2024 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize Winners Announced

Stories exploring the deep-sea ecosystem, our solar system at scale, the marvels of the human body, and the natural world’s vibrant communication have earned the 2024 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books.

The winners exemplify outstanding and engaging science writing and illustration for young readers. Sponsored by Subaru of America, Inc., the award program, which is now celebrating its 18th year, is intended to encourage the creation of science books that can help readers of all age groups better understand and appreciate science. Awards are given in four categories: children’s science picture book, middle grades science book, young adult science book and hands-on science book. The prizes are presented to the authors, except in the case of the picture book award, which is given to both the author and the illustrator.

Judged by panels of librarians, scientists, literacy experts, and educators, the winning works feature accurate science and cannot perpetuate misconceptions or stereotypes. The criteria also require that each book be age-appropriate: For the youngest readers, a winning picture book should pique their curiosity about the natural world around them; for older readers, books should encourage the discussion and understanding of scientific ideas. Hands-on science books for any age must include inquiry-based activities that encourage problem-solving skills.

This year’s winners receive a cash prize and a commemorative plaque.

The Winners:

Children’s Science Picture Book:

Whale Fall: Exploring an Ocean-floor Ecosystem, by Melissa Stewart. (Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey.) Random House Studio, 2023.

This fascinating nonfiction picture book filled with stunning illustrations details the end of life for a whale, also known as a whale fall, when its body sinks to the ocean floor and becomes an energy-rich food source for organisms living in the deep sea.

When a whale dies, its massive body silently sinks down, down, through the inky darkness, finally coming to rest on the silty seafloor. For the whale, it’s the end of a 70-year-long life. But for a little-known community of deep-sea dwellers, it’s a new beginning. First come the hungry hagfish, which can smell the whale from miles around. Then the sleeper sharks begin their prowl, feasting on skin and blubber. After about six months, the meat is gone. Year after year, decade after decade, the whale nourishes all kinds of organisms from zombie worms to squat lobsters to deep-sea microbes.

Melissa Stewart has written more than 200 science books for children, including the Sibert Medal Honoree Summertime Sleepers: Animals that Estivate, illustrated by Sarah S. Brannen. She holds a degree in biology from Union College in Schenectady, NY, and a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. While gathering research for her books, she’s explored tropical rain forests in Costa Rica, gone on safari in East Africa, and swum with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands.

Rob Dunlavey is a fine artist and children’s book illustrator. His recent titles include Whale Fall by Melissa Stewart, In The Woods by David Elliott, and Owl Sees Owl by Laura Godwin. A native of the tall-grass prairie and oak savannas of suburban Chicago, Dunlavey studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Southern Illinois University and Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Rob is married and has two daughters and two cats—but no whales.

Middle Grades Science Book:

The Planets Are Very, Very, Very Far Away: A Journey Through the Amazing Scale of the Solar System, by Mike Vago. The Experiment, 2022.

Quick: Picture the solar system. Do you see nine planets on tidy rings around the Sun? Then you have been lied to!

It’s not without reason: We have to draw the solar system that way to fit it on a place mat, or a lunch box, or into an ordinary book. But that familiar diagram is wrong about almost everything—and so this is no ordinary book. Seven double-gatefold pages open out not once but twice, capturing our planetary neighbors at scale.

At a 100,000,000,000-to-1 scale, the Sun is about the size of a dime. And five feet away from the Sun, we find . . . Earth, the size of a pinhead. A hundred-billion-to-one scale is not nearly small enough to fit our solar system into a book (or onto a soccer field)! How small do we need to go? Unfold the next three spreads to find out . . .

Mike Vago is the creator of the bestselling The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf, The Pocket Book of Pocket Billiards, and the interactive board books Train and Rocket. He’s a graphic designer and a regular contributor to The A.V. Club. He tells people he lives in New York, but he actually lives in New Jersey.

Hands-on Science Book:

Human Body Learning Lab: Take an Inside Tour of How Your Anatomy Works, by Dr. Betty Choi. Storey Publishing, 2022.

Pediatrician Dr. Betty Choi invites kids ages 8 and up to explore the marvels of the human body with lively hands-on projects and activities, including shaping bones from salt dough, creating a moving model of the eyes, crafting a 3D skin model, making a blow-up model of how a bicep muscle contracts, tracing capillary action, and even setting up a working model of the urinary system to show how pee is produced. 

Packed with colorful diagrams of how each major body system works, fun facts, and easy tests that kids can use to learn about and evaluate their own body functions—from touch sensitivity to colorblindness, taste perception, lung capacity and more—The Human Body Learning Lab makes biology more exciting and engaging than ever. 

Dr. Betty Choi is a pediatrician, medical writer, and former homeschooling parent. From her roots at Boston Children's Hospital to over a decade of work in education, she is passionate about making learning memorable and meaningful. Her debut book, Human Body Learning Lab, teaches kids about their amazing bodies through fun, hands-on activities. The accompanying website, HumanBodyLearning.com, offers more resources for curious kids, parents, and teachers.

Young Adult Science Book:

The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants, by Karen Bakker. Princeton University Press, 2022.

The natural world teems with remarkable conversations, many beyond human hearing range. Scientists are using groundbreaking digital technologies to uncover these astonishing sounds, revealing vibrant communication among our fellow creatures across the Tree of Life.

At once meditative and scientific, The Sounds of Life shares fascinating and surprising stories of nonhuman sound, interweaving insights from technological innovation and traditional knowledge. We meet scientists using sound to protect and regenerate endangered species from the Great Barrier Reef to the Arctic and the Amazon. We discover the shocking impacts of noise pollution on both animals and plants. We learn how artificial intelligence can decode nonhuman sounds, and meet the researchers building dictionaries in East African Elephant and Sperm Whalish. At the frontiers of innovation, we explore digitally mediated dialogues with bats and honeybees. Technology often distracts us from nature, but what if it could reconnect us instead?

The Sounds of Life offers hope for environmental conservation and affirms humanity’s relationship with nature in the digital age. After learning about the unsuspected wonders of nature’s sounds, we will never see walks outdoors in the same way again.

Karen Bakker was a scholar at the University of British Columbia and entrepreneur who worked at the crossroads of technology and ecology. The author of seven books and more than 100 scholarly articles, Bakker also led The Smart Earth Project, which explores the impacts of digital technologies on environmental sustainability. In a tremendous loss to the many communities of learning she inhabited and impacted, Bakker passed away in August 2023, before the announcement of this latest recognition for The Sounds of Life.

Learn more about the 2024 winners from AAAS here.