With nearly 120,000 members and some 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) serves as an authoritative source for information on the latest developments in science. AAAS seeks to advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people. By nurturing students’ scientific interests and talents, AAAS programs provide exciting opportunities and help build bridges to careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
For nearly two decades, Subaru and our retailers partnered with AAAS to encourage the creation of high-quality science books for children and young adults. Together, we donated over 370,000 award-winning books, sparking curiosity and fostering a love for STEM in countless students.
Subaru of America Inc. partnered with AAAS to sponsor the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books.
The award celebrates outstanding science writing and illustration in books for children and young adults that can inspire and motivate our youngest minds, help them make connections to the world around them, improve their cognitive functions and give them the building blocks to one day thrive in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers.
The 2024 prizewinners include books covering the ecosystem of the ocean floor, a journey through our solar system, marvels of the human body, & how technology is bringing us closer to the sounds of nature.
2024 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Book Winners:
Whale Fall
By Melissa Stewart, Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey
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.
Children’s Science Picture Book
By Melissa Stewart. 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.
Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey
Middle Grades Science Book
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...
Hands-On Science Book
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.
Young Adult Science Book
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.
The Planets Are Very, Very, Very Far Away
By Mike Vago
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)!
Children’s Science Picture Book
By Melissa Stewart. 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.
Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey
Middle Grades Science Book
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...
Hands-On Science Book
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.
Young Adult Science Book
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.
Human Body Learning Lab
By Dr. Betty Choi
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.
Children’s Science Picture Book
By Melissa Stewart. 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.
Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey
Middle Grades Science Book
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...
Hands-On Science Book
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.
Young Adult Science Book
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.
The Sounds of Life
By Karen Bakker
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.
Children’s Science Picture Book
By Melissa Stewart. 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.
Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey
Middle Grades Science Book
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...
Hands-On Science Book
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.
Young Adult Science Book
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.
Our Partnerships
In partnership with AdoptAClassroom.org, Subaru and our retailers are helping provide vital funding and school supplies to classrooms across the country.
For nearly two decades, Subaru and our retailers partnered with AAAS to encourage the creation of high-quality science books for children and young adults. Together, we donated over 370,000 award-winning books, sparking curiosity and fostering a love for STEM in countless students.
Interested in becoming a partner with Subaru? Just fill out our partnership request form.