The Royal Society Young People’s Book Prize 2024 shortlist was announced November 6. The Young People’s Book Prize celebrates the best science books for under-14s, highlighting books that communicate science to young people in creative and accessible ways.

The shortlist was selected by a panel, including CBeebies presenter and conservationist, Chantelle Lindsay; David Rigmand, Head Teacher at Wallace Primary School; acclaimed science communicator, Dr Emily Grossman; and Dr Emrys Evans, Royal Society University Research Fellow at Swansea University.

The winning book will be unveiled at an award ceremony in Scotland in March 2025 with school groups and judges invited to join on the day for a host of science related workshops and activities.

The shortlisted books for the Young People’s Book Prize 2024 are:

• All Bodies Are Wonderful by Beth Cox, illustrated by Samantha Meredith
• The Expanding World of Data by Tom Jackson, illustrated by Ekaterina Gorelova and Ana Seixas
• Can You Get Rainbows in Space? by Dr Sheila Kanani, illustrated by Liz Kay
• Where Are You Really From? by Adam Rutherford, illustrated by Adam Ming
• Engineers Making a Difference by Shini Somara, illustrated by Manual Šumberac and Adam Allsuch Boardman
• Mission: Arctic by Katharina Weiss-Tuider, illustrated by Christian Schneider, translated by Shelley Tanaka

All Bodies Are Wonderful – An Inclusive Guide to Talking About You by Beth Cox, illustrated by Samantha Meredith

From the atoms that make us to the things our body can do, ALL bodies are wonderful! But we know that bodies can be difficult to understand, and sometimes you might feel like your body is different. This book shows that being different is completely natural … because it’s all just science! Trust the experts to help you have big conversations together in this wonderful celebration of bodies.

Very Short Introductions for Curious Young Minds: The Expanding World of Data by Tom Jackson, illustrated by Ekaterina Gorelova and Ana Seixas

Data answers big questions about our world. It tells us about our planet, our history, and even predicts what we like and might want to buy. Very Short Introductions for Curious Young Minds: The Expanding World of Data unpacks what data is and how it is a bigger part of our lives than we may realize.

Can You Get Rainbows in Space? by Dr Sheila Kanani, illustrated by Liz Kay

Why is blood red? Why are carrots orange? Who invented the lightbulb? Why is the world ‘going green’? Is the sky really blue? And what is ultraviolet light?

You’ll discover the answers to these questions – and many more – in this incredible collection of scientific facts about colour. We’ll talk about light (the most important thing) and waves (not the kind you see at the beach – though you will learn why the sea looks blue!). You’ll find out how some animals are able to glow in the dark and how others change their colours to hide from predators.

Keep reading to discover why leaves change colour in the autumn, why your veins look blue but your blood is red, and how the language we use shapes the colours we see . . .

And you’ll even be taught by a real astronomer, Dr Sheila Kanani, exactly how to make a rainbow – in space.

Where Are You Really From? – Our Amazing Evolution, What Race Really is and What Makes Us Human by Adam Rutherford, illustrated by Adam Ming

Go on an extraordinary adventure through millions of years of human history and learn the story of our species from evolution to dinosaurs to YOU! Along the way, you will meet kings and queens, Pharaohs and Vikings, and see just how far and wide humans have migrated around the world. You’ll discover why we’re related  to a super cheesy man and that no matter what skin colour you have, language you speak or place you are from – we all share the same small pool of ancestors. Mind-boggling, entertaining and illuminating, this is the epic story of you and everyone who has ever lived!

Engineers Making a Difference – Inventors, Technicians, Scientists and Tech Entrepreneurs Changing the World, and How You Can Join Them, by Shini Somara and Manual Šumberac and Adam Allsuch Boardman

Do you like solving practical problems? Do you enjoy science and maths? Have you ever created a new game or invented something? Or taken something apart to figure out how it works? Do you want to help protect our planet for the future?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then it’s time to release your inner superhero and pursue a career in engineering!

What do engineers do and why do they do it? In Engineers Making a Difference: Inventors, Technicians, Scientists and Tech Entrepreneurs Changing the World, and How You Can Join Them, author Dr Shini Somara goes straight to the engineers themselves – 46 of them – to find out. You’ll meet people from apprentices to technicians, professors to entrepreneurs. They’ll tell you in their own words about their work – making fabric out of carbon dioxide or packaging out of chicken feathers, building earthquake-safe structures or comfortable prosthetic limbs, and so much more.

These are some of the world’s most amazing change-makers, who combine their passions with their work to make the world a better place. Why not become one of them to help solve the challenges of the future!

Mission: Arctic – A Scientific Adventure to a Changing North Pole, by Katharina Weiss-Tuider, illustrated by Christian Schneider, translated by Shelley Tanaka

Join the largest Arctic expedition ever undertaken – and discover the secrets hidden deep in the ice that reveal how one of the world’s crucial ecosystems is changing. This illustrated science-based guide follows the 2019 MOSAiC expedition, where more than five hundred scientists from all over the world sailed aboard the Polarstern, a powerful ice-breaker research vessel. Their mission? To let their vessel freeze in the sea ice and drift towards the North Pole in order to study how the Arctic is changing, and how these changes will affect our world. Told first-hand by one of the scientists on board, this incredible account of the mission is packed with expedition photographs, diagrams, illustrations, fascinating facts and details of the researchers’ important discoveries.