The best in picture books, middle grade and young adult fiction and nonfiction, selected by the children’s books editor of The New York Times Book Review.
Picture Books
AFTER THE FALL: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again.Written and illustrated by Dan Santat. (Roaring Brook, $17.99.) The Caldecott Medalist Santat offers a surprising and inspirational answer to the question, what if the shattered Humpty Dumpty decided to pull himself together and get back up on that wall?
GOOD NIGHT, PLANET. Written and illustrated by Liniers. (Toon Books; $12.95.) A little girl drifts off to sleep, but her stuffed rabbit heads out for a night of adventure in this comics-style book that’s both tender and exhilarating.
HEY, BOY. By Ben Strouse. Illustrated by Jennifer Phelan. (Margaret K. McElderry Books, $15.99). This emotionally resonant, retro-style debut about a boy and the dog who moves in and out of his life is “sure to be a book worth revisiting,” our reviewer, Tom Lichtenheld, said.
THE LITTLE RED CAT WHO RAN AWAY AND LEARNED HIS ABC’S (THE HARD WAY). Written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell. (Little, Brown, $17.99.) It’s an alphabet book, but it’s also much more: a wordless, witty and wonderful story of a runaway cat and his pursuers, including an alligator, a chicken and a dragon.
MY BEAUTIFUL BIRDS. Written and illustrated by Suzanne Del Rizzo. (Pajama Press, $17.95.) With lovely, unusual mixed media art and a hopeful story, Del Rizzo finds an approachable way to tell the story of a boy forced to flee his home during war, who finds healing and a new friend through caring for birds.
TOWN IS BY THE SEA. By Joanne Schwartz. Illustrated by Sydney Smith. (Groundwood, $19.95.) With simple, powerful language and stunning art, this quietly devastating book evokes a seaside community of Cape Breton miners and their families through the voice of a boy who knows he will follow his father’s path.
WELCOME: A MO WILLEMS GUIDE FOR NEW ARRIVALS.Written and illustrated by Mo Willems. (Hyperion, $15.99.) The inimitable Willems’s unclassifiable new book is a funny, profound guide to navigating the highs and lows of being a person on Earth, aimed at everyone from newborns to grandparents.
THE WOLF, THE DUCK & THE MOUSE. By Mac Barnett. Illustrated by Jon Klassen. (Candlewick, $17.99.) The latest from this award-winning team is a darkly funny tale of friendship, escape and making the best of things, set mostly in the belly of a wolf.
Middle Grade
ALL’S FAIRE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL. Written and illustrated by Victoria Jamieson. (Dial, $12.99.) “I dub thee brilliant,” our reviewer, Marjorie Ingall, said of this graphic novel about a girl just starting middle school, whose family works at a Renaissance faire.
BRONZE AND SUNFLOWER. By Cao Wenxuan. Translated by Helen Wang. (Candlewick, $16.99.)The great Chinese author’s moving novel—his first to be translated into English—features an unlikely pair of friends, one mute, one orphaned, who help each other through tough times in rural China.
FISH GIRL. By Donna Jo Napoli. Illustrated by David Wiesner. (Clarion, $17.99.) In this beguiling graphic novel, a girl befriends and rescues a mermaid who has been held captive and forced to perform in an aquatic show by a sinister impresario.
PATINA. By Jason Reynolds. (Atheneum, $$16.99.) The second book in Reynolds’ engrossing and big-hearted series about the members of a track team focuses on a speed-demon girl who outruns challenges on the track and at home.
REFUGEE. By Alan Gratz. (Scholastic, $16.99.) Gratz weaves together three separate stories of refugees on the run, finding the ingredients of a taut thriller in all of them while reminding us of the universality of refugees’ plight.
THE STARS BENEATH OUR FEET. By David Barclay Moore. (Knopf, $16.99.) This sparkling debut is about a grieving Harlem boy who’s lost his older brother and finds in friendship and competitive Lego building a path away from the lure of gangs.
TUMBLE & BLUE. By Cassie Beasley. (Dial, $17.99.) A boy and his new friend head out on a quest to escape a family curse that runs through generations in this exuberant, heartfelt fantasy set mostly in an alligator-filled Georgia swamp.
UNDEFEATED: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team. By Steve Sheinkin. (Roaring Brook Press, $19.99.) Our reviewer, Carvell Wallace, praised the “hearty inspiration” provided by this riveting nonfiction account of the Native American students who developed most of what we consider modern football.
THE VANDERBEEKERS OF 141ST STREET. By Karina Yan Glaser (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16.99.) In this delightful and heartwarming throwback to the big-family novels of yesteryear, a large biracial family might lose their beloved brownstone home, but win it back with an all-out charm offensive.
WISHTREE. By Katherine Applegate. (Feiwel & Friends, $17.99.) A talking tree who has seen it all over the centuries narrates this wise, entrancing story set in a neighborhood in which a Muslim family is made to feel unwelcome.
Young Adult
AKATA WARRIOR. By Nnedi Okorafor. (Viking, $18.99.) This enthralling second book about Sunny, an albino Nigerian girl who can do magic, has her mastering her powers to save the world from apocolyptic doom.
AMERICAN STREET. By Ibi Zoboi (Balzer & Bray/HarperCollins, $17.99.). Set in a Detroit infused with elements of Haitian voodoo that creates a mood of magical realism, this elegant and suspenseful debut follows the story of Fabiola, who must stay with her cousins while she attempts to get her mother out of an immigration detention facility.
LA BELLE SAUVAGE. By Philip Pullman (Knopf, $22.99.) Pullman’s long-awaited prequel to the “His Dark Materials” trilogy pulls you back into the fascinating alternate universe of the original series, exploring the nature of the powerful substance called Dust and following the heroine, Lyra Belacqua, from babyhood.
FAR FROM THE TREE. By Robin Benway. (HarperTeen, $17.99.) “Unforgettable,” our reviewer, Catherine Hong, called this winner of the 2017 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, about an adopted, pregnant teenager who seeks out her own birth family.
THE HATE U GIVE. By Angie Thomas. (Balzer & Bray/HarperCollins, $17.99.). Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this absorbing and potent novel follows a girl whose childhood friend is shot by the police and whose world is irrevocably changed by what she’s witnessed.
I AM NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER. By Erika L. Sánchez. (Knopf, $17.99.) This gripping debut finds humor as well as pathos in15-year-old Julia’s quest to uncover her Mexican-American family’s secrets after the death of her seemingly dutiful sister.
TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN. By John Green. (Dutton, $19.99.) Green’s chronicle of a teenager’s struggle to live and love—and solve a mystery—despite her debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder is simply “astonishing,” said our reviewier, Jennifer Senior.
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