating and unconventional. What draws you to explore these lesser-known aspects of history, and how do you make them accessible and entertaining for young readers?
I write about things that fascinate me, and hope I can show kids that history does not need to be all about battles and dates and royal successions (well, unless there’s a cool poisoning story behind the royal succession). I’m much more interested in social history—what ordinary people ate, or wore, or did for a living; what happened when they got sick, or how they relieved themselves before toilets were invented.
My Bugged book was something of a follow-up to my Poop book, because while working on the latter, I learned that so many diseases were the result of insect-vectored pathogens.
A few years ago I wrote a book for National Geographic called Why’d They Wear That? and in researching that book I became fascinated by the challenges so many women faced for most of history, negotiating the world in long skirts. And later, I began collecting stories of women from history who flouted convention/the law and dressed in men’s clothing, at times when that ranged from highly improper to an executable offense. They dressed that way for a range of reasons—to fight for their country, escape enslavement, rule, become a pirate, etc. That book, Troublemakers in Trousers came out in 2022. It gave me the chance to write about a lot of women I’ve long admired.
Basically, I try to find a topic kids are interested in—poop, bugs, clothing, dogs, poison—and then I trace it chronologically through history.
What genres do you typically write in?
Pre-pandemic, most of my books were long-form middle grade nonfiction, with historical images. But I believe that kids lost a lot of ground during the pandemic, and that they need more visual support when reading. So my next four books are going to be nonfiction picture books, for a slightly older reader (7 – 10 or so). Picture books are SO challenging to write, but I love the process.
Can you provide some information about your most popular or award-winning books?
Perhaps my best-selling book is Accidental Archaeologists: True Stories of Unexpected Discoveries. It’s about ordinary people—farmers, construction workers, hikers, kids—who accidentally stumbled across major archaeological discoveries that changed what we thought we knew about history.
But perhaps the book that will be on my tombstone is Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up. It’s several years old, but still a very popular title. It’s about the history of sanitation, which is arguably the history of human civilization, because societies that paid attention to how to get rid of waste tended to survive and thrive.
Are there any upcoming releases or projects that you’re working on?
I have two new books coming out this summer/fall! In August, I have a picture book called The Painter and the President: Gilbert Stuart’s Brush with George Washington. Gilbert Stuart was the go-to portrait painter of the late 1700s/early 1800s, and he painted George three times. All three paintings have become iconic, but the fun part is, they couldn’t stand one another! It’s illustrated by the incredible Stacy Innerst.
And in October, I have a book called Bounce! A Scientific History of Rubber. That one’s illustrated by Eileen Ryan Ewen.
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