7 Splendid Science & Nature Picture Books to Answer All Your Questions

Baby Loves Scientists: You Can Be Anything!, by Ruth Spiro and Irene Chan
Ruth Spiro and Irene Chan’s new Baby Loves Science series makes science accessible to even the youngest tykes, through clear explanations and bright illustrations featuring big-eyed toddlers. While the concepts are simplified, nothing is dumbed down—adults might learn some science facts too. This book introduces specific types of scientists a child might aspire to become, taking each kid’s interest as a starting point. Animal lovers can become zoologists, kids interested in what things are made of can become applied chemists, and those who love to build can grow up to be structural engineers. So often science is taught to kids as one all-encompassing mass of stuff—this book illustrates the charms of its different branches and specializations.

Cells: An Owner’s Handbook, by Carolyn Fisher
Spark a child’s interest in the building blocks of organisms with this engaging book narrated by a skin cell living on “the derrière of a Boston terrier.” Learn about some of the 37 trillion cells that make up each human, the qualities of plant and animal cells, and the organelles within each cell through illustrations so energetic and colorful they practically seem to move. Come for the knowledge, but stay for the cell puns and corny knock-knock jokes. While this book is aimed at kids aged 3 to 8, it also just might come in handy for older kids to review these concepts in a fun and memorable way before the next biology quiz.

The Brain is Kid of a Big Deal, by Nick Seluk
Nick Seluk is the author and illustrator behind beloved web comic The Awkward Yeti. Given that many of his most popular comics feature the heart and the brain, ever at odds, it was natural that Seluk would follow up his hilarious and informative The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal with this book about the brain. Seluk follows the “command center of your entire body” as it collaborates with muscles, the stomach, the eyeballs, and other body parts to run a successful human. “Breathe!” the brain commands the lungs. After they comply, he says, “Now do that forever.”

What You Eat: Pictures and Answers for the Curious Mind, by Valorie Fisher
This winning book offers clear answers about what different foods are made of, illustrated by teeny tiny toys that depict everything from sugarcane to nahcolite. What’s nahcolite, you ask? Why it’s a mineral mined from the earth that gives us baking soda. And since baking soda gives us cookies, you can see why it’s kind of a big deal. Young kids will love the minutia depicted in these busy yet orderly two-page spreads, and adults will find them fascinating too—especially those of us who’ve gone around thinking peanuts were a type of nut and not properly identifying them as legumes all these years.

Big Cats, by Nic Bishop
Now that we’ve learned how ice cream is made, it’s time for a lesson on something else kids love: cats. New Zealand-based Nic Bishop traveled all over the world to capture photographs of rare felines—in the wild whenever possible. The vigorousness of his quest is evident in the depth of knowledge he shares about each furry predator in this compendium of cats, from the clouded leopard to the cheetah. The facts are diverting—did you know cats have special teeth called carnassials to slice off chunks of meat?—but the stars of this book are the gorgeous photos of each sun-burnished, clear-eyed cat.

Snow Leopard: Ghost of the Mountains, by Justin Anderson and Patrick Benson
If Bishop’s book piqued your child’s interest in one of the most elusive and mysterious cats in the world, the snow leopard, turn to this book next. Patrick Benson’s illustrations portray the Himalayan mountain communities near where the snow leopard lives, as well as the cat herself, who stalks through the snow on extra-large paws that serve as snowshoes to keep her from sinking. The leopard hunts ibex, raises cubs, and beds down in a cave during a fierce Himalayan storm in this enchanting story.

Red Rover: Curiosity on Mars, by Richard Ho and Katherine Roy
All some young scientists want to do is look up at the stars and planets, and so they will find a kindred spirit in the protagonist of this book, the Mars rover called Curiosity. Curiosity rolls over plains and through craters, taking photographs and measurements and collecting samples. “It is always looking for water,” Ho writes. “Maybe it is thirsty.” Katherine Roy’s watercolors depict the Martian landscape in all its majestic, windswept expanse, and her illustrations of Curiosity invest this robot with as much personality as Wall-E or R2-D2 while still staying precise and true to the real machine.