Momentarily startled to discover a fourth egg in her nest—one that looks nothing like the other three she has laid—Mama Duck quickly regains her composure: “There is nothing wrong with being different. They are my eggs, and when they hatch, they will be my ducklings.” But while he is unconditionally loved, bubblegum-hued Nort, who is instantly recognizable as a baby dragon, has none of his family’s aquatic talents. Could it be that he’s not a “Quacking Duckling” after all? Nort checks in with the farm’s oinking, mooing, and clucking contingents, and finds he doesn’t fit those categories, either. Only when a ravenous wolf declares Nort its dinner does he realize he’s in a category all his own: “A FIRE-BREATHING DUCKLING!” Blending the feel of classic Disney comics, a venerable fairy tale, and Are You My Mother? plotting, Cammuso transforms an identity quest into a funny but pointed reminder that family is about connection. Ages 5–7. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Miller’s loosely rhyming couplets describe a child’s burgeoning friendship with bigfoot in this upbeat picture book focused on tolerance. Enthusiastically awakening, a pink-skinned youth heads to the forest for a day of adventure, described in effusive lines: “I followed the path/ that I loved to explore/ Through the trees on the search/ for new friends and more!” The discovery of an oversize footprint initially worries the protagonist, but when the responsible party reveals himself, it becomes clear that bigfoot might be open to friendship. In sinuous multihued line art, Flook’s sunny woodland scenes convey their supernatural star’s kindheartedness with a wide grin that sometimes opens in gap-toothed delight. The arrival of dusk cuts the pair’s visit short, but not before the good-natured human offers a piece of universal advice: “Always be BRAVE!// The world is a great place where no one should hide,/ being a bit different should fill you with pride.” The creators lend a mythical flair to the saying “free to be you and me.” Ages 5–12. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Creatively punning dialogue and action-packed comics-style panels winningly combine in this highly entertaining princess smackdown. Courtesy of “the WPW: World Princess Wrestling,” a global cast of princesses compete to beat the reigning champion, avian Swan Princess. One by one, the royal wrestlers enter the ring to take on the “prima slammerina.” Rapunzel the Reaper “comes in hot with her signature Hair Whiplash,” but to no avail, and Sleeping “Leaping” Beauty is “downed with a sleeper hold. Oh, the irony.” After Kaguya, the Moon Monarch of Mayhem!, temporarily fells the bird with a “moonsault,” the antagonist trashes the stadium, leaving previously dismissed towel girl Little Red Riding Hood to draw on her own storied background. Crede’s gleeful text doesn’t miss a trash-talking trick, and Hill’s exuberant gouache, watercolor, and digital renderings capture the matches’ glamour and over-the-top drama. It’s truly a fairy tale fight not to miss. Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

In riveting prose, Keller pens an engaging “Cinderella” variation about a girl, enslaved in Maryland, for whom layered stories offer freedom. When the cruel, pale-skinned daughters of CeeCee’s enslavers begin tutoring, brown-skinned CeeCee is beaten and locked away for even staring at a book’s pages. But household cook Binty encourages the girl and shares a tale of “an underground, secret savior who helped free enslaved people—a knight named Moses.” The story melds in CeeCee’s dreams with “Cinderella,” and she awakens with a plan to head north, for which she’ll need a gown, a pair of gloves, and a fitting coat, objects she painstakingly acquires. Binty, in the fairy godmother role, supplies the child with an old pocket watch: “You must get to the river by midnight. Moses will be there.” And it’s by the river that the youth reveals her true name—written on a slip of paper by her mother—before learning Moses’s real identity and setting forward to freedom. Freeman blends soft textures and vibrant colors to render largely domestic scenes in this immersive tribute to determination, community alliance, and self-knowledge. Contextualizing notes conclude. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Per an opening note, Xiong takes inspiration from Guo Zhong Chan’s Memories of Xiang Zhou to spin this evocative, nature-centered story about a mythical miniature being called a Treeling who takes a disruptive “walk with the wind.” The wind impatiently initiates the outing, awakening the pale-skinned, dark-haired babe and then stealing their tangerine-colored triangular cap (a rare splash of color across a palette otherwise composed of muted grays and sages). Turning into “a great gale,” the wind carries the Treeling aloft across a range of topographies and past myriad creatures, including “mushroom people” soaking up sun. Active verbs describe the swirling chaos provoked by every encounter, while delicate paintings depict cranes getting twisted up, monkeys clinging to a tree, and more. In each case, the Treeling—merely along for the ride—emphasizes, “It wasn’t me!” Eventually, the Treeling chastises their unruly companion, and “the tempest became a breeze, and slowly whispered along” behind. Meditative depictions of the fanciful relationship cast an atmospheric spell. “Wind Poem” concludes. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

A self-described young “yeti expert” and his dog Milo embark on an expedition in search of the mystical forest-dweller in this visually playful story. Crisp first-person narration credibly establishes the child speaker’s readiness for the quest: “I have borrowed all 27 yeti books from the library. I have a pair of yeti slippers (not made from real yeti).” When the child and pup arrive at the forest, the youth continually concludes “no yeti yet,” but Milo has a much different experience. Hunt’s modernistic artwork uses geometric cut-paper-like effects for the forest and soft edging for the creature, hiding in plain sight, which dramatically reveals itself to the reader via an orientation change even as the human protagonist despairs about the outing’s failure. Wintry scenes get pops of color from the child’s bright red hat and lime green scarf, the latter of which eventually plays a critical role in conveying the idea that everything can be found “somewhere.” Ages 4–8. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885–1954) performed an extraordinary feat of moral courage, here described as perhaps WWII’s “greatest individual act of rescue.” While the German army advanced toward his post in Bordeaux, France, many were “driven from their homes, their countries, and everything they ever knew and loved,” writes Brown (Like a Diamond in the Sky) in quietly propulsive narration that conveys escalating, life-and-death urgency. Though Portugal “officially took no side in the war,” it joined the world in refusing the refugees; de Sousa Mendes, haunted by the frantic, growing crowds gathered at his consulate, nevertheless resolved to say yes. In direct violation of orders, he signed thousands of visas—even shortening his signature to conserve ink—and eventually escorted groups through shortcuts and across the border to Portugal at great personal cost. Digitally colored pencil illustrations by Castrillón (Nano) include sweeping compositions, finely etched textures, and curvilinear motifs to convey the tide of events and the protagonist’s steadfast, heroic defiance. Includes contextualizing back matter. Ages 5–8. Author’s agent: Sean McCarthy. Sean McCarthy Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Helen Boyle, Pickled Ink. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Resilience forms the backbone of this heartening new collaboration between Montgomery and Patterson (The Book of Turtles), which spotlights the real-life story of a snapping turtle named Fire Chief. From ping-pong-ball-size egg to quarter-size baby to full-grown adult who’s the weight of a lawn mower, the starring reptile is presented as the beneficiary of incredible lifelong luck. Science-oriented storytelling offers informed guesses about Fire Chief’s early years, leading up to his arrival at a rural fire station’s heart-shaped pond, where he’s eventually spotted sunning on a log. Time passes—underscoring the species’ incredible longevity—and the slow-moving animal’s luck comes to an end during an annual migration across a former country lane that’s been developed into a state highway. Luckily, people from the Turtle Rescue League arrive with a plan for rehabilitation, including a special wheelchair, and “human friends” eventually create a new, safer aquatic abode that requires no further road crossings—“What a lucky turtle!” The book’s artist, revealed to own the property on which Fire Chief lives, clearly has firsthand knowledge of the subject, relayed via intricate, hyper-realistic paintings that lend an appropriately documentary feel to this uplifting tale. Human background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. More about Fire Chief and resources conclude. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Dispensing with typical biographical details, this tender look at the life of beloved children’s book creator Arnold Lobel (1933–1987) launches with a defining moment: a serious childhood illness that kept Lobel home for an entire year, and his later sense that he was “a bit of an outsider, which was often hard on the inside.” But this isolation also enabled Lobel to develop his powers of observation, grow as an artist, and read voraciously, and fueled his determination to become a storyteller. With economic, understated prose and gouache, pencil, and ink vignettes that nod gently to the subject’s own drawing style, Kastner (So Tortoise Dug) follows the author as adulthood finds him entering marriage and parenthood, becoming a frustrated artist in the corporate world, and eventually finding his way to work as a “professional daydreamer” who “trusted young readers with bold, beautiful words.” The inspiration for his Frog and Toad series strikes during a family vacation in Vermont, when he notices that frogs “seemed to smile, as if caught in a pleasant daydream,” while toads appeared “quite introverted and dyspeptic.” By slowly connecting Lobel’s “outside” and “inside” selves, the work provides a powerful example for anyone navigating their own layered identities. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. An author’s note concludes. Agent: Hannah Mann, Writers House. Ages 4–8. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink

Assonant, rhythmic prose from Barnard Booth (One Day This Tree Will Fall) and gothic paintings by Finkelday (On a Mushroom Day) work hand-in-hand to create a hypnotic group portrait of crows. First-person singular opening lines (“I am not I at all”) drive home the book’s emphasis on collectivity via a rapid shift to first-person plural (“one set of eyes/ isn’t nearly enough.// We feel it/ we all feel it,/ when the sun starts to set”). There’s an air of enchantment as text suggests, “We must sound like witches to you./ The ones from your tales./ The ones that cackle and cast evil spells,” before revealing the actual mechanics at play: “A spell that binds one to many/ and turns I to we.” Dramatic, smudgy renderings of the charcoal-colored subjects contrasted against twilit skies echo high-stakes descriptions of nighttime dangers and communal roosting (“We might stay alive/ if we cuddle,/ if we huddle”). Remarkably effective in transforming a murder of crows from a fearsome- to fearful-seeming grouping, the creators also underscore the uniquely effective manner in which the birds work collectively to endure. Back matter includes further information and an author’s note. Ages 5–8. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 06/20/2025 | Details & Permalink