Luring learners with the anti-textbook

Joy Hakim is not your average textbook writer. In fact, don’t even let her hear you call her that.

“The word textbook has become a pejorative. I tell people I write anti-textbooks,” said Hakim, 77.

Hakim, author of the series The Story of Science published by Smithsonian Books and A History of US published by Oxford University Press, has made it her mission to bring the voice back to nonfiction books children read in school. Her narrative books aren’t a list of facts and dates with questions to answer in the back. They are full of characters, stories and humor, and come with educational materials that call for critical thinking and reading comprehension.

“Contemporary textbooks really don’t excite readers,” Hakim said. “Why can’t we teach subjects like history and science and make them fabulous, which they are?”

Hakim’s science books introduce students to complex ideas by also exploring the history of science. When readers encounter the concept of Fahrenheit, for example, the topic isn’t presented as a mere temperature scale.

They learn that Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was the eldest of five children and a teenager when his parents both died after eating poisonous mushrooms. Given as an apprentice to a merchant in Amsterdam, he discovered there was no reliable way of gauging temperature. Without support to pursue physics, he had to run away in order to talk to scientists about his ideas. Fahrenheit went on to create the first accurate thermometer and standard temperature scale.

“The idea is that I’m trying to get kids excited about reading,” Hakim said. “I’m trying to return the story as the best educational device that we have known through history.”

Hakim’s 10-volume narrative history of the United States has sold more than five million copies, and schools in Texas and California have adopted the books. Her new The Story of Science series, which is proving equally popular, includes Aristotle Leads the Way, Newton at the Center and Einstein Adds a New Dimension.

A journalist, author and former teacher, Hakim said she was inspired to begin writing her books after seeing what her own three children were bringing home from school.

“I was just so appalled by their books. How expensive they were and how bad they were,” she said.

While she has even been referred to as the J. K. Rowling of textbooks, Hakim said her greatest reward comes in the form of letters she receives from students, teachers and parents.

One of her favorites came from a boy in Virginia, who wrote: “I don’t usually like to read, but I read your book all the way through.”

For more information about Joy Hakim and to order her books, visit www.joyhakim.com.