The Best Diverse STEM Books

Do you have diverse books in your classroom shelves? Most likely the answer is yes. But do you have STEM focused books? And do those STEM focused books represent all of the students in your class?

Kids benefit from seeing themselves in stories. The more mainstream we make diverse books in our classroom, the more mainstream we make diversity.

Below is a round up for different diverse STEM books featuring either people of color or females. Some of these books are picture books, fiction, novels or nonfiction.

Books about Coding/Programing for Kids

• How to Code a Sandcastle by Josh Funk
• How to Code a Roller Coaster by Josh Funk
• Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science by Diane Stanley
• Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World by Reshma Saujani
• The Friendship Code #1 (Girls Who Code) by Stacia Deutsch

Books about Space

• Counting on Katherine by Melaine Becker
• The Girl Who Named Pluto by Alice B. McGinty
• Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
• My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi
• Caroline’s Comets by Emily Arnold McCully

Books about Engineering/Inventing

• The World is Not a Rectangle by Jeanette Winter
• Izzy Gizmo by Pip Jones
• Girls Think of Everything by Catherine Thimmesh
• Whoosh: Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton
• Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Build the Brooklyn Bridge by Rachel Dougherty
• Hedy Lamarr’s Double Live by Laurie Hallmark

Books about Math

• Grandfather Tang’s Story by Ann Tompert

Books about Science in General

• Ada Twist Scientist by Andrea Beaty
• Cece Loves Science by Kimberly Derting
• Libby Loves Science by Kimberly Derting
• Building Books by Megan Wagner Lloyd

Books about the Environment

• One Plastic Bag by Miranda Paul
• The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins
• The Good Garden by Kate Smith Milway
• Shark Lady by Jess Keating
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
• Buzzing with Questions: The Inquisitive Mind of Charles Henry Turner by Janice N. Harrinton

Books about Scientist/Biographies

• Black Pioneers of Science and Invention by Louis Haber

Books about Women in STEM

• The Girl Who Thought in Pictures by Julia Finley Mosca
• The Girl with a Mind for Math by Julia Finley Mosca
• The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes by Julia Finley Mosca
• Black Women in Science by Kimberly Brown Pellum
• Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers who Changed the World by Rachel Ignotofsky

What diverse STEM books do you love? I always want to add more to my own library so drop them in the comments below!