STEM at home
The Girl Who Thought in Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Grandin (Amazing Scientists Book 1)
by Julia Finley Mosca
Ages: 4-9 years
When Temple Grandin was young, doctors said she'd never speak. They were wrong. This rhyming picture book biography traces how a girl who processed the world in pictures — and thought the way animals do — grew up to revolutionize animal behavior science and transform livestock handling worldwide. Includes a full biography, timeline, fun facts, and a note from Temple herself. It's one of the few picture books that shows a real scientist's mind working differently — and treats that difference as the source of her genius.
Awards: NSTA Best STEM Books for K-12 | NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book | Dolly Gray Children's Literature Award | A Mighty Girl Book of the Year | USBBY Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities
Why we like it: Temple Grandin is a genuine science hero, and this book doesn't soften her story. It's an honest, warmhearted introduction to a mind that changed how we understand animals — and what's possible when kids who think differently are supported.
The Girl With a Mind for Math: The Story of Raye Montague (Amazing Scientists Book 3)
by Julia Finley Mosca
Ages: 5-10 years
After touring a German submarine as a girl, Raye Montague decided she was going to be an engineer. Sexism and racial inequality fought her every step of the way — and for decades, even her greatest achievement was kept secret. That achievement: using a computer to design a naval ship in record time, a first in U.S. Navy history. This rhyming picture book biography belongs alongside Hidden Figures — a gifted mathematician who changed ship design forever, working in the shadows until history caught up. Includes a biography, timeline, fun facts, and a note from Montague herself.
Awards: NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book 2019 | NSTA Best STEM Books for K-12 2019 | 2019 Amelia Bloomer List | 2019 Mathical Honor Book
Why we like it: Raye Montague is genuinely unknown to most people — kids and adults alike. She was a computing pioneer who applied mathematics to engineering at a scale that hadn't been done before. That story deserves to be told, and this book tells it well.
Rosie Revere, Engineer
by Andrea Beaty
Ages: 3-6 years
Rosie Revere is a quiet kid by day and a secret inventor by night. Her room is full of half-built contraptions — hot dog dispensers, helium pants, a python-repelling cheese hat — but she's too afraid of being laughed at to let anyone see them. When her great-great-aunt Rose pays a visit, she teaches Rosie something engineers know that most kids don't: the first flop is something to celebrate, not hide from. Failure only happens if you quit. Told in rhyming verse with richly detailed illustrations, this one lands differently than most STEM-themed picture books — it's really about what holds kids back from trying.
Awards: New York Times Bestseller | Parents Choice Gold Medal | Great Lakes Great Reads Award | ALA Amelia Bloomer Project | 2013 ReadBoston Read Aloud Winner
Why we like it: It gets at something most kids need to hear — that messing up is part of the process, not proof you don't belong. The engineering angle is genuine, but the message goes beyond any single subject.
Iggy Peck Architect
by Andrea Beaty
Ages: 3-6 years
Iggy Peck has been obsessed with building since he was two years old — and this rhyming picture book makes a strong case that that's something to celebrate, not redirect. When his second-grade teacher bans the subject of architecture, Iggy finds himself quietly miserable. Then a field trip goes sideways, a bridge collapses, and suddenly his classmates need exactly the kind of kid who knows how to build a suspension bridge from rulers, string, and fruit roll-ups. The story touches on structural engineering and design thinking in a way that feels completely natural — and the illustrations are genuinely beautiful.
Awards: New York Times Bestseller | Time Magazine Top 10 Picture Books | Parents Choice Silver | Bank Street College Best Book | E.B. White Read Aloud Nominee
Why we like it: Architecture is one of the most underrepresented STEM fields in kids' books. This one does it right — big ideas, real problem-solving, and a kid whose passion is treated as a superpower.
Vinculum
by Simply Fun
Ages: 8+ years
Fractions can feel slippery until something clicks — Vinculum is built to be that click. Players race to reduce and expand fractions mentally, spotting equivalents and slapping tiles before anyone else does. The math is real, but it plays like a reflex game. Designed by Dr. Reiner Knizia, a mathematician with a Ph.D. and over 800 published games, it's simple to learn and genuinely demanding to master. Up to six players, about 15 minutes a round.
Why we like it: The slap mechanic keeps everyone fully alert, built-in tile variations let difficulty scale naturally, and repeated play builds real fraction fluency — not just memorization.
I'm From
by Gary R. Gray, Jr.
Ages: 4-8 years
A picture book built around a powerful idea: the everyday moments that shape us — the foods, the sayings, the streets, the people — are worth celebrating. The poem's rich imagery is also a quiet geometry lesson. Circles, rectangles, and 3D solids are hiding in every illustration, in every neighborhood. A beautiful bridge between identity and spatial thinking.
Why we like it: This book makes a child feel seen — and then sneaks in the math. The geometry connection is genuinely clever: shapes aren't abstract here, they're in the bricks, the basketball hoops, the buildings your child walks past every day. It's the kind of read that starts a conversation and ends with a walk around the block.
The Lorax
by Dr Seuss
Ages: 3+ years
A beloved fable about what happens when industrial progress goes unchecked — and what it takes to reverse it. At its heart, it's an environmental science story: ecosystems, deforestation, pollution, and the fragile chain of cause and effect that connects them. The picture book delivers it in Seuss's unmistakable rhyme; the animated film gives it color, music, and scale. Both are widely available and work beautifully together.
Awards: #1 New York Times Bestseller | Caldecott Honors | Pulitzer Prize
Why we like it: Few resources open up conversations about sustainability, ecosystems, and civic responsibility this naturally — or this early. The "UNLESS" at the end is one of the most quietly powerful calls to action in children's literature, and it lands just as hard on screen as it does on the page. Read it, watch it, talk about it.
Bones Never Lie: How Forensics Helps Solve History's Mysteries
by Elizabeth MacLeod
Ages: 9-11 years
Seven cold cases from history — King Tut, Napoleon, Anastasia, and four others — examined through modern forensic science. DNA analysis, bone fragments, autopsies, ballistics, odontology: each chapter reads like a whodunit, then reveals how science settled what history couldn't. The crime-lab design keeps the pages moving, and the science is rigorous. A book that makes forensics, biology, and history feel like the same subject.
Awards: Arthur Ellis Award, Crime Writers of Canada — Juvenile/YA | Silver Medal, Independent Publisher Book Awards | EUREKA! Nonfiction Children's Book Award | Canadian Children's Book Centre Best Books, Starred Selection
Why we like it: Bones Never Lie makes kids want to become scientists without ever announcing that's what it's doing. The forensic science is real — DNA testing, deductive reasoning, entomology — and the historical context gives it genuine stakes. A natural bridge between science and history for curious, independent readers.