So You Want To Be An Animator: A Kids' Guide to Animation, Character Design, Storyboarding, and the Imaginative Artists Who Make Drawings Move and Stories Come Alive - Softcover

Soules, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1972766325 ISBN 13: 9781972766323

Verlag: Linda Colwell, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

WINNER of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award

From the So You Want To Be A… Series — 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards, Grand Prize Winner

Every animated character you have ever loved started as a sketch in someone's notebook. So You Want To Be An Animator is the complete guide that shows kids ages 10-14 what it actually takes to bring drawings to life — not the glossy highlight reel, but the real work — from the first pencil stroke to the frame an audience finally sees.

Animation is one of the most creatively thrilling and technically demanding careers in the arts. But what does an animator's day actually look like? What skills do they build over years of practice before they ever touch a professional production? And what can a young person who feels drawn to this world start doing right now? This book answers all of it with honesty, depth, and respect for the reader's intelligence.

Inside, you will discover the foundational principles that every animator ingrains through relentless study and practice — squash and stretch, follow-through, timing, and the observational discipline of watching how everything in the physical world moves so you can make the impossible feel inevitable on screen. You will learn how character rigging, digital skeletons, and evolving software tools fit into a modern animation pipeline, and why technical fluency matters just as much as artistic talent.

But this is more than a guide to craft. It is a book about what the career demands and what it gives back. You will meet the reality of working on a team of directors, riggers, sound designers, writers, and fellow animators — dozens of people making thousands of individual decisions over months or years to create a single seamless world. You will understand why creative resilience, patience, and visual intelligence are just as essential as drawing skill. And you will see how the history of animation, from its earliest pioneers to the storytelling medium it has become today, shapes every frame of the work being done right now.

This is not a book that talks down to young readers or offers vague encouragement. It brings you all the way inside the craft and the career — from hand-drawn 2D and stop-motion to 3D computer animation, and the studios and teams where that work gets made. Whether you are a beginner filling sketchbook after sketchbook or someone already experimenting with digital tools, the stories and insights here will sharpen your understanding of what this path truly requires.

For the kid who pauses a film to study how a character moves. For the one who fills every margin with drawings no one else has seen yet. The animator who will create the character a generation grows up loving is out there somewhere, sketching right now. Maybe that animator is you.

Ages 10-14. Nonfiction. Careers and creative arts. Illustrated.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

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 8-14. The series covers everything from astronauts and marine biologists to magicians, stunt performers, and roller coaster designers. Her philosophy is straightforward: never talk down to kids. Young readers are smarter, more curious, and more capable than the publishing world often gives them credit for, and they deserve books that respect their intelligence while genuinely sparking their enthusiasm. Each title is written to pull back the curtain on a real career - its joys, its challenges, the path to get there - and to leave readers with the sense that the world is wider, more interesting, and more reachable than they imagined. Before turning to children's publishing, Linda spent twenty-five years in law and finance, advising hedge funds and sophisticated financial institutions on complex regulatory matters - a career that taught her precision, discipline, and how to translate intricate subjects into language anyone can use. She brings that same clarity and care to every book she writes, paired with a deep belief that curiosity is the engine of a meaningful life. Linda lives in Seattle with her husband and two children, where the steady rhythm of family life, the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and the questions her own kids ask every day continue to fuel her work. Additional information can be found on her website at http://lindasoules.com.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Linda Colwell
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1972766325
• ISBN 13: 9781972766323
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 38
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.de/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxemburg