STEM Stories

Nancy Brashear and Carolyn Angus
This column includes reviews of books published in 2025 that are good choices for
independent reading in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics as well as for reading aloud to introduce lessons and activities on STEM
topics.

​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

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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 

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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 ​​

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​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​

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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​

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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

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​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​

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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 

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​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​

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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
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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

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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 ​

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Nancy Brashear is Professor Emeritus of English at 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.