​Alpacas Here, Alpacas There. Carrie Tillotson. Illus. by Elisa Chavarri. (2025). Beach Lane.
“Alpacas here, / alpacas there, // relax and rest / in Mama’s care.” Elisa Chavarri’s colorful acrylic-and-gouache Peruvian folk art that is paired with Carrie Tillotson’s simple rhyming verse in this inviting informational picture book makes clear the “here” and “there” of this endearing, pronking, prancing mammal in its native South America as well as in North America and other parts of the world. The cria (baby alpaca) quickly bonds with family and herd; depends on protection from “hunters” such as foxes, condors, and bears; and is a source of valuable fleece. The prose sidebars in smaller print provide additional information (for example, how the animals provide fibers for warmth and income, meat for food, and dung for fuel and fertilizing crops) that will appeal to older readers. Back matter includes author’s and artist’s notes; “More About Alpacas,” “A Range of Alpaca-Raising Practices,” and “South American Camelids” sections; a glossary; and selected sources. (PreS Up)
—NB

Elephant Bowling and Other Animal Play (Animals Do What? #2). Richard Haynes. Illus. by Stephanie Laberis. (2025). Candlewick.
“Who Wants to Play?” Richard Haynes explores how young wild animals, just like human children, engage in more than 25 games. They build strength, agility, and strategy skills for survival through their activities: wolves playing Zoomie, Arabian babbler (birds) playing King of the Hill, and African lion cubs playing Smackdown. Sometimes, however, pure fun is the name of the game: Orangutans scampering through trees and dressing themselves in foliage, wallabies playing hide-and-seek from Mom’s pouch, and elephants bowling with their bodies. Stephanie Laberis’s cartoon-style illustrations also feature animals engaging in such joyful acts as juggling, wrestling, and sledding. Front matter includes a global map of the locations of the playful animals in the book, and back matter includes a glossary, a bibliography, and an index. This informational picture book by Haynes was published posthumously as a companion to Orangutan Hats and Other Tools Animals Use (2021). (PreK Up)
—NB 

Fantastic Flora: The World’s Biggest, Baddest, and Smelliest Plants. Ann McCallum Staats. Illus. by Zoë Ingram. (2025). MIT Press.
Fantastic Flora introduces middle grade readers to plant survival by focusing on the adaptations of some of the world’s big, bad, smelly, and exceptionally strange plants. The three chapters in “The Big” section, for example, feature the Bolivian water lily (Victoria Boliviana) with its supersize leaf, the traveler’s palm (Ravenala madagascariensis) with a gigantic spread of leaves shaped like the fan of a peacock’s tail, and the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum), the largest tree on Earth by volume. The format of the book is inviting. Zoë Ingram’s colorful, realistic illustrations complement Ann McCallum Staats’s chatty and witty narrative. Sidebars and insets with interest-catching titles will hold the attention of readers while providing a wealth of more general information on botanical science. Back matter includes a glossary, source notes, a selected bibliography, and an index. (Gr 3 Up)
—CA ​​

​The Five Sides of Marjorie Rice: How to Discover a Shape. Amy Alznauer. Illus. by Anna Bron. (2025). Candlewick.
Why don’t pentagons fit together like shapes with three, four, or six sides? Had mathematicians solved the “problem of five” with the identification of all possible convex pentagons? In this engaging biography, Amy Alznauer tells the story of Marjorie Rice (1923-2017), a homemaker and mother of five who, with an inquisitive mind but no formal training in mathematics, tackled the problem of pentagonal tiling. The Five Sides of Marjorie Rice, enhanced by Anna Bron’s colorful, digitally-created illustrations, provides an accessible explanation of tessellations and celebrates the connection of art and geometry, as well as the role of curiosity and perseverance in solving problems. Back matter includes an author’s note, additional information on shapes, activities for exploring shapes, and a bibliography. (Gr 3 up)
—CA​

Genius Eyes: A Curious Animal Compendium (Curious Animal Compendium #3). Lena Anlauf. Trans. by Marshall Yarbrough. Illus. by Vitali Konstantinov. (2025). NorthSouth.
Genius Eyes presents a gallery of curious animals from around the world organized in sections by type of eyes including Giant Eyes, Masked Eyes, Many Eyes, and Scary Eyes. Each of the ten sections is comprised of one or more double spreads filled with Lena Anlauf’s informative and accessible narrative and Vitali Konstantinov’s stunning artwork, created with drawing ink and colored pencil, that includes some full-page portraits of featured animals. Back matter includes a detailed glossary, sources, and an index by scientific name. Readers intrigued by Genius Eyes will also be interested in its companion volumes: Genius Noses (2023) and Genius Ears (2024). (Gr 3 Up)
—CA​

Insectarium (Welcome to the Museum). Dave Goulson. Illus. by Emily Carter. (2025). Big Picture.
This latest book in the oversized Welcome to the Museum series invites readers to tour the galleries of an insectarium and discover the amazingly diverse world of insects. The seven galleries (chapters) include rooms (double spreads with an ink-and-digitally colored plate of insects on the recto page and general information and a key to the plate identifying the insects by common and scientific names on the verso page) plus a spread featuring a terrarium depicting a characteristic habitat of the insects. The rooms in Gallery 2, “True Bugs and Relatives,” for example, include true bugs, the pharaoh cicada, thrips, lice, book lice, and bark lice, and a temperate forest habitat. The tour ends with a visit to the museum’s library with an index organized by common and scientific names; biographical notes on the curators, author Dave Goulson and illustrator Emily Carter; and a “To Learn More” list of websites. (Gr 3 Up)
—CA

​Meet the Mini-Mammals: A Night at the Natural History Museum. Melissa Stewart. Illus. by Brian Lies. (2025). Beach Lane.
Melissa Stewart’s prose takes young readers on a museum tour to discover which of ten amazing mini-mammals (including the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel, the American shrew mole, and the Philippine tarsier) has the smallest body. Each species is introduced in a double spread—in its actual size on the verso page in a wooden frame with informational text below and an illustration of mammal in the wild on the recto page along with a “Tiny Tidbit” sidebar and a simple repetitive question about the animal’s size (for example, “Is this pinky-sized peewee the mini-est mammal of all?”) before the page is turned. An occasional impatient intruder breaking into the mini-mammal introductions adds a humorous touch. Brian Lies’ engaging illustrations, rendered in acrylic paint and colored pencils, partner well with Stewart’s scientific content. Back matter includes a world map placing the mini-mammals geographically, a “Mini-Mammal Small Stats” section, and selected resources. (PreK Up)
—NB​

My Book of Frogs and Toads (Big Books for Little Naturalists #3). Geraldo Valério. (2025). Groundwood.
Young readers will be mesmerized by this information-packed, larger-format picture book about two popular amphibians, frogs and toads. Geraldo Valério quickly delineates differences between the two creatures, most noticeably that a frog’s skin is smooth, moist, and slimy compared to that of a toad, which is thick, dry, and bumpy. He then brings more than 60 species to life in vignettes with vibrant, detailed paint-and-paper collage illustrations of frogs and toads, each accompanied by it common name and scientific name and a factoid. Examples include the Yellow Cururu Toad (Rhinella icterica), which eats poisonous scorpions, and the Moor Frog (Ryana arvalis), which turns bright blue during mating season. Front matter features an introduction, “Metamorphosis: The Life Cycle,” and a world map; back matter includes a glossary and suggestions for further reading. Endpapers exhibit images and common names of tadpoles in the front and, in the back, the adult frogs and toads introduced in the book. (PreK Up)
--NB 

​Six Little Sticks. Tiffany Stone. Illus. by Ruth Hengeveld. (2025). Greystone Kids.
Tiffany Stone’s search-and-find STEM book invites young readers to observe, count, add, subtract, and learn about stick bugs. Mama stick bug counts her six little stick bugs—“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.” Ruth Hengeveld’s clever artwork renders them barely visible against the foliage as Mama must teach them how to vanish when they are in the open. After one stick bug baby hides, Mama sees and can count only five. On the next page, she spies and counts—“1, 2, 3 plus one is 4.” Four?! Counting again, there are “1, 2, 3” and then “1, 2” and then “1”— and then they’ve ALL disappeared. Mama is proud of her six little stick bugs’ hiding abilities and joins them in playing hide-and-seek with cousins and friends. Readers are invited to search for 20 hidden stick bugs (with the key on the last page). Back matter includes “Six Little Facts About Stick Bugs” and a challenge to find “Six More Tricky Critters.” (PreK-Gr 2)
—NB​

The Stuff That Stuff Is Made Of: The Things We Make with Plants. Jonathan Drori. Illus. by Jiatong Liu & Raxenne Maniquiz. (2025). Magic Cat.
Readers attracted to this book’s cover will discover the tremendous number of things that humans make from 30 different species of plants—some familiar, such as tea, cotton, dandelion, and sugarcane, and some less-known, such as mandrake, giant timber bamboo, the gutta-percha tree, and henna. Each recto page includes a colorful, realistic illustration of the featured plant identified by common and scientific names, as well as smaller images of parts of the plant, all with informative labels. The verso page begins with an interest-catching statement that is followed by illustrated paragraphs containing interesting historical and cultural details about the plant and its use by humans. Back matter includes a glossary and a brief biography of Jonathan Drori. After reading the books, children may also be ready to accept the author’s challenge in the introduction: ”What can you see right now that wasn’t made using plants?” (Grade 3 Up)
—CA
​

Trapped in the Tar Pit: How Paleontologists Unearthed a City’s Prehistoric Past. Jessica Steremer. Illus. by Alexander Vidal. (2025). Beach Lane.
This informational picture book details the history of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles flashing back to 40,000 years ago when an earthquake released sticky tar that eventually trapped at least 42 species of animals (including one woman from approximately 9,000 years ago). Beginning with the story of a “woolly and bully and thirsty” mammoth stepping into a pond and getting stuck, readers are taken through the history of the tar pits to finally meet the paleontologists, who, beginning in 1901, chipped, chiseled, and cleaned the fossilized bones in scientific excavations that continue through current times. Alexander Vidal’s digital cartoon-like illustrations in earth tones partner well with Jessica Steremer’s explanatory text geared toward young audiences. Back matter includes an extensive “La Brea Tar Pits Tidbits” section, a “Species List” key to the 42 animals pictured in the book, an illustrator’s note, and selected sources. (PreK Up)
—NB

When Science Stood Still: How S. Chandrasekhar Predicted the Existence of Black Holes. Shruthi Rao. Illus. by Srinidhi Srinivasan. (2025). Margaret K. McElderry.  
While on a voyage across the Indian Ocean to continue his study of astrophysics in England, 19-year-old Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995) developed a theory about the life and death of stars that, when he presented it to famous scientists, was rejected. “Whoever heard of a star exploding and then disappearing!” They thought all dying stars cooled down into planet-sized balls. After years of trying to get his incredible idea accepted, Chandra went to America where he continued to discover other secrets of the universe and in 1983 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Back matter includes extensive notes on the life and work of Chandrasekhar, a partial time line of black holes (from  Albert Einstein’s 1915 additions to his theory of relativity that were the basis for Chandra’s calculations to the first capture of an image of a black hole by NASA telescopes in 2019,) and sources. (Gr 3 Up)
—CA ​

​Nancy Brashear and Carolyn Angus
Reading trade books is an important component of an interdisciplinary approach to developing literacy skills and learning STEM content. This column includes recently published books that are good choices for reading aloud to introduce lessons and activities on STEM topics as well as for independent reading in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

An Anthology of Exquisite Birds (Children’s Anthologies #7). Ben Hoare. Illus. by Angela Rizza & Daniel Long. (2024). DK.
Natural history enthusiast Ben Hoare’s anthology includes 97 birds from around the world organized by size from the big green peafowl, Dalmatian pelican, and emu to the tiny common tailorbird, Cuban tody, and hummingbirds. Each double spread features an interest-catching statement in italics, a narrative of fascinating facts about the bird, and a small inset noting its location complemented by a stunning full-color photograph and the artwork of Angela Rizza and Daniel Long. Inserts provide additional information on bird evolution, beaks, feathers, nests, eggs, wings, and feet. Back matter includes a tree of life of the 40 orders of birds, a glossary, and a visual index (a small portrait, common and scientific names, location, bird order, and length). An Anthology of Exquisite Birds is an exquisite classic volume with gold-edged pages and a blue ribbon page marker to be treasured and enjoyed by readers of all ages. (PreK Up)
—CA​

Big Babies. Patrick O’Brien. (2024). Charlesbridge.
Eleven baby dinosaurs standing next to parts of their massive parents for comparison are pictured humorously with objects familiar to young readers along with brief informational statements on double-spread pages. For example, the TYRANNOSAURUS REX “tyrant lizard king” entry presents a baby tyrannosaur sitting in a crown looking up at its parent and “This tiny toddler grew up to be a might meat-eating monster. In the year that the tyrannosaurus roamed the Earth, it was a top predator.” Other dinosaurs include Anatotitan (“giant duck”) posed next to a rubber ducky to emphasize its duck-like snout; Triceratops (“three-horned face”) balancing donuts on its horns; and Velociraptor (“swift thief”) looking at a toy race car. The back matter includes more facts about the dinosaurs and a “Behold the Babies!” chart that compares the sizes of the baby dinosaurs to a four-foot-tall child, who stands higher than all of them. (PreK-Gr 2)
—NB 

Birth of the Bicycle: A Bumpy History of the Bicycle in America. Sarah Nelson. Illus. by Iacopo Bruno. (2024). Candlewick.
“The bicycle’s great-grandpa was a heavy, clunky thing— / with wooden wheels and wooden spokes, / a wooden saddle, frame, and yoke.” Short lines of text set against expressive single- and double-page illustrations done in pencil and colored digitally describe, in both words and pictures, the history of the bicycle beginning with the invention of a wooden pedal-less two-wheeler in Germany in 1817 that became known as the velocipede. In 1819, the newfangled vehicle traveled across the Atlantic, but it proved to be too expensive and unsafe to ride on America’s poor roads. Finally, in 1890, an affordable model with a lighter frame, two smaller wheels, a comfortable seat, inflatable tires, and easy steering provided “pedal-powered freedom / for the big hustling masses.” Back matter includes an extensive “More About Bicycles” narrative providing details on innovative models and their inventors as well as improvements, such as smother roads, bike lanes, and off-street trails that made cycling a convenient and healthy means of transportation, and a bibliography. (PreK Up)
--NB

Call the Bee Doctor!: How Science Is Saving Honey Bees (Sandra Markle’s Science Discoveries). Sandra Markle. (2024). Millbrook.
“Millions of honey bees were vanishing from beehives around the world.” In this update to The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees: A Scientific Mystery (2013), in which Sandra Markle reported on the alarming disappearance of worker bees in commercial bee colonies, she explores what apiologists, “the bee doctors,” have learned about colony collapse disorder (CCD) and the progress being made to save honey bees. Researchers have identified four possible causes of CCD: pesticides, poor nutrition, parasites, and pathogens. With an accessible text and numerous close-up captioned photographs, Markle provides details of experiments that have led to three “prescriptions” to prevent the spread of CCD, explains how they are helping to improve the health of honey bees, and identifies a new threat to honey bee colonies in the future—climate change. Back matter includes an author’s note, a “Those Amazing Honey Bees” list of facts, a glossary, source notes, resources (books and websites), and an index. (Gr 3 Up)
—CA

Graphs! David A. Adler. Illus. by Edward Miller. (2024). Holiday House.
Graphs! invites young readers to join Janet, Ben, and their mother as they spend a day at an amusement park collecting and converting numerical data into different types of graphs. At the Ferris wheel with 14 cabins, they count the number of orange, green, and yellow cabins and convert their collected data (6 orange, 5 green, and 3 yellow) into a bar graph with cabin colors on the x-axis and number of cabins on the y-axis. They then show another way of presenting the same data with the number of cabins on the x-axis and their colors on the y-axis. Although the graphs look different, they both can be easily interpreted. The next attraction with 17 bumper cars, also orange, green, and yellow, leads to a double bar graph useful in comparing two sets of data. By day’s end, they have had fun and shown how to express numerical data in pictographs, histograms, line graphs, double line graphs, and pie charts. (PreK Up)
—CA

Thomas Jefferson’s Battle for Science: Bias, Truth, and a Mighty Moose! Beth Anderson. Illus. by Jeremy Holmes. (2024). Calkins Creek.
Beth Anderson’s witty narrative presented in text boxes and the comic book-styled panels of Jeremy Holmes’ expressive artwork, created with woodblock prints and digital pencil, offer young readers an account of how Thomas Jefferson, a keen observer of the nature, was outraged by what French Count Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon had to say about the inferiority of the New World and its animals in comparison to the Old World in his encyclopedia of the natural world. “HOGWASH! / ABSURD! / OUTRAGEOUS! / POPPYCOCK!” How had Buffon come up with his theory when he had never been to America? Jefferson waged a “battle” against Buffon’s misinformation based on the scientific process of inquiry. Back matter includes an author’s note providing a historical context, a timeline of Thomas Jefferson’s life, and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. (PreK Up)
—CA

Unlocking the Universe: The Cosmic Discoveries of the Webb Space Telescope. Suzanne Slade. (2024). Charlesbridge.
With Susan Slade’s accessible text and awe-inspiring images of the vast cosmos, Unlocking the Universe introduces readers to the world’s most powerful telescope, the Webb Space Telescope. Conceived and designed as the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) by a team of scientists beginning in 1989 and becoming a NASA project in 1996, the space telescope (renamed the Webb in 2002) was built at a cost of more than $10 billion at Northrop Grumman in California. After more testing, repairing, and redesigning, the assembled telescope, now an actual observatory, began its slow transport by cargo ship to the launch site in French Guiana in 2019. The Webb Space Telescope was successfully launched from the Guiana Space Centre on December 25, 2021, and NASA began releasing the images of the Webb’s spectacular discoveries in July 2022. Back matter includes an author’s note, a diagram of the Webb’s light-detecting instruments, information about NASA’s four earlier “great observatories,” resources, and a bibliography. (Gr 3 Up)
—CA

Volcanoes. Nell Cross Beckerman. Illus. by Kalen Chock. (2024). Orchard.
“Plates sift. / Land tilts. / Gas seeps. // What / is / coming?” Nell Cross Beckerman’s spare text set against Kalen Chock’s striking double-spread illustration of a barren landscape with a giant fault line provides an engaging introduction to volcanoes. “When will it … // POP?!” is followed by lyrical descriptions and scientific information in smaller print on such topics as lava, volcanologists, the formation of the Hawaiian Islands, the Ring of Fire, underwater volcanoes, and the biggest volcanic explosions on Earth. Then as silhouetted individuals are pictured viewing the night sky,  “Look up! / What  do you see?” focuses attention on extraterrestrial volcanoes. Making the point that volcanoes are everywhere, Beckerman ends with questions for readers to ponder such as “How was Earth created?” and “What is coming?” and her provocative “Maybe you will find out.” Extensive back matter includes an author’s note, illustrator’s note, further reading, and additional information: “The Different Types of Volcanic Eruptions” “The Big Questions That Volcanologists Are Trying to Answer,” and “Even More Facts About Volcanoes!”  (PreK Up)
—NB

Wildlife Crossings: Protecting Animal Pathways Around the World. Catherine Barr. Illus. by Christiane Engel. (2024) Candlewick.
“Wild creatures need room to roam.” Catherine Barr grabs readers’ interest by introducing Earth’s ancient crisscrossing paths “made by 8.7 million species searching for food, water, mates, and safe places to breed.” Animals need these links to nature, which have been disrupted by humans, for survival. In individual chapters, seven animals from around the world (elephants, hedgehogs, birds, gibbons, fish, bears, cougars) are presented on two double-spread pages: the first with top portions containing informative narratives about the specific animal, its travel habits, and its plight and lower portions featuring Christiane Engel’s detailed mixed-media illustrations and the second with additional information on the human-animal relationship and spotlighting the efforts of scientists and citizen scientists to assist the travel of the animal. In the final chapter, “Meet Seven More Species (rediscovering ancient paths),” badgers, bees, crabs, elephants, jaguars, pangolins, and tigers are identified with a country and a hope-filled description of how people are helping these animals find safe crossings (PreK Up)
—NB

A Window into the Ocean Twilight Zone: Twenty-four Days of Science at Sea. Michelle Cusolito (2024). Charlesbridge.
Michelle Cusolito chronicles 24 days in 2021 aboard the Spanish research vessel Sarmiento de Gamboa in the North Atlantic with scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Each day’s entry contains basic log information, such as Moving Onto the Ship, April 29 (Day 1), Vigo, Spain: latitude 42.2° N, longitude 8.7° W, followed by first-person entries, captioned photographs, and insets of additional information like “Research Vessel Terms” and diagrams showing, for example, how the biological carbon pump process works in the ocean. Readers will be captivated by the scope of this scientific voyage from smooth sailing to storms on the high seas and underwater robots to the return to Vigo on May 21. Back matter features more information on the research expedition, sources, acknowledgments, image credits, and an index. (Gr 6 Up)
—NB

Nancy Brashear and Carolyn Angus 
The recently-published informational picture books reviewed in this column are good read-aloud choices to introduce STEM units on the extraordinary variety of life on Earth. These engaging books will pique the interest of children to learn more through independent research on different species of animals, plants, and fungi and stimulate lively discussions of the actions needed to help insure the survival of species and ecosystems.    ​

​How Birds Sleep. Sara Pedry & David Obuchowski. Illus. by Sarah Pedry. (2023). mineditionsUS.  
So how do birds sleep anyway?” is addressed by Sara Pedry and David Obuchowski’s inviting narrative about 20 bird species from the United States and other countries from around the world including Chile, Kenya, China, and Australia on single pages and double-page spreads that identify the featured birds by common and scientific names and countries and present facts about their sleep behavior. The book opens at dusk in the United States with a barn owl wide awake while thousands of tree swallows signal bedtime “in an elaborate routine” in the sky before they “funnel down into the reeds” to slumber—and ends with the barn owl nestled in his tree at dawn for a good day’s sleep while tree swallows fly out of the reeds. Pedry’s lush artwork, done by hand in layers using charcoal, ink, and gouache, augments the text with realistic portraits of the birds sleeping in their natural habitats. This soothing read-aloud also makes a perfect goodnight book. Back matter includes information about bird sleep, climate change, the backstory, and resources. (PreK-Gr 2)  
--NB

Nancy Brashear is Professor Emeritus of English from Azusa Pacific University, in Azusa, California. Carolyn Angus is former Director of the George G. Stone Center for Children’s Books, Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California. ​