★   ★   ★

ÁGUILA, María Dolores. Menudo Sunday. illus. by Erika Meza. Dial. ISBN 9780593462256.
K-Gr 3–So many books attempt to talk about family, community, bonds of sharing, of gathering. This required reading—also a counting book—may instigate new rituals in the homes of readers who encounter it.

AWAN, Jashar. Every Monday Mabel. S. & S. ISBN 9781665938150.
PreS-Gr 2–For anyone who has ever been or loved the weird little kid who always does her thing, Awan’s spare story will resonate. Mabel’s ritual is carried out in an illustrative style reminiscent of Taro Gomi’s work; even better, the sanitation truck is right on time, and readers find that Mabel’s not such an outlier after all.

BURGESS, Matthew. Fireworks. illus. by Cátia Chien. HarperCollins/Clarion. ISBN 9780063216723.
PreS–Gr 1–Chien gloriously translates sound and feeling to the page, offering children and adults a sensory experience of the inexplicable thrills of exploding lace and rocket bursts in the sky. Burgess provides a steady text that vibrates with the excitement surrounding the displays.

CORDELL, Matthew. To See an Owl. Random House Studio. ISBN 9780593649893.
PreS-Gr 2–Majestic, simple, studied drawings bring the protagonist face-to-face with the natural world. Cordell’s certainty of purpose, to show the value and vivid adventures available to those who “look,” makes this book impossible to put down.

FORSYTHE, Matthew. Aggie and the Ghost. S. & S./Paula Wiseman. ISBN 9781534478206.
K-Gr3–Those readers with an annoying, want-to-be-included younger sibling will readily settle into this version of haunting. Aggie can’t escape the ghost, and Forsythe’s taut sentences and expressively blocky, atmospheric scenes never give away his hand. Deserving, witty, complete.

GOADE, Michaela. Moon Song. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316461634.
Gr 1-4–In alliterative language as lyrical and atmospheric as the moonlit accompanying scenes of northern forest, water, and sky, Goade evokes both the wonders of the natural world and her own Tlingit and Haida cultural background.

HAN, Sally Soweol. Nightsong. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781547615063.
PreS-Gr 3–Soft drawings feature hard sounds, ephemeral and yet captured by onomatopoeia, as a boy discovers that the whole world sings to him, if only he is still and listening. From the raucous to the sacred, from city to country, Han’s illustrations have the look of watercolors brushed across clouds.

HANNIGAN, Jess. The Bear Out There. HarperCollins/Quill Tree. ISBN 9780063289482.
Gr 1-4–In blocky, color-splashed acrylic collage, a narrator becomes that self-possessed, hysteria-inducing voice of campfire stories and urban legends, constantly threatening a visitor with dreadful scenarios of what may come. Groups will lean into every delicious word.

HARRIS, Shawn. Let’s Be Bees. Holiday House/Neal Porter. ISBN 9780823457090.
PreS-Gr 2–Father and child cycle through funny imaginative leaps, to be buzzing bees, or chirping birds, or rustling trees, and more. There is no “what does it mean” to this riot of sound effects and crayonlike, ebullient scratchy scenes, but just the lingering need to share this work.

JUDGE, Lita. Old Blue Is My Home. Abrams. ISBN 9781419771521.
Gr 1-4–An old-school picture book in the best sense, the story of a child’s longing amid housing insecurity to belong to a more conventional, settled world. Based on the author’s childhood, the book comes with iridescent watercolor and colored pencil scenes of home in a snug blue van.

KANG, Angie. Our Lake. Penguin/Kokila. ISBN 9780593698235.
Gr 1-4–Kang’s story happens to be about a death in the family, and it happens to be about a lake, but the book weaves new notions of time and space: time together, time to heal, and the space to build memories. Glowing gouache paintings move from sunlight to shadows to show tentative recovery from a devastating loss.

LUYKEN, Corinna. The Arguers. Penguin/Rocky Pond. ISBN 9781984814425.
PreS–Gr 2–The heir-apparent to Edward Gorey, Maurice Sendak, and Hilary Knight, Luyken offers up a brand-new fairy tale that feels as old as time and is relentlessly funny. Children will understand the joy of arguing, as well as its downside, in a book that needs both group-sharing and one-on-one deep dives.

MANOLI, Costantia. The Fig Tree. illus. by Leah Giles. Roaring Brook. ISBN 9781250763136.
K-Gr 3–Without sentiment but infused with the emotional vibration of a country torn in two, the elegant story of a fig tree in the times before a conflict that led to the dividing of the Republic of Cyprus (Greek Cypriot) from Turkish Cypriot. Collagelike scenes contrast sculptural figs and the thorns of barbed wire.

MATA, Niña. New. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780063318250.
K-Gr 2–A young Filipina wearing hand-me-downs on the first day of school stars in a resonant and comic story, offering empathy for other newcomers and a lesson in compassion for onlookers. The story never sinks into tropes as it shows how pushing through is far better than staying behind.

PEÑA, Zeke. Sundust/Polvo solar. Penguin/Kokila. ISBN 9780593700112.
K-Gr 3–Two children, one with a fade, the other with a long looping braid, jump over the wall into the wilder desertscape where chasing sundust and imagination turns into a marvelous adventure. Spare storytelling and all the colors of the Southwest combine into a long, languid, revelatory day. Available in Spanish and English.

RANSOME, James. A Place for Us. Penguin/Nancy Paulsen. ISBN 9780593324882.
K-Gr 4–Ransome’s diplomatic note about this heartrending wordless book explains that he hopes to amplify the conditions of those without resources. What readers will find in this effusive day-in-the-life story is a Black American family and how they cope with limited money, the public library, and a park bench to create their own version of “shelter.”

SARDÀ, Júlia. The Witch in the Tower. Candlewick Studio. ISBN 9781536243017.
Gr 2 Up–Exquisitely stylized artwork keeps pace with the deliberate, winding text of the ephemeral companion to The Queen in the Cave. For readers of longer form picture books, this is eye-filling and exquisitely told; a visit to these pages requires only a passport of the imagination.

SHARPSON, Neil. Don’t Trust Fish. illus. by Dan Santat. Dial. ISBN 9780593616673.
PreS-Gr 3–Readers learn up-close the role of the “unreliable narrator” in this hilarious satire, with deadpan delivery, art and text that take sophisticated liberties with the page, and a jab at the dark side of the internet. Misinformation or good advice? Let children decide.

STEAD, Rebecca. Anything. illus. by Gracey Zhang. Chronicle. ISBN 9781797215150.
K-Gr 3–Through white pages, room angles, black lines, and a judicious use of rainbows, Zhang’s art effusively conveys the implied losses of the story, as well as tentative steps forward for a father and daughter in their new life.

STERER, Gideon. We Are Already Haunting Here! illus. by Charlie Mylie. Union Square Kids & Co. ISBN 9781454960478.
K-Gr 4–A small ghost in a bowler hat leaves the family haunt to go find a perfect perch of its own. But what it finds? Heartbreak, hauntings, and hope live rent-free in a cannily affecting story of homecoming.

TABOR, Corey. Cranky, Crabby Crow (Saves the World). Greenwillow. ISBN 9780063373587.
PreS-Gr 1–Tabor takes on the superhero trope and sends it into space with this glimpse of stealth friendships among a curmudgeonly crow and the animals it tries to keep at a distance. Choosing a blocky art style and leaving out needless explanations that might ruin the humor, the author knows that the best heroes keep their accomplishments to themselves.

TEBO, Mary. Sparrow. illus. by E.B. Lewis. Astra. ISBN 9781635926880.
PreS-Gr 3–A resonant story about Jerusalem that doesn’t mention Jerusalem; here is Sparrow, at home in a crack in the Western Wall but something is missing. In perfect prose and suspense-building scenes, the story follows a small bird through a day full of promise and offers children a view of a landmark through the prism of hope.

WENZEL, Brendan. Good Golden Sun. Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316512633.
PreS-Gr 3–In scenes that are direct descendants of Eric Carle’s tissue-paper gems, a blissfully childlike version of the “what” and “how” of the ever-present sun as it casts a glow over our days; in Wenzel’s hands it becomes a paean to mindful interactions with nature.