Science Friday - 2023’s Best Science Books For Kids

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Gift-giving season is upon us once again! And if you’re not sure what to get the kids in your life, we’re here to help. Many new STEM books for kids and young adults came out this year, and we asked a few experts to tell us about their favorites from 2023.Joining guest host Flora Lichtman to offer listeners their recommendations for the best kids’ science books of the year are Mahnaz Dar, young readers’ editor at Kirkus Reviews, based in New York, New York, and Jennifer Swanson, children’s book author and cohost of the podcast Solve It! for Kids, based in Jacksonville, Florida.You can download a printable list of our guests’ recommendations to take with you on your shopping trip.To stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters. Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Gift-giving season is approaching. We'll help you find the perfect gift for the science-loving kids in your life. I think some of the best books are the ones that get kids thinking, get them curious. It's Tuesday, November 21st, and today, like every day, is Science Friday. I'm SciFri producer Shoshana Bucksbound. Thanksgiving is just a couple of days away. And you know what that means? We're now in the holiday season.

I usually wait until the very last second to try and find the perfect gift for the little ones in my life. And if you're like me, you're always looking for a fun way to get kids excited about science. Guest host, Flora Lickman, is here to give you a bit of a head start with your holiday shopping. A slew of great new sciencey books for kids and young adults came out this year. And today we have got two expert bookworms on the line to give you recommendations. Manazdar is the Young Readers Editor at Kirkus Reviews based in New York. And Jennifer Swanson is an educator, book author and co-host of the Solvit for Kids podcast. She's based in Jacksonville, Florida. Welcome both of you to Science Friday. Thanks for having me, Flora. Great to be here.

A quick note, this conversation was recorded in front of a live Zoom audience for more information about how to join a future live stream. Head to science friday.com slash live stream. Okay, Manaz, let's start with you. You must read hundreds of children's books every year for your job. I'm wondering, like, it is the form changing? Are science books for kids different these days than they used to be? Yeah, they've come a long way. I was just thinking about how they were when I was growing up, you know, when I was in elementary and middle school, librarians would book talk me like cool fiction, but no one was ever like, oh my God, and here's this really cool book on octopuses that you have to read. Those books were kind of like very dry, photo heavy, and they would give them to you, if you were doing a project and they were kind of these dry recitations of fact, and what I've

noticed in the last few years is just how vibrant nonfiction is, it can be kind of a hybrid thing. You see some books that are blending fiction stories with facts just to make it more fun. You see books that are really illustrated, just books that take a really creative view of the topic, and that are just really fun and engaging to read in ways that. that I don't think nonfiction always was in the past. Jennifer, as an author and consumer, what science subject matter do you think works best for kids besides poop? Well, let's see. There's so many. Space is hot right now. Everybody's excited about space. There's always the ocean. And then animals, dinosaurs. Everybody wants to know about dinosaurs and all of these different animals and creatures. So I think some of the best books are the ones that get kids thinking, get them curious, and also show them how they can interact.

Some of these books these days are interactive, which is even better because science is best in action, in my opinion. Do you have a favorite subject to write about? I do. Of late, my new book is Space Care and Kids Guide to Surviving Space. It's all the cool and a little strange things that happen to the body as we live in microgravity. But probably if you want an example of exactly what I love to write about, it's my book Astronaut Aquanaut, of Space Science and Sea Science interact. And this one talks about space and the ocean. And if you want to know about me, this is what I write about.

All right, let's get to some recommendations. Manaz, give me your top two or three favorite. science-y STEM books for kids from this year? Sure. My first one is called Search for a Giant Squid by Amy Sito Forrester, illustrated by Andy Chow Mooser. And this is kind of choose-your-own-adventure, heavily illustrated book aimed at ages about six to nine. The premise is you're part of a dive team. You're going to go look for a giant squid and a submersible.

There's all this info about ocean zones, the different equipment you're going to take. And then you just get to choose, like, okay, do you want to, choose this captain, where are you going to go? What's going to happen? Sometimes it ends up with you finding the squid, sometimes not. So it's got that really fun interactive element. And what I also love is that all of the characters, all the people are all of color. They're all different body shapes. And I feel like that's really important because often, you know, we've seen science and STEM where it's all like white male scientists, which, you know, we know that's not how it is or how it should be. So this is really refreshing and a wonderful thing.

My second is called Friends Beyond Measure by Lillina Fisher. This is a picture book about ages 5 to 9. And this one really puts the M in stem. There's a little bit of math here. So it's an infographic book about two characters who are friends. One of them learns that she's going to be moving soon. And the whole thing is kind of told through graphs and charts, you know, bar charts, pie charts. My favorite is one of the characters is slumped over a bar chart that illustrates.

from many complicated emotions, you know, the highest bar is shock, then there's sadness. And I just think it's a really fun way to introduce math, mathematical concepts, things like Venn diagrams. And, you know, for some kids who think of math is kind of scary and anxiety provoking, it shows them that, you know, you can also have some creativity and a little bit of fun. It's not just about getting the right answer. And my last one is called The Fire of Stars, the Life and Brilliance of the Woman who Discover what stars are made of by Kirsten W. Larson, illustrated by Catherine Roy, and I have a cover for this one. It's really gorgeous. This is a picture of a biography of Cecilia Paine, an astrophysicist

born in the 1900. We discovered what stars are made of. I think it's really amazing because it's kind of a dual biography. It tells us about Cecilia Paine's life, but also on the same page, we'll see how a star is born, how it, you know, progresses. It's so lyrical. It's beautiful. The illustrations are just soaring. And I think it's also another example of, you know, we've seen how Stan has gotten more diverse, but here's an example of even in the 1900s, a woman scientist making great strides. So I think that's just, you know, one of my favorites from this year. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Jennifer, what about you? Top three, top three books? So I have to agree with Search for Giant Squid. That was on one of my

top three. I thought that was just a truly amazing book. So my top three, my first one is the museum on the moon, the curious objects on the lunar surface by Irene Latham, illustrated by Miriam Wears. So as I said before, space is hot. Everybody's excited about space. And this is such a unique take on it. It's all about the things that get left behind on space by the humans that visited there in the past and whether or not this should be a museum. And it's also poetic. So you get a combine a combination of STEM with the poetry. So it's very accessible and fun.

And the illustrations are just gorgeous. My second one is actually big money. What is it? How we use it? And why do our choices matter by Rebecca Donnelly? And I think this one is so fun. I wish I had this when my kids were little. I feel like I need this now.

I need it now too. Let me have that book. it's so easy to understand and there are steps in here, but it also gives you real life experiences to talk about. Like, if you only have X amount of money, how do you choose what you're going to buy and all these different things? So this is a must read, I think, for many people, those of us who struggle with budgets, perhaps. And my last one is a vaccine is like a memory by Rajne LaRaca, illustrated by Kathleen Mark Coked. I hope I said that properly.

This book is just so cool. I mean, vaccines are all the things that we're all talking about. And this one goes through the history of vaccines, but then it also goes through how they work in your body. It actually works because when you get a vaccine, your body remembers how it fought it off. But in talking to the author, she also said the important part about this is that we remember what vaccines have done for us in history.

So this is a really, really cool book. You can see there are gorgeous illustrations inside. And there's lots of texts, but it's broken up easily. So you can go through it with smaller children. And it's just tons of fun. So I would recommend those three. But I think when I was talking before, there's so many of them out there this year. So yay for STEM books.

Let's go to our listeners. Deborah from Philadelphia has a question about science starter books. Deborah, welcome to Science Friday. Hi, I was wondering if both of you could recommend a quote starter book for 10 to 12 year olds who maybe aren't that aware of conservation, the natural environment. And I'm wondering if you could recommend any of those books that are at. easy reading level comprehension, medium comprehension, and maybe for advanced. There are a number of 10 to 12 year olds in our family, and I was thinking, even though I participate in a lot of conservation and environmental activities,

I can't quite seem to get them jazzed up about it just yet. And I thought maybe there's a book or two out there that would be the voice, the outside voice that they might want to listen to and engage with. Thanks. Manaz, Jennifer, any books come to mind? Well, you asked for three levels. I could start us off with some easy books. So I know you said ages 10, but I do have a couple of picture books I think could be good because sometimes picture books are just a good way for like, especially the whole family to kind of get into a topic. One of my favorites from this year is called The Great Carrier Reef by Jessica

streamer. And it's a very big. about a conservation project that was done, like creating kind of an artificial, like, barrier reef. And I love that it, it's a beautiful text, it's beautiful illustrations. I feel like it really balances that feeling of hope with the obvious feelings of despair that we all have because it's easy to get, I think, really sad about it. But it's an example of good that is being done. So it is one of my favorites from this year. And another picture book that I love is called Little Land by Diana Sudica. It's just kind of a general sort of call to action, sort of of an idea of, you know, why we should respect and love our earth and things we can do to kind

of, to safeguard it. Jennifer, I need to add. Well, this one's a little bit older, but what comes to mind for me is one plastic bag by Miranda Paul. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, and that kind of tells the story of how just beginning picking up plastic bags in the country, I believe it was Gambia, kind of changed how they looked at conservation. And so it's just one small step and it turned into this huge thing. So that's always a really good place to start with kids, in my opinion, with conservation to include them and then kind of make it a family thing. Manaz, I want to come back to this idea that you mentioned earlier about representation in these books. Do you feel like we're moving away, please, from the old man with unruly white hair

is scientist's trope? I think that trope has, you know, long been an aggravating one, you know, and I think we still see these attitudes. We still see sexism and racism in the wider world. But I feel like Kidlet authors have done a really great job of combating that. And, you know, I've seen so many more books that are profile and scientists of color. One of my favorites from this year is about a black botanist called rooting for plants. And then also I think just seeing authors of color writing books, even if it's not necessarily about someone of color, I think that's important too, that you don't necessarily have to be writing about oppression all the time. I think it's important for kids to see, even if they're just looking at the back of the book and seeing the author photo, just to see people who look like

them who are writing about lions and tigers and bugs and all those good things. We have a question from our audience, Tom from Lewiston, Idaho. Welcome to Science Friday. Hi there. I'm an assistant professor of literacy and teacher education. And one of our big initiatives in our coursework is to increase representation in the materials we use for instruction. And I have a pretty good handle on fiction, but I was wondering what resources you would

recommend for increasing and centering perspectives. outside of the cultural mainstream in STEM spaces. Thank you. So I know that there is a group called We Need Diverse Books, and they have a huge amount of books from diverse authors. I run a blog called Steam Team Books, where we have a list of a lot of the current books that year that are coming out about all of the different topics.

But also, if I could recommend one of my other ones this year, Has everyone seen this one to boldly go, right? How Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek helped advance civil rights by Angela Dalton? This one is amazing. And this is a great way to enter into it. So if people are like, oh, it's a non-fiction book. Okay. If you are a Star Trek fan, you know, it's important to know this,

how she was a civilian, so to speak, not a scientist, but helped bring women into the science program. And I think, you know, trade reviews. from places like Kirkus where I work, publishers weekly school library journal, a lot of these reviews now are making a concerted effort to identify, you know, race and ethnicity of the characters and of the subject. I think that's really, really helpful. And I think we are just seeing a lot more STEM books. And I think we're going to continue to see one. Another one that comes to mind for me is called Mother of Sharks. Do you remember that one, Jennifer? Yes. It's a really great one about a little girl who's like, oh, I want to be a marine biologist, but I don't know if never seen someone who looks

like me. And then she ends up seeing getting a vision and seeing herself as an adult marine biologist and becoming inspired. So I think we're seeing more books. And I think we're going to see even more as the years go by, which is really heartening. Right. As we should. Right. Definitely. You can actually hear an interview with the author of Mother of Sharks on Science Friday if you check out our archive. Tons of questions from our listeners. and from Charleston, South Carolina. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you so much.

So my child really loves graphic novels. He loves the Wimpy Kid Books, Big Nate. So I'm wondering if you all have any STEM recommendations for graphic novels and that same general reading level. Oh, I have one that I didn't mention, but I had planned it. I think it's the perfect line. Can I go ahead?

Yes, please. Yeah. Okay, so it is called Oliver's Great Big Universe by Jorge Chom. I've heard a lot of people comparing it to Diary of a Weepy Kid because the premise is it's about this kid who's writing his own book about the universe, astrophysics, but the premise is that he's like

kind of an average kid who doesn't know that much about it, but he's really interested in it. And it's got, you know, some real science. The author has a PhD, but it's got things like fart jokes, bathroom humor, you know, sibling banter. You know, it really is like a Greg Huffley were saying, you know what, I'm going to write about astrophysics. So I think that

that would be the perfect read like if your kid loves Diary of a Wimpy Kid but wants to know about science. And it's just really, really accessible. I would also recommend the science comics by first second. They have a whole list of them out there. And there's many different topics, kind of too many to go into. But it's a great look at science from a different angle, right? graphic novels are awesome. I wish that we'd had more of that when I was little. Like, I didn't have graphic novels, period. I wish I'd had STEM graphic novels.

I agree. I agree. Yes. Me too. Thank you, Ann, for the question. I have a question for both of you. Did you have books as kids, science books as kids, that influenced you? Now, I am probably older than most of you.

And the books that I found, I found this actually. when I was in Maine in like an old bookstore, but I started a science club in my garage. And this was the book that I used to influence me. Science in your own backyard by Elizabeth K. Cooper. Okay. So those of you that can see this are like, wow, that is an old book. Right. This is what science books looked like back then.

Now, there were other ones. But if you really wanted to do experiments, this is what we had. So I think we've been talking about Manaus, how. we've come a long way, haven't we? We've come a long way, babies. Yes. What about you, Manas? So I don't have like one formative book, but I love,

they were a lot of like volumes of weird but true, you know, like 101 bizarre things. I feel like that was kind of an entry point for me. I don't have like specific titles. But I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, this is such a weird story. Is this true or not? That was kind of a little bit of an entry point for. me like, oh, okay, here's this random story about someone discovering like a frog and a sealed plank of wood. Did that really happen? I feel like those books didn't always have the best back matter

because I was sometimes left with questions about, okay, I want to know a little bit more. And that's something that I love about our books now that we have this great back matter. We have the further reading, the bibliography. But that also, not having back matter encourages kids to be curious on their own and to go and explore. That's true. to be active scientists. There you go, exactly. Let's go to Emily. Emily's wondering about science nonfiction for early readers.

Emily, welcome to Science Friday. Thank you for having me. As I shared, I have a backtown first grader, and a lot of the early readers that we found that he can read independently are the best friend buddy trope, you know, which he also loves, like pizza and taco, narwhal and jelly, but I'm really looking for some good nonfiction early readers for him and wondered if you had recommendations. So I actually have a couple of, and these are probably a little bit younger,

but some of these board books are getting longer with language and stuff. So this is odd birds meet nature's weirdest flock by Laura Gale. This is fun. And then I love this one. How to Catch a dinosaur. Have you guys seen this one? This is so cool. This is by Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton. And so this one has a little bit more reading and also vivid images about how they're trying to catch a dinosaur. But they're actually going to learn all about the dinosaur. So I guess it kind of walks the line of nonfiction. But it's a really fun one and probably something that maybe your first grader could read by himself. And I have a couple of recommendations. It's the hands-on science books by Lola Schaefer. I'm not specifically early leaders or billed as early readers, but I think they could fit the bill. They're very hands-on. They're kind of interactive. They invite you to like, you know, press here, turn this. And they have them on different topics. Like there's one coming up on, I think, physics and motion.

I think there's one on geology. So you can find a lot of different topics, which I think is fun because kids are sometimes interested in different things. If you're just joining us, we're talking about sciencey book recommendations for kids with Manaz-Dar and Jennifer. for Swanson. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Let's say I have a kid in my life who is, who just loves like computers or engineering. Do any books come to mind for them? I had one this year that I think could be really fun. It was called How to Explain coding to a grown up by Ruth Spiro. So it's just very like kind of hands on like very user friendly. Again, a book I need. Yeah, because when I was reading it, I was like, you know, I don't know that I ever took, took a coding class as a kid. And it uses, like, examples that are very kid-friendly,

like how to walk home from, like, a certain person's house, but using coding in that way. So I think that one would be a really fun beginner, beginner one. The one that comes to mind for me is Grace Hopper, queen of computer code. And so this one is, it's by Lori Walmart illustrated by Katie Wu. This one is a biography about Grace Hopper, but it kind of gets you an introduction into coding and how it got started and all of these different things. And then my other thing is, is, you know, National Geographic Kids, D.K. Books, they all have really fun, interactive type books for almost any topic out there. So I would say, go and take a look at those. And they're so rousable. I feel like you can flip through it and just, you know, you don't have to read a cover to cover.

It's just so accessible. Exactly. Before we wrap up, I want to give you a scenario. So imagine someone listening to the show goes to the books. store, they have your recommendations in mind. They're not in stock because, you know, they waited too long. But they really need to get a book. They have a science-loving kid. Do you have tips for sort of picking out great science-y or STEM books for kids? Like, what should they look for? I mean, I think the first thing, the question I want to know is, what does the kid like to read? If they like to read stories, then you're going to be looking more for a narrative, like maybe a biography or a scientist in the field kind of thing

who goes through and does all of these different things. Or if they're a facts kid, you're going to want the browsable books, you know, like National Geographic, DK, some of the other books that I write or there's a bunch of other, you know, there's a bunch of fact books out there. And then think about what they like to do. Like if you don't know the topics they like, are they an active kid outdoorsy? do they code? That's kind of what I would do. And then I'd invite you, you know, Spence, I know everyone's rushed around, spend some time pulling the books off the shelves and kind of

looking through because sometimes the best ones are the ones no one has talked about yet, right? Use your brain. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion. I think often with Reader's advisory, it's helpful to think about, like, you know, what's the last book that the kid like? You may not know that. But if you're you know, a book that they like, think about why they liked it as used to Jennifer, maybe is it the story? Is it, you know, a topic? You know, they like interactive books. And like you said, I think looking at the books, paging through them, you know, getting a sense of, you know, if the last book that they liked was kind of more rousable with lots of images, you know,

maybe that's more their speed. If they like the story, looking for a narrative, looking for maybe more of something that has that story. And then just not being afraid to ask to, because I feel like your friendly bookstore employers, you know, see a lot, and they might be able to give you some really good recommendations. Agree completely. Yeah, you're librarians, too. Yeah, librarians know a lot. So I feel like our experts in the field are they have a lot to offer.

That's about all we have time for. Thanks to our Zoom audience for all your fabulous questions. And thank you to my guests. Manazdar, Young Reader's Editor at Kirkus Reviews and Jennifer Swanson, children's book author and co-host of the Solve It for Kids podcast. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

And if you weren't taking notes and want a list of the titles mentioned by our guests today, we have got you covered. Go to our website, sciencefriiday.com slash kids books to find all the books mentioned in today's conversation. Plus, a few extra we didn't get to. That's sciencefriiday.com slash kids books. And that's it for today. Lots of folks help put the show together, including Jordan Smudjick.

Charles Bergquist. George Harper. John Dancosky. Join us tomorrow to unravel the science of sweaters. I'm sci-fire producer Shoshana Bucksbaum. See you next time.