Writing STEM Fiction for Kids
Tips and mentor texts for writing STEM books
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Ok, let’s talk about STEM fiction!
In 2022, I had the honor of visiting the Highlights Foundation as a guest speaker for a Science and Nature writing workshop with Miranda Paul and Heather Montgomery (← their books are amazing!!) and gave a talk on this subject. This post is a peek at some of what I covered, with mentor texts and tips for approaching your own STEM fiction stories.
Affiliate disclosure: I earn a small percentage of sales from the links in this post.
STEM Fiction Examples
As always, I encourage you to look at mentor texts! For STEM fiction, I think about these three categories (these categories might blur a bit, but they’re intended for you to think about ways to approach a STEM topic, not to box you in!):
Informational Fiction
Informational fiction is where facts are delivered in a fantastic way (thereby preventing it from being pure non-fiction.) A common informational fiction device is to have speaking animals/objects explain themselves. Here are some examples of informational fiction that I’ve enjoyed:
Fiction Stories About STEM Topics
These are the books you probably think about when somebody says STEM fiction—where the main storyline is STEM-based. This means the main character(s) are engaging in some kind of STEM activity, like Sue Fleiss and Petros Bouloubasis’s GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE ENGINEERS where Goldilocks and the bears are inventors/engineers, or Rajani LaRocca and Chaaya Prabhar’s BRACELETS FOR BINA’S BROTHERS where Bina is figuring out patterns in beaded bracelets, or Elise Gravel’s OLGA AND THE SMELLY THING FROM NOWHERE, where Olga has discovered a new species.
Fiction Stories with STEM Elements
These are fiction stories where the main storyline is not STEM-based, but where STEM information arises through the story. For example, information about blood cells in Rajani LaRocca’s RED, WHITE, AND WHOLE about a girl whose mother has been diagnosed with leukemia, or Carrie Finison and Brianna Farley’s DOZENS OF DOUGHNUTS, where animals consume a dozen doughnuts in different ways, or Mark Pett’s I EAT POOP, where you learn all about many bugs in a dung beetle’s fictional mishaps at school.
Examples from My Books
I started writing because I wanted to inspire and encourage kids in STEM, particularly in engineering and coding. My first two books fall into the “Fiction Stories About STEM Topics” category, where the main character engages in a STEM activity.
In INVENT-A-PET, Katie fins a strange and unusual machines and must to figure out the formula for her perfect pet.
In LAYLA AND THE BOTS, Layla and her band of bots help people that they meet at their shows with their awesome inventions, including research, design, engineering, and code.
Creating Hooks for STEM Topics in Kids’ Books
In my books and in the earlier examples, you can see some common approaches in how these books might hook a reader (or an editor!). Here are some possibilities to think about when you’re writing STEM fiction:
Make it Fantastic
In my books, I love bringing in fantastic elements! So even though the concepts are non-fiction (formulas, coding, etc.)—I like to create a context that is fictional and fantastic, like a machine that creates mixed-up animals (Invent-a-Pet) or designing an amusement park for dogs (Layla and the Bots: Happy Paws) or a sound system for dolphins (Layla and the Bots: Making Waves).
Ask yourself: Is there a fictional character or setting that could bring the awesomeness of my concept to life? Perhaps a fictional application? A fictional creature? A fictional plant? A fictional ability?
Make it fun/funny
Humor is a great way to engage kids in a topic! (This is true for both fiction and non-fiction.) Fun characters or full-on hilarity will invite kids to re-read and engage more fully. In Layla and the Bots, I have a character names Bop, who is an overexcited software engineering bot. In INVENT-A-PET, Katie makes several ridiculous and unexpected pets along the way. How might you bring some fun/funny into your stories?
Ask yourself: Is there a humorous aspect of my concept that I could exaggerate or play up?
Incorporate things kids like /
are interested in
This seems obvious, but worth thinking about! INVENT-A-PET and Layla and the Bots: Happy Paws both focus on animals because kids love animals—and my kids in particular at the time that I wrote them! But I also wrote about cupcakes (Layla and the Bots: Cupcake Fix) and go-karts (Layla and the Bots: Built for Speed)—there are so many fun topics that kids love. Here’s a old but great list from Tara Lazar, if you need some inspiration. But this category also includes things that are relatable! This might be situations, worries, aspirations, etc.
Ask yourself: Is there a way to incorporate things that are fun, meaningful, worrying, interesting, exciting to kids?
I hope those prompts help you find some great hooks or stories for your STEM topic!
Finding a Topic
Often times, we have a topic that we want to write about. But sometimes you may be looking for a new topic. You can do some research to investigate what kids are learning in each grade to get ideas. There are many homeschooling resources online that can give you a sense of what kids are learning at each age. It can also be helpful to look at curriculum standards like California’s NGSS to see what is being covered in the classrooms (it’s a great built-in hook when a book can tie into the curriculum standards!). If you have young kids, you can get inspiration from what they are learning.
Because I used to design kids’ products at Google, INVENT-A-PET and Layla and the Bots were both inspired by coding concepts that I wanted to introduce to young kids. My newest STEM book (LOTS AND LOTS OF OCELOTS, a nonfiction picture book coming in 2026 with Workman Kids) is about skip counting and animal facts and was inspired by what my elementary school-aged kids are interested in and learning about in school.
Find a topic that kids are learning in school OR that you think there is a gap for, and go for it!
For more examples of kids’ STEM books, check out:
My Make! Code! Invent! Booklist
In a future post, we’ll talk more about non-fiction, but I hope this gives you some inspiration for your fiction STEM stories. Happy STEM writing!
Thank you, Vicky!