Chris Ferrie is a Canadian physicist, mathematician, and researcher who has written over 20 children’s books. His books have been introducing curious little minds to the very complex world of science.  My son is a huge fan of his!  I recently had the great privilege of interviewing Chris:

When and how did your passion for science start? My parents never pushed my brother and I one way or another when it came to academic and extracurricular interests. My dad ran his own construction company and so I would see him building things all the time and it fascinated me. I still have some visible scars from trying out the saws myself. 

My parents were both avid readers and had lots of encyclopedias and atlases that I remember spending hours reading. I remember doing well in mathematics throughout school which mostly came from positive reinforcement from my mum. Science per se wasn’t something that interested me. Though, I didn’t really understand exactly what the word meant. In hindsight, I was always a scientist. I was constantly testing and breaking things, tinkering with toys and software, and observing and improving on methods.

What led you to start a children’s book series? I started writing children’s books because I wanted to read something about physics and mathematics to my own children. At the time, there wasn’t anything available. So, I wrote some myself! I had never planned on writing the whole series, but the early positive feedback led to writing more. 

What else is Chris Ferrie interested in besides science? A lot of my interests—including reading, movies, and games—involve science or science fiction themes. But science is a fairly broad term. Apart from all the science, I enjoy traveling with my family.

What are some of your children’s favorite books at the moment? My 9 and 7 year old absolutely love graphic novels. Some series’ we recently finished are The Bad Guys, Lumberjanes, Phoebe and Her Unicorn, and Amulet. My 5 year old will still continue to pull The Book With No Pictures off the shelf—though, let’s not discount my performance when reading it! The youngest, who is 2 years old, will listen to anything.

Do you feel that there is more pressure on kids today to know and learn more at an early age? I don’t think there is pressure for kids to learn or know anything specific at earlier ages. But there is immense pressure to perform well, whatever the task may be. This comes mostly from parental fears of “falling behind”.  Now, children have 24 hour schedules curated by parents to ensure the child has a competitive application for the best schools. This, of course, will not create happy and healthy adults.

What one piece of advice would you give to parents and educators today? Freedom. Children need free time to explore their own interests and guide their own learning. They need to be bored and learn how to cure that for themselves. They need to test boundaries, argue, lie, fight, get hurt—all while they are still young and have the time to learn and heal from it.

Thank you Chris!  We look forward to reading more of your books!

(photos provided by Chris Ferrie)