Twenty-five school libraries have been named winners of the Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards. Presented by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in partnership with SLJ, the collection development awards give libraries in K–12 Title I schools grants of $700 to purchase titles from the Mathical Book Prize list.

The winners represent 17 states and were chosen by SLJ from a pool of elementary, middle, and high school applicants. The school library staff that demonstrated the greatest promise to use the funds to advance the goals of their library and their enthusiasm for encouraging students to explore a love of mathematics in their everyday lives earned the grants. 

The Mathical Book Prize recognizes outstanding youth trade fiction and nonfiction selected to inspire a love of math in the world around us. Prize-winning books span grades PreK through 12 and feature novels, biographies, chapter books, and picture books and are selected every year by a committee of math teachers, reading teachers, mathematicians, librarians, early childhood experts, and others. 

With support from the Firedoll Foundation and Joan and Irwin Jacobs, the Mathical Book Prize is presented by MSRI in partnership with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and in coordination with the Children’s Book Council (CBC).

The 2021 winners are: