Mathical Honor Books

Bel doesn’t want to think about the future. College apps? You’re funny. Extracurriculars? Not a chance. Joining a robotics club filled with boys who ignore her or—even worse—constantly ask if she needs help? Please, anything but that. But when she accidentally reveals a talent for engineering in class, she has no choice. Enter Mateo Luna, …

Cassi has always been proud to be Puerto Rican, but when others comment on her appearance, telling her she doesn’t look like the rest of her family, Cassi begins to question everything. At school, Cassi finds a distraction in the Math Olympics, where she is able to do what she loves and soon befriends Aaron, …

A heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever. Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It’s how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds …

There’s no golden ratio for a family, despite what number-crunching Violet might think. Twelve-year-old Violet has two great loves in her life: math and pie. And she loves her parents, even though her mom never stops nagging and her dad can be unreliable. Mom plus Dad doesn’t equal perfection. Still, Violet knows her parents could …

Meet Jerry Lawson, the Black engineer who revolutionized the video game industry, in this engaging picture book biography. Before Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo Switch, there was a tinkerer named Jerry Lawson. As a boy, Jerry loved playing with springs, sprockets, and gadget-y things. When he grew up, Jerry became an engineer—a professional tinkerer—and in the …

All good things come in nines… Each poem in this clever collection is a nonet: a nine-line poem that starts with nine syllables in the first line and ends with one syllable in the ninth line (or the reverse). But these nonets go even further! Every one is also written with the number nine at …

Long before calculators were invented, little Edith Clarke devoured numbers, conquered calculations, cracked puzzles, and breezed through brainteasers. Edith wanted to be an engineer—to use the numbers she saw all around her to help build America. When she grew up, no one would hire a woman engineer. But that didn’t stop Edith from following her …

This wacky counting adventure by Geisel Award-winning author David LaRochelle is a hilarious ode to dragons and math, with pitch-perfect art by Lian Cho. High on a mountain live 100 mighty dragons all named Broccoli. When a tremendous wind blows half the dragons away, ten others sail off to become professional surfers in Hawaii. The …

Grown-ups do NOT have all the answers! In this tongue-in-cheek guide, an in-the-know narrator instructs kid readers in the fine art of explaining coding to a grown-up. Both children and their adults learn the basics of coding, including hardware, software, algorithms, and debugging. Cleverly disguised “pro tips” suggest best practices for teaching any topic. Fun …

A heartwarming story perfect for Father’s Day about a son and his papá who love to measure everything, including their love for each other. Rafa and his papá love to count and measure together. They know how many branches they climb to their favorite spot, they know how high their dog Euclid can jump, and …

Caldecott winner Beth Krommes and Newbery Honor-winning poet Joyce Sidman team up in this singular celebration of a beautiful, fascinating shape in nature. Branches are all around us: in butterfly wings, on gecko toes, in flowers, frost, and mud. Whether as electricity moving across the sky or rivers flowing to the sea, branches are nature’s …

A boldly graphic, verbally playful affirmation that the most precious things in life are immeasurable! How far can you go? How much do you know? How kind are you? How much do I love you? These are the impossible questions every child has asked, and every parent has struggled to answer. This is a wonderfully …