This list—selected by volunteer educators and assembled in cooperation with the Children’s Book Council—provides recommendations about the best trade books with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) content available for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
“The 2020 list of Best K-12 STEM books cover a wonderfully diverse spectrum of STEM themes that engage, entertain, and inspire students,” said NSTA Executive Director Dr. David Evans. “We are delighted to bring increased attention to these outstanding books that help bolster reading comprehension skills while learning STEM content.”
Members of the book review panel, made up of STEM educators and literacy professionals appointed by NSTA, selected 22 books for the list from approximately 322 submissions. The list of winning titles includes topics that range from crayons to crash-test dummies.
by Lori Alexander
Illustrated by Vivien Mildenberger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
Meet Antony van Leeuwenhoek, the first person to see bacteria, protozoa, and cells “all in a drop” of water with his revolutionary microscopes in the late seventeenth century.
by Jordan Reeves and Jen Lee Reeves
Publisher: Simon & Schuster / Aladdin
The autobiography of a brave, innovative, and inspiring young lady who meets challenges with passion while spreading awareness about limb differences.
by Janice N. Harrington
Illustrated by Theodore Taylor III
Publisher: Boyds Mills & Kane / Calkins Creek
Discover the power of questioning and the positive impact Charles Henry Turner had on how we observe our natural world.
by Suzanne Slade
Illustrated by Veronica Miller Jamison
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Katherine Johnson loved counting and math from her earliest years. As an adult, she broke through societal barriers against black women to become an integral part of NASA’s successful race to the moon.
by Natascha Biebow
Illustrated by Steven Salerno
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
Discover the true story of the creation of Crayola crayons by an inventor who persevered in order to bring vibrant colors to children’s fingertips.
by Rob Polivka and Jef Polivka
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group / Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Take flight atop Airship No. 6 with Alberto Santos-Dumont around the Eiffel Tower. Through a series of attempts, failures and lessons, young Alberto conquered the skies and opened the door for aviation.
by Mike Winchell
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and a world in need of electricity. Go into the mind of three geniuses and the progressive thinking that changed the way we view the world.
by Anna Crowley Redding
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group / Feiwel & Friends
From electric cars to space exploration, this book describes how the inventor Elon Musk is tackling some of humankind’s most challenging problems.
by Ian Lendler
Illustrated by C. M. Butzer
Publisher: Simon & Schuster / Margaret K. McElderry Books
Read about the time before people discovered dinosaurs. Medical doctors, curiosity collectors, and quarrymen pieced together the puzzle of unfamiliar animal bones to discover the existence of dinosaurs.
by Lowey Bundy Sichol
Illustrated by C. S. Jennings
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
A unique sneak peek into the creative business path of LEGO’s foundations, where the theory of play meets engineering and design problemsolving.
by Peggy Thomas
Illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham
Publisher: Boyds Mills & Kane / Calkins Creek
Encouraged by his mother to “do something useful,” Henry Ford discovers many ways to innovate using the under-appreciated, but highly adaptable, soybean.
by Kim Tomsic
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Music will never be the same because of Les Paul’s out of the box thinking. Through transformative and inspired modifications, young Paul thinks up great inventions that revolutionized music forever.
by Laura Dershewitz and Susan Romberg
Illustrated by Meghann Rader
Publisher: The Innovation Press
A delightful story about the clever inventions of Frances Gabe as she worked to create a house that could clean itself.
by Elizabeth MacLeod and Frieda Wishinsky
Illustrated by Jenn Playford
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
This book highlights the thinking and problem solving strategies of ordinary people that have led to well-known inventions such as popsicles, microwaves, and Teflon.
by Tami Lewis Brown and Debbie Loren Dunn
Illustrated by Chelsea Beck
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
This is the true story of three WWII era women who, without any guidance or instructions, managed to command a computer and, in the process, change the modern world.
by Lela Nargi
Illustrated by Harriet Popham
Publisher: Capstone Editions
Tells the true story of Karl, a bird with a broken beak, and the team of people who used problem solving and 3-D printing to help him live a better life.
by Barb Rosenstock
Illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal
Publisher: Boyds Mills & Kane / Calkins Creek
Find out how Frank Lloyd Wright’s childhood on the Wisconsin prairie impacted his architectural designs which celebrate the shapes of the natural world.
by Tracy Nelson Maurer
Illustrated by El Primo Ramón
Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Through failures and revisions, Samuel Morse’s persistence resulted in changing communications forever – an inspiring story of a great inventor.
by Jennifer Swanson
Illustrated by TeMika Grooms
Publisher: Peachtree Publishing Company Inc.
From bumpers to brakes, and seat belts to airbags, this engaging book explores the science and history of automobile safety design through the eyes of crash-test dummies.
by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers
Follow the author as she travels to see how scientists are working with a variety of technology to save Tasmania’s icon, the Tasmanian Devil, from being wiped out by disease.
Written and illustrated by Rachel Dougherty
Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group / Roaring Brook Press
An incredibly inspiring true story of the young woman who supervised the building of the Brooklyn Bridge after her husband, the chief engineer, became ill during the bridge’s construction.
by Susan Hood and Pathana Sornhiran
Illustrated by Dow Phumiruk
Publisher: HarperCollins
Harrowing details about saving a boys soccer team and their coach. They had become trapped after an afternoon of cave exploration during the monsoon season.
Sources for story, images and table of contents image: The Associated Press, Newswire and the National Science Teaching Association
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