Q&A with Amberjack Author Melissa Rooney, Creator of Eddie the Electron

This interview was first published by Amberjack Publishing (now an imprint of Chicago Review Press) on June 13, 2017.

What inspired you to write about electrons?

Since elementary school, I have written long letters and kept a writing journal of one kind or another. I also have been collecting children’s books since before I even contemplated having children. (I once worried that my bookshelf would scare my future husband.) So I decided to go to a Liberal Arts College and major in English.

However, my mother was a single parent who insisted on the importance of being able to support myself and my family, which required a practical education. So I decided to major in Chemistry as well. Because there were so few women in the field and because I’d get paid to get my degree. My undergraduate Chemistry professors encouraged me to go into Analytical Chemistry, which involves the development and use of instruments and methods for very specialized scientific applications. I joined an electrochemistry laboratory at UNC, where I made and used tiny carbon electrodes to measure the electricity produced by neurotransmitters in brain tissue. The neuroscience was the carrot that kept me in the program.

After graduate school, I took a postdoctoral position in Melbourne, Australia, delaying the dreaded ‘real’ job for another four years. I gave birth to my daughter just before returning to the states in 2002 and am fortunate to have been home with my kids ever since. To supplement my husband’s income (he’s a chemist too), I nannied other toddlers, tutored Chemistry, and became a contract scientific editor. I also continued to meet with my Ph.D. advisor for coffee. He urged me to come back to work for him, eventually making me an offer he thought I couldn’t refuse. When I finally admitted that I hated lab work and, by no means, wanted to return to academics, he asked me, insistently, how I was going to put my degree to use.

I told him I’ve always wanted to write a children’s book, he gave me a deadline, and Eddie the Electron was born.

What would you say to parents about the importance of what Eddie will teach their children?

Wow, I think Eddie has so much to teach children, but I’ve narrowed it down to three big ones, in order of priority:

1a) You don’t have to understand everything to be interested in and inquire about it, and
1b) You should never be intimidated by something you don’t understand. Thinking about the things we don’t understand is what leads to discovery, and that’s what sustains our human world.

2) Big words, scientific or otherwise, are not scary; and kids and parents should not avoid using them. Our brains learn by repetition. This is how we build vocabulary. And we need to start building scientific vocabulary when our kids are babies, regardless of their perceived abilities and backgrounds, if we expect them to be comfortable with scientific concepts when they are introduced to them in school.

3) Atoms truly are amazing things. Even people with Ph.D.’s in Chemistry and Physics don’t completely understand them. But don’t let that frustrate you. That is the magic of science. It took me until I was 35 years old, long after graduate school, to appreciate this magic. This should not be the case for our children.

4) As for the specific content of the book: Our entire world is composed of tiny solar systems. It’s that simple (at least for now). Just the thought of this alone intrigues kids as well as adults, and we don’t think about it often enough. In addition, I think it’s very important that kids understand, at least on a basic level, how electrons and electricity are used to power our cars, iPhones, computers, ovens, refrigerators, etc., so that they respect and understand this magic that is costing us our natural resources.

That said, if your children enjoy the pictures and the plot, that’s enough. Their brains are absorbing the words and ideas without even realizing it.

What is your favorite element and why?

My favorite element is actually the endnotes. I regret that we didn’t include them in the first book, especially because they are so scientifically accurate and took me so long to compile. Adults often see the endnotes as too complex for an elementary student; but the kids see those little numbers as a kind-of secret adult code that they want to figure out, at least to the extent of finding the numbers and locating their entries at the back of the book. This is important. Too often we adults ignore footnotes and endnotes, and they are sometimes the most interesting parts. Just knowing what end/footnotes are at an early age will increase the chances that children will pay them more mind moving forward. In addition, though parents will likely have to help explain it, the info in Eddie’s endnotes really is most interesting, even for first and second graders.

Tell us about how you began teaching science to kids.

When I was a teenager, I worked in the church nursery and preschool and babysat whenever I could. I loved interacting with younger kids, especially toddlers and preschoolers, who were so trusting and loving and inquisitive. Since then, I have become amazed at the extent to which babies and young children seek mental stimulation, how many incredible details their fresh brains absorb every millisecond, and how frustrating this can be for their parents and caregivers. When my kids started school I became a regular volunteer, working one-on-one with academically or behaviorally challenged kids and bringing hands-on scientific activities to classrooms. I eventually became part of a program called CAPS (Culture and Arts in the Public and Private Schools), by which schools contract visiting artists to bring curricula-relevant activities into classrooms and after-school and summer programs. The first of these programs centers around Eddie the Electron.

More about my mission and how I’ve seen children respond:

The older I get, the more I am certain that we, as a society, underestimate our children’s interests in what we consider ‘complicated’ scientific subjects. In every public book reading, festival, or workshop I have done, it’s not the kids who think the subject matter is too hard for them. It’s the adults.

The first year I participated in the NC Science Festival, a professor asked me how I thought we might get and keep young people interested in science. We agreed that we need to start ‘em young and expose them to scientific vocabulary and inquiry, regardless of whether we think they’re old (or smart) enough to understand.

So, in simplest terms, my mission is to bring scientific vocabulary, concepts, and thought to those who aren’t regularly exposed to it.

On a deeper level, I also believe that we underestimate our children’s ability to understand many scientific concepts, robbing them of the opportunity to learn about these things when they are most open minded and interested. I am confident that the sooner we expose our children to these ideas, the less intimidated they will be by them in the future. Again, whether or not they understand everything is beside the point. What’s important is whether or not they are interested.

As for the response of the children I’ve encountered along the way - they are totally down with it. I have never held a book event or workshop that ended when it was supposed to or where children did not have to be ushered away by their parents or teachers. One time, a group of kids told their parents they’d rather stay with me than go get ice cream. I lived for two months on that compliment :-).

I get just as much inspiration from the kids as they do from Eddie and me. They are unabashed in their inquiries and very truly interested, and this is gives me inspiration and hope.

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You can order Eddie the Electron and Eddie the Electron Moves Out by clicking their images here https://www.melissarooneywriting.com/books.

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