Here we round up new and forthcoming children’s titles including a fictionalized graphic novel autobiography about the early years of a famed sharpshooter, a picture book following a child’s trip to China, a nonfiction book about tweens and digital screentime, and more.
December 22
Calamity Before Jane by Noah Van Sciver. Toon, $17.99; ISBN 978-1-6626-6540-0. Before Calamity Jane became an icon of the Wild West, she was Martha Jane Canary, a teen learning how to survive on her own, an experience that Van Sciver chronicles in this brief but riveting graphic novel narrated by a fictionalized version of the subject.
We Always Had Wings by Jess X. Snow. Make Me a World, $18.99; ISBN 978-0-593-42851-1. Snow channels their six-year-old self, per an author’s note, in this visually stunning solo picture book debut that sees a child heading to visit family in a Chinese countryside village.
December 29
The Amazing Generation by Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price, illus. by Cynthia Yuan Cheng. Rocky Pond, $14.99 paper; ISBN 979-8-217-11191-6. This collaboration, inspired by Haidt’s adult bestseller The Anxious Generation, explores how a new generation is taking back agency by limiting screen time.
Asterwood by Jacquelyn Stolos. Delacorte, $17.99; ISBN 978-0-593-81484-0. A tween becomes embroiled in a struggle to save a magical forest in Stolos’s optimistic, ecologically minded debut.
Clydeo versus Peanut Butter by Jennifer Aniston, illus. by Bruno Jacob. Harper, $5.99 paper; ISBN 978-0-06-337240-5. In the latest addition to actor Aniston’s Clydeo series, the pup with a passion for cooking struggles to communicate when a bite of peanut butter glues his mouth shut.
Valentines Are the Worst! by Alex Willan. S&S, $19.99; ISBN 978-1-665-96261-2. Gilbert the goblin is on the run from a group of cupids determined to help him fall in love in the latest installment in The Worst! series.
For more children’s and YA titles on sale throughout the month of December, check out PW’s full On-Sale Calendar.
