Mathical Prize WinnerSeven Little DucklingsAnnette LeBlanc Cate, illustrated by Annette LeBlanc CateA mother duck discovers that her eggs have hatched overnight, only to find the ducklings missing the next morning. She searches for her seven babies and begins a rescue effort. Along the way, she unknowingly gathers several other young animals, adding unexpected newcomers to the group. This counting picture book follows a mother duck’s search and the growing collection of little animals she finds.Ages 02–04ATOS Book Level 2.2AR Interest Level LG K-3View book detailsMathical Book Prize 2026
The 2026 edition includes 25 Mathical Honor Books and 5 Mathical Prize Winners. The source organizes the selections into Ages 2 through 4, Ages 5 through 7, Ages 8 through 10, Ages 11 through 13, and Ages 14 through 18. It records that year's Mathical Prize, Honor, and Hall of Fame results across the program's grade groups.
2026 Mathical Book Prize Winners and Honor BooksSee the original list
Selections30
Published byMathical Book Prize
Sections5 sections
Browse sections5 sections
Ages 02–04
7 selections
Mathical Prize WinnerSeven Little DucklingsAnnette LeBlanc Cate, illustrated by Annette LeBlanc CateA mother duck discovers that her eggs have hatched overnight, only to find the ducklings missing the next morning. She searches for her seven babies and begins a rescue effort. Along the way, she unknowingly gathers several other young animals, adding unexpected newcomers to the group. This counting picture book follows a mother duck’s search and the growing collection of little animals she finds.Ages 02–04ATOS Book Level 2.2AR Interest Level LG K-3View book details
Mathical Honor Book10 CatsEmily Gravett, illustrated by Emily GravettTen kittens play while their mother sleeps, pouncing, batting, and swatting around buckets of paint. Their games leave both the kittens and their sleeping mother covered in color. When Mama Cat wakes, the play changes into bath time. The picture book also incorporates counting, colors, and spot-the-difference pages.Ages 02–04Word Count 33View book details
Mathical Honor BookHello Hello NumbersBrendan Wenzel, illustrated by Brendan WenzelThis concept board book introduces counting through a procession of wild animals. As the animals appear, the book connects numbers with a range of species. A reference key identifies each animal and notes its conservation status. The book’s focus is on counting, animal variety, and the information attached to the species in the parade.Ages 02–04View book details
Mathical Honor Bookpêyak little duckSandra Lamouche, illustrated by Mando LittlechildA young child takes a walk outdoors, notices birds, and counts from one through ten in Plains Cree. The bilingual story pairs Plains Cree with English and uses rhyming clues, while each page includes a pronunciation guide. Bird watching and counting unfold against springtime in the Prairies and Plains. The book connects learning a language with attention to the land and the birds encountered along the way.Ages 02–04Lexile Text Measure AD360LView book details
Mathical Honor BookLookGabi Snyder, illustrated by Samantha CotterillThis lyrical picture book invites close attention to the natural world. It focuses on noticing patterns and small details in the surroundings rather than passing them by. The book presents the world nearby as full of hidden wonders that can be found through careful looking. Its subject is observation of nature and the discoveries that emerge from looking closely.Ages 02–04Fountas & Pinnell Text Level KView book details
Mathical Honor BookSix Little SticksTiffany Stone, illustrated by Ruth HengeveldA mother stick bug keeps losing sight of her six young, whose camouflage makes them difficult to find. As she looks for them, she teaches the young stick bugs how to hide. The story combines a seek-and-find activity with counting, asking readers to spot the missing insects as they practice concealment. It follows the mother and her six well-hidden offspring through their hide-and-seek.Ages 02–04Lexile Text Measure AD400LFountas & Pinnell Text Level LView book details
Mathical Honor BookTen Ways to Hear SnowCathy Camper, illustrated by Kenard PakLina walks through snow to visit her grandmother and listens for ten distinct sounds along the way. Her destination is a shared cooking session where they make warak enab, or stuffed grape leaves. The story uses the snowy journey and its sounds to frame a family visit and a sequence of ten observations.Ages 02–04Lexile Text Measure AD520LFountas & Pinnell Text Level NView book detailsAges 05–07
8 selections
Mathical Honor Book365: How to Count a YearMiranda Paul, illustrated by Julien ChungThis concept picture book considers a year through many numerical measures. It includes familiar units such as days, weeks, months, hours, minutes, and seconds, then shifts to everyday examples such as good mornings, movie nights, calendar backgrounds, and a birthday wish. The range moves from straightforward counting to sillier and messier moments. Readers are invited to imagine their own ways of representing one year through numbers and experiences.Ages 05–07View book details
Mathical Prize WinnerHow Did You Count?Christopher Danielson, illustrated by Asha BelkA photographic picture book explores the different ways people can count. It is built to prompt conversation about mathematical structures and the strategies used to organize quantities. By presenting more than one approach to counting, the book centers the questions and thinking involved in deciding how a collection can be counted.Ages 05–07View book details
Mathical Honor BookOne Million TreesKristen Balouch, illustrated by Kristen BalouchIn this autobiographical picture book, Kristen Balouch recounts a childhood trip to British Columbia with her family and their dog. They join a crew replanting trees at a logging site after trees have been cut down. The family lives in a tent for forty days, working each day to plant a new forest. Their work eventually totals one million trees.Ages 05–07ATOS Book Level 3.0AR Interest Level LG K-3View book details
Mathical Honor BookOver in the MangrovesJyoti Rajan Gopal, illustrated by Dikshaa PawaskarInspired by a classic nursery rhyme, this counting story introduces ten animals living in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. From dawn onward, the animals are shown within the same swampy environment, revealing connections among them. As a storm approaches, they seek shelter. The book combines numbered animal encounters with a mangrove setting and weather-driven movement, ending when the storm sends the animals under cover.Ages 05–07ATOS Book Level 4.1Fountas & Pinnell Text Level OView book details
Mathical Honor BookSam SortsMarthe Jocelyn, illustrated by Marthe JocelynSam has one hundred belongings in a heap and begins arranging them into groups. The task becomes complicated when the same object belongs in several categories: a penguin can join both black-and-white things and things with wings, while a round rock can also belong with rocks. Sam’s attempt to organize the collection turns into an exploration of counting and overlapping categories.Ages 05–07ATOS Book Level 1.7AR Interest Level LG K-3View book details
Mathical Honor BookToes, Teeth, and TentaclesSteve Jenkins, Robin PageThis nonfiction counting book uses unusual animal and insect body features to explore numbers in nature. It moves from one through ten, pairing each number with creature characteristics such as ears, hearts, teeth, eyes, spines, and tentacles. Examples include the praying mantis’s single ear and a nautilus with ninety retractable tentacles. Later pages extend to larger numbers, and a visual index provides further details about each animal’s size, range, and diet.Ages 05–07View book details
Mathical Honor BookWanda Hears the StarsAmy S. Hansen, Wanda Díaz Merced, illustrated by Rocío Arreola MendozaThis picture-book biography follows astrophysicist Wanda Díaz Merced from her childhood in Puerto Rico to her study of physics. After diabetes causes her vision to deteriorate and she becomes blind, she finds a new way to continue her work: listening to sonified astronomical data. The book shows how she uses sound to analyze radio waves from space.Ages 05–07Lexile Text Measure 540LFountas & Pinnell Text Level NView book details
Mathical Honor BookWay Past EmbarrassedHallee Adelman, illustrated by Josep Maria JuliJuan has trouble with a math worksheet and feels embarrassed while he is in class. His difficulty becomes a question of whether to ask for help. When he does ask, his choice encourages other students to do the same. The story brings together classroom math, embarrassment, and the effect that seeking support can have on a group of students facing similar struggles.Ages 05–07View book detailsAges 08–10
5 selections
Mathical Prize WinnerThe Five Sides of Marjorie RiceAmy Alznauer, illustrated by Anna BronThis picture-book biography traces Marjorie Rice’s long interest in patterns and science. After reading about pentagonal tiles in 1975, she began exploring ways five-sided shapes could tile a plane. Though not a professional mathematician, she developed several new convex tiling pentagons over two decades and was later recognized for her contributions.Ages 08–10View book details
Mathical Honor Book9 KilometersClaudio Aguilera, illustrated by Gabriela Lyon, Lawrence SchimelBefore daylight, a boy leaves home for school and walks nine kilometers through Chilean mountains and rain forest. During the journey, he counts butterflies and lizards and considers the fifteen thousand steps he takes each morning. The distance is also compared with measures such as soccer fields and tall buildings. His route eventually brings him to the classroom, while the book reflects on the length and meaning of that daily trip.Ages 08–10ATOS Book Level 3.1AR Interest Level LG K-3View book details
Mathical Honor BookMr. Pei’s Perfect ShapesJulie Leung, illustrated by Yifan WuThis picture-book biography follows architect I. M. Pei from his childhood interest in buildings to his later work with modern geometric forms. It presents his signature structures and his approach to bringing design and environment together. Illustrations show Pei developing ideas for his creations. The book focuses on an architect’s life, the shapes in his work, and the process of imagining and designing buildings.Ages 08–10View book details
Mathical Honor BookWho Was Katherine Johnson?Shelia P. Moses, Who HQ, illustrated by Dede PutraThis illustrated biography follows Katherine Johnson from her childhood fascination with counting to her work as a mathematician. As a young Black girl, she counted ordinary things around her and advanced through school quickly, entering high school at ten in 1928. Her hand calculations later contributed to NASA missions, including Apollo 11 and the first lunar landing. The book centers on numbers, mathematical work, and Johnson’s path into space exploration.Ages 08–10ATOS Book Level 6.5AR Interest Level MG 4-8View book details
Mathical Honor BookZero! The Number That Almost Wasn’tSarah Albee, illustrated by Chris HsuThis nonfiction picture book follows the long development of zero, a numeral that had to be invented despite its importance in mathematics. It begins with early counting methods and moves through Babylonian place value, Maya use of a zero symbol, and the spread of Indo-Arabic numerals through trade. The book also traces the slow acceptance of this number system in Europe.Ages 08–10ATOS Book Level 5.0AR Interest Level LG K-3View book detailsAges 11–13
7 selections
Mathical Prize WinnerImposterCait LevinCam enters an all-male computer science class feeling intimidated but continues pursuing knowledge and experience. Her abilities earn her acceptance from some people, though not everyone responds that way. As a high school student, she works to demonstrate her engineering and coding skills both in class and on a RoboSub team while confronting gender bias.Ages 11–13Lexile Text Measure 610LFountas & Pinnell Text Level Z+View book details
Mathical Honor BookAdventures in MathCarleigh Wu, illustrated by Sean SimpsonThis nonfiction guide examines common beliefs about who can do math. Through stories and practical advice, it challenges the idea that mathematical ability is something people either have from birth or lack. Instead of focusing on mastering particular concepts, the book asks readers to reconsider their attitudes toward math. It encourages curiosity, creativity, and accepting setbacks while approaching mathematical challenges.Ages 11–13Lexile Text Measure 880LView book details
Mathical Honor BookBenBee and the Teacher GrieferK.A. HoltBen Bellows, a video-game fan, fails the language arts portion of a Florida state test and is assigned to summer school with three other students. Their teacher, Ms. J, sees them as divergent thinkers rather than students who lack ability. The classmates make a deal that links reading with time to play Sandbox, a Minecraft-like game. When Ms. J’s unconventional teaching faces scrutiny, the four students work together to defend her and protect their own futures.Ages 11–13ATOS Book Level 4.7Fountas & Pinnell Text Level QView book details
Mathical Honor BookThe Best at ItMaulik PancholyTwelve-year-old Rahul, an Indian American boy in a small Indiana town, is trying to discover the one thing he can be best at. Along the way, he faces anxiety, bullying, friendship, and questions about his developing identity, including the possibility that he may be gay. His search for a particular talent is also tied to finding self-acceptance.Ages 11–13Lexile Text Measure HL620LFountas & Pinnell Text Level OView book details
Mathical Honor BookThe Bluest SkyChristina Diaz GonzalezIn the summer of 1980, Héctor lives in Cuba with a mother who disagrees politically with his pro-Castro grandmother. His father was arrested and exiled years earlier and now lives in Florida. When the port of Mariel opens to people who wish to leave Cuba, Héctor learns that his mother plans for the family to depart. She tells him and his older brother, Rodrigo, to keep the plan secret from friends and relatives. Héctor must navigate divided family loyalties, political conflict, and an impending departure from home.Ages 11–13Lexile Text Measure 650LATOS Book Level 4.2View book details
Mathical Honor BookTalia’s Codebook for Middle SchoolMarissa Moss, illustrated by Marissa MossTalia's Codebook for Middle School is the second book in Marissa Moss's illustrated diary series about a math-loving middle schooler, following Talia's Codebook for Mathletes. Talia keeps a notebook in which she records and decodes the unwritten rules of middle school, but knowing the codes and mastering them turn out to be different things, and new ones keep arriving. This year she joins a newly merged coed math team, where she must handle competition, leadership and stage fright as well as jealousy of the team's apparently perfect new captain and the confusing codes that govern how girls and boys treat one another. Told through doodles, graphs, puzzles and handwritten entries, the diary follows Talia as she discovers that being on the same team does not always mean being friends.Ages 11–13View book details
Mathical Honor BookThe Woman in the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Helped Fly the First Astronauts to the MoonRichard MaurerRichard Maurer’s biography follows Margaret Hamilton, a computer engineer whose work assisted Apollo 11’s journey from Earth to the Moon. It describes her leadership in an early space-program task: developing software that guided astronauts to the Moon and back. The account incorporates first-hand accounts, interviews with Hamilton, and scientific detail while focusing on her role in the mission.Ages 11–13View book detailsAges 14–18
3 selections
Mathical Prize WinnerReasons We BreakJesmeen Kaur DeoA year after graduation, Rajan returns to Kelowna, British Columbia, following his release from juvenile detention and hopes to avoid his former gang. Simran, a devout Sikh attending a local college while her mother has cancer, agrees in secret to help the gang decode a rival group’s financial records in exchange for Rajan’s freedom. Her mathematical skill makes her valuable to the gang but also places her in danger. Leaving becomes impossible even after Rajan’s debt is paid.Ages 14–18View book details
Mathical Honor BookThe Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha AgarwalAmbika VohraAn ambitious South Asian Indian American high school student with a scholarship is working on her Stanford application. A prompt asking her to explain when she stepped outside her comfort zone leaves Aisha Agarwal unsure how to answer. She begins completing a set of sticky-note dares, and a new friend takes her beyond the limits she has set for herself. The story follows Aisha’s application pressure, dares, and developing friendship.Ages 14–18View book details
Mathical Honor BookThe Secret Astronomers: A Novel in NotesJessica Walker, illustrated by Jessica WalkerA recent transfer student begins writing her diary in an old astronomy textbook from the Green Bank High School library and unexpectedly receives a reply. The exchange begins a friendship between two secret pen pals and uncovers long-buried secrets. Copernicus is grieving her mother’s sudden death after moving from San Francisco, while Kepler is a small-town student planning to become the first in her family to attend college.Ages 14–18View book details