With this artful collection, Johnston Taylor cleverly riffs on the works of well-known poets such as Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, and others to pen verse from the perspective of the writers’ beloved animals. The result offers a whirlwind introduction to varied poets and the pets at their sides. In “To Elizabeth, My Person,” a cocker spaniel declares, “Dearest one, with ink-stained hand, I sit awaiting your command,” modeling lines on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “To Flush, My Dog.” Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe’s tortoiseshell feline Catterina adapts “The Raven,” and Charlotte Brontë’s goose and Beatrix Potter’s lizard likewise make their authorial debuts. Sonke’s confident and colorful cartoons wrap around text, presenting the subjects with an effortless-feeling simplicity, and bios for each poet help illuminate the literary play that’s occurring in this altogether amusing poetic romp. Further reading and references conclude. Ages 6–8. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

Varied verse types evoke nature’s seasonal milestones in this splendid month-by-month collection. Haiku introduce each Northern Hemisphere season, beginning with March and concluding in February, presenting unique forms, including rondel and diamond-shaped synonym diamante. May’s knowing double dactyl, “Knock Knock,” announces spring as a time of growth (“Rappety-tappety,/ Somebody hammering./ Probably a woodpecker,/ Carving a nest”), while November centers creature comforts, with a hedgehog narrating the serviceably titled rondelet “Hibernation” (“All curled up in my cozy bed,/ I’m warm and safe and dry”). Westera also introduces an original style—a “stacking poem”—that speaks to January’s “white as the goose’s tail” landscape. Boerendans’s finely etched colored woodcuts offer rich and companionable portraits of the species featuring in facing page poems—the result is a creaturely calendar of seasonal change. Back matter discusses the verse forms employed. Ages 5–9. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

Santaeulàlia’s expressive haikus and Lozano’s spare calligraphic illustrations meditate upon small moments that mark seasonal change in this quiet work based around noticing. From autumn to summer, several dozen poems offer an experiential tour through incremental adjustments that suggest time’s passage. In autumn, “I open, unsure,/ the drawer that’s full of socks./ End of September.” Winter “snows in silence,” spring brings “a cloud in the mud,” and in summer, “the ocean unfurls its skirts/ of blossoming waves.” Loosely painted illustrations filled with telling details (raindrops on a spider’s web, a puff of white breath) undertake their own delicate narratives by playing with perspective and shadow. Back matter introduces haiku, highlighting its unique qualities and suggesting, that, like the book itself, “haiku are like photographs made of words: poems that capture a single, vivid moment.” Characters’ skin tones reflect the white of the page. Ages 5–8. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

Heartfelt gratitude infuses Florian’s simple rhymes and naive-style artwork in this accessible collection of nature-based appreciations. For each composition, a sincere “thank you” acts as both title and beginning line as text and art jointly anchor in observation. In between shape poems devoted to the sun and moon, verse leans on conservation-aware couplets as it expresses respect for myriad components of the natural world. To the ocean, the speaker waxes,“You calm the climate, absorbing heat,/ and feed us fish for us to eat.” Facing the varied-length works, scribbly illustrations employ colored pencil, gouache, and rubber stamps to capture scenes of figures enjoying nature in this ode to songbirds and bees, snowflakes and wind, mountains and rivers. Human characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

Sweet vibrantly illuminates an incisive and joyful work from the late poet Oliver in a picture book that takes the feel of a naturalist’s notebook. Accompanying the author’s evocative lines about goldfinches’ use of thistle down for nest building, an abundance of techniques and materials mingle in bursting collages that capture the poem’s midsummer setting, featuring bold pink thistle pods, teal and turquoise leaves, and citrus yellow skies. In some places, a palette of watercolor paints sits alongside the renderings, underscoring the book’s multi-layered portrayal of process—the finches’ and Oliver’s alike. In other spots, notes call out scientific information about the birds (“Female goldfinch builds the nest, lashing it to branches with spider silk”). The finches themselves are shown in varied degrees of detail, frequently observed by a pale-skinned figure who reappears throughout with pencil and notebook in hand. Accompanying the work’s concluding line (“Have you ever been so happy in your life?”), inky skies full of seeds and stars tether nest-building and art-making for a wondrous close that points to the generative meaning that can arise from paying attention. An artist’s note concludes. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

Pendziwol’s time-spanning verse paints an idyllic portrait of foraging as “the quiet hunt.” Opening pages begin in a period when “food came/ only/ from the wild” and foraging “nourished the hungry,/ flavored the stew and/ healed the sick.” Brief stanzas describe how “the wisdom of knowing/ which plants were safe/ and good to eat” was passed down, and emphasize benefits of an unhurried approach, proposing that foragers “took only enough/ to meet their needs.” Zipping forward to the present, narration shifts to a first-person plural celebration of the continued presence of foragers “in the gardens/ and parks of our cities,” and sensorial lines immerse readers in the magic of the endeavor (“the smell of mushrooms/ and pine needles”). Soft detailing gives Hugo’s watercolor and colored pencil scenes, of ancestors in varied cultural attire and present-day foragers, a tranquility that amplifies the text’s portrait of eco-harmony both past and present, “if you know what to look for.” Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3–6. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this powerful graphic novel memoir, Nayberg (A Party for Florine) recounts her struggles developing her artistic sense of self while navigating the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Jewish 11-year-old Nayberg prefers pants to dresses, dislikes her masculine-sounding name, and despairs that people assume she’s a boy when her hair is short. “I would be extremely unpopular,” the subject admits, “except for one redeeming quality: I can draw!” Now old enough to take the entrance exam for Kyiv’s National Secondary School of Art, she works with a tutor to hone her creative skills. Her preparations are soon derailed when an accident at a nuclear plant 90 kilometers away in Chernobyl forces Nayberg and her family to evacuate Kyiv to stay with relatives in Volgograd. The creator plants subtle hints about the social and political pressures of living in the U.S.S.R.; adults speakcarefully over government-tapped phone lines while the youth searches for a way to pursue her dreams and attend the upcoming entrance exam. Frenetic snarls of scribbled pencil strokes—visible beneath muted watercolor and collage artwork produced on paper that seems purposefully creased—suggest that confusion and unrest lie beneath idyllic slice-of-life depictions of Nayberg’s childhood, and emphasize the narrative’s contrasting tones. An author’s note concludes. Ages 10–up. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

As his friends start showing interest in romance, an eighth grader considers his own sexuality in this candid graphic novel memoir from previous collaborators Ogle and Valeza (Pizza Face). Struggling to understand his peers’ perspective on love and feeling left out, Ogle confides in his divorced mother, who cautions, “Don’t be in a rush to fall in love, Rex. It’ll just bring you heartache.” Despite her advice, Ogle—impressed by bold new girl Charlotte’s defending a classmate from homophobic bullies—asks Charlotte to be his date for homecoming. And though Ogle enjoys spending time with her, he finds himself drawn to his athletic friend, Drew. The protagonist’s confusion surrounding his differing feelings for Charlotte and Drew is compounded by Ogle’s encounters with an anti-gay preacher at Abuelita’s church and the realization that Drew wants to kiss Ogle—but only in secret. Figure-focused illustrations rendered in saturated earth tones dial in on 1990s nostalgia and small-town Texas vibes. Humor-laced dialogue adds levity to nuanced portrayals of one middle schooler’s grappling with his sexuality alongside other sensitively considered interpretations of tweens exploring self-image and families contending with financial insecurity. Characters are depicted with various body types and skin tones. Ages 10–12. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

A high school junior must reconcile past trauma to save herself from heartbreak in this propulsive novel from Rissi (Wishing Season). Young Destiny Black copes with the pain of being repeatedly abandoned by her alcohol-dependent mother, April, and enduring physically abusive foster homes by mentally retreating into Arantha, an imagined fairy tale–inspired world. During a period spent in a psychiatric hospital, Destiny discovers that Arantha is a product of dissociative delusions, and learns other means of coping with trauma from her childhood. Now 17 and once again reunited with her mother, the family moves to Dexler, where April embraces sobriety and Destiny falls in mutual love-at-first-sight with local football star Ryan. For one perfect summer, Destiny feels as if she’s finally living the fairy tale life she’s always imagined—until Ryan dumps her and she believes herself pregnant. As the line between “what feels real and what is real” blurs, Destiny returns to the safety of Arantha, a decision that could drastically jeopardize her sense of self. Alternating clipped chapters and dreamy poetry culminate in a deceptively compact novel about learning to live, not just survive. While some readers may find the loosely drawn setting and abrupt shifts in verb tense distracting, these elements deftly emphasize the internal struggles of a fractured girl’s efforts to be cognitively present in her everyday life as she puts her world—and herself—back together. Characters cue as racially diverse. Ages 14–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink

Puzzles and mystery abound in this escape room thriller from Meyer (The House Saphir) and Moss (Lintang and the Pirate Queen). Following the harrowing conclusion to the fourth installment of wildly popular locked-room competition show The Escape Game—during which the body of a contestant named Alice was unexpectedly found on-camera—producers invite 20 teens to participate in the fifth season’s taping. The attendants are divided into five teams, one of which includes returning competitor Sierra, Alice’s sister, who discovered the corpse. Though Sierra was a prime suspect in Alice’s death, she was never charged. Now she’s back for another shot at the $1,000,000 prize—and to solve the mystery of her sister’s murder. While Sierra’s teammates are aware of her reputation, she earns their trust with her steadfast persona and code-cracking savvy. As Sierra juggles puzzle-solving and investigative clue-gathering, she cultivates a list of suspects that include the show’s charming host, the brilliant Game Master, and members of the production crew. But when a new body is found, Sierra is once again under suspicion as everyone goes on high alert. Complex puzzles, room maps, and contestant interviews punctuate high-octane sequences and ramp up tension throughout this inventive whodunit. Briskly paced chapters alternate between Sierra and her teammates’ third-person perspectives, engendering readers’ investment by offering brief compelling glimpses into the intersectionally diverse characters’ enigmatic histories and sometimes conflicting motivations. Ages 14–up. Agent: (for Meyer and Moss) Jill Grinberg, Jill Grinberg Literary. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 01/16/2026 | Details & Permalink