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
What if your dream job was riding waterslides all day - and it turned out to be actual science?
It sounds like the most fun career in the world. And for thirty seconds at a time, it is. But before any waterslide opens to the public, someone has to ride it. Again, and again, and again. Someone has to feel exactly where the curve grows too tight, where the water layer goes thin, where a body shifts in a way a designer sitting in an office could never have predicted. That someone is a waterslide tester - and the work they do is anything but play.
This career exploration guide introduces kids to one of the most awesome and surprising jobs on the planet. Part adrenaline, part physics, part quiet courage, waterslide testing is real engineering work disguised as a dream day at the water park. Your readers will discover what testers actually do on every ride - checking speed, water flow, G-forces, surface friction, and landing impact. They'll learn why that thin sheet of water rushing down the slide surface is the single thing standing between a thrilling ride and a second-degree friction burn. And they'll find out why testers have to ride the way kids really ride: sideways, arms crossed, holding hands in tubes, doing everything a ten-year-old would try on opening day.
But this book goes deeper than cool facts. It's built around a central idea that sticks: safety and joy are not opposites. They are the same thing. A truly safe waterslide is one you can throw yourself into with complete physical abandon - and someone made that possible by doing careful, invisible, unrecognized work before you ever arrived.
Inside, young readers will find a timestamped day-in-the-life log following a tester from the 8:30 AM briefing at a still-empty water park through certification runs and the final safety report at 4:30 PM. They'll meet Tommy Lynch, who spent four years and 108,000 miles testing slides at twenty resort properties across Europe, Egypt, the Caribbean, and beyond. A glossary breaks down profession-specific terms like banking angle, centripetal force, hydroplaning, flow rate, and transition - making this an educational resource that builds real STEM vocabulary. Hands-on activities let readers explore the science at home, from a backyard slip-and-slide experiment and water-flow demonstration to observation exercises at a real water park.
This is a nonfiction career exploration book for kids ages 10 to 14, with insights and surprises that hold attention well beyond that range. It's written in direct second-person address - talking to your child not as a student, but as a future colleague being briefed for their first day. It belongs on the shelf of any kid who notices things other people walk right past, and any reader who has ever wondered what they might grow up to do if the answer didn't have to be ordinary.
For every parent, teacher, or librarian looking to spark a conversation about careers where careful, quiet work saves lives - even when no one ever knows your name.
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