One problem is that there are few good models to follow. At least, I haven’t found many. Each year I look at the best picks selected by the Children’s Cooperative Book Center, a research library at the nearby University of Wisconsin. And twice a year I trawl the lists of new children’s books in the spring and fall special issues of Publisher’s Weekly. So I have some idea what is being published.

I want new books to be good—for all sorts of reasons. I prefer to review books I like. And I’m always looking for potential reprints. But mostly I just want someone to show me new ways of talking to kids about science. Something that will ease the creative strain on my tired brain.

There are always a few good books, but most are disappointing. The problem that scares me most is that many of the books are boring. They lay out threadbare stories in flat expository prose illustrated with muddy snapshots.

Why is this happening? Part of the problem is the old attitude that science can stand on its own: it is intrinsically interesting and the job of the writer is to present it clearly, not to present it stylishly. Looking back at my career as a writer and editor, I realize I too was often undemanding. Because I found science interesting, I thought the reader would find it interesting, too. Of course this works only with the 10 percent of the American public who already have an interest in science. But it took me forever to realize that.

This problem is exacerbated in the children’s market by the pernicious influence of the informational book. Informational books are trade books bought by school libraries and used for homework assignments. They are written to please teachers, not kids. Nobody but a library would buy one, because once the report on the green turtle or the Anasazi people is finished, no one would ever want to read it again.

These books are of no help to me. I edit a magazine that goes into the home, not into the school. The kids read it only if they feel like it, and the parents renew only if the kids insist. Many of our readers are not committed to science; they’re checking to see if it is as boring in real life as it is in school. Yes, they’re open-hearted, open-minded, funny, bright, and curious; but they’re also undisciplined, easily bored, and impatient.

Fortunately, they have no guile. They tell me flat out when a story is boring, and this lets me learn what I’m doing wrong. I’m also lucky enough to have a contributing editor, Karen Hopkin, who keeps me up to the mark. She insists on asking why the reader should care. That can be a painful question, since an honest answer often means another revision. But asking it makes the magazine much better than it would otherwise be.

Because I’m trying to do things differently, I can’t draw on an existing pool of writers. When I first started, I commissioned many articles from “children’s writers.” I quit doing it after a few years. Often these writers seemed to think their job was to rephrase in language more suitable for children work that had been published elsewhere. Apparently, that’s what other editors wanted them to do. The giveaway was the lack of quotes, even when I had specified the article should include them. A recycled story is a boring story, and I gave up.

These days we get writers mostly by poaching from adult science magazines, such as Discover, Science, or New Scientist. This strategy works better, because the science is fresher and the authors can get a quote. But it has its own problems. We don’t pay that well, and we make the authors jump through as many hoops as other magazines—sometimes more. We make them think about the topic and whether it would interest kids as well as adults. We make them think about the art, because art takes up half the space in our magazine. And we make them think about background information. They have to explain material normally taught in introductory science courses, but they can’t be boring. It can get very sticky.

Many people think the hardest part of writing for children is hitting the right level. I’d say it’s much harder to select a good topic. Check out the children’s non-fiction section in Borders or Barnes and Noble. The bookstores are full of what are considered sure-fire kid pleasers: trucks, dinosaurs, the rain forest, grossology. In my experience many of these topics don’t actually play well with kids. Dinosaurs, for example: our kids have asked that we not run any more articles about them. The rainforest and environmentalism, in general: too much bad faith writing for children on that topic and they’re smart enough to know it. Grossology (boogers and farts): same deal. For the most part, you can’t find the breaking news, the stuff that really interests adults, in the children’s section. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is considered too ephemeral to make money.