Road Trip Earth, a science graphic novel for the non-science sect

There are different literary vehicles for upper elementary through middle school students to get their Earth science on. A commonality between most of the interesting ones is that there is not a narrative device. Sure there are dozens to hundreds of engaging photos and text that do the trick but organizing this non-fiction stuff in a way that keeps them reading is challenging. They might jump in for one nugget, but it’s a different story when trying to lock down their attention for an entire book. Road Trip Earth is a book from Molly Bloom, Marc Sanchez, and Sanden Totten, the folks who created the Brains On! podcast and seems intent on shifting expectations, or at least reading duration.

Teaching in the classrooms has taught me that a lesson that’s combined with humor and variety is much more palatable. You’ll still get eye rolls from students, but the content is more likely to stick. Road Trip Earth has seemingly every form of printed option in the book in an effort to make readers interested. You’ll see photographs, illustrations, cartoons, comic strips, informational blurbs, and graphics of all sorts in the book. “Yeah, I’ve seen those in other educational books, what makes this one stand out”?, I can hear that being asked now.

It’s a combination of size, seriousness, variety, and cohesion. Road Trip Earth is divided up into four parts, Into the Earth, Wet, Wild, and Weird, Totally Grounded, and Sky’s the Limit.  Each part does not have a strict narrative per se, but it ends with a postcard that sends that area adieu as they tease the next part of the trip. The book has its shape more in league with a graphic novel than a reference book. While that other book is bigger and thus, has bigger pictures, it’s also loftier and not as inviting to read the entire thing.

Because of its more compact shape, one might think that the written bits are truncated or sacrificed. Instead, they come off as simply more succinct, with the non-mandatory elements edited out. Each area of concentration within the four parts might have two to seven paragraphs that explain the topic. Most of them have three, but the more complex ones require more explanation. Every page has at least two graphics, while the majority of the pages have a handful of them.

Road Trip Earth is a reference book that’s disguised as a graphic novel. Some might think of it as a science-based STEM graphic novel that invites readers to explore things that they think they won’t like. Education is not the equivalent of a bad time. Some kids might think it’s cool, or that their friends would think less of them if they were to, gasp…say that science, geology, archeology, math, biology, or other STEM subjects were fun.

What you like is what you like. If a student enjoys reading about something that you view as studious, then that is their hobby. If you enjoy reading something that others might view as disposable, then that is your hobby. Where Road Trip Earth excels is that it makes Earth science topics fun, accessible, and not intimidating. It’s a graphic novel that’s fun to read, entertaining, helpful, and has those bite-sized nuggets of information that you love so much from the other, more encyclopedic reference books.

Road Trip Earth, Explore our Awesome Planet, From Core to Shore and so Much More is from the creators of the science podcast, Brains Out!, and is written by Molly Bloom, Marc Sanchez and Sanden Totten and available on Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.

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