This Book Is Seriously Silly – written and illustrated by Ben Clanton Tundra Books, 2026
You may have originally met Narwhal and Jelly in their raucously funny graphic novels (see here and here) or in their board book. This Book Is Seriously Silly is Ben Clanton’s second picture book featuring the duo. Similar in premise to the other books, the picture books are not only accessible for younger readers, but, if anything, are a bit more irreverent. Narwhal can puncture anything with his single horn, including here Jelly’s pretensions to serious content.
Readers interact with Jelly from the first page, if not exactly in the way the character may have hope. After all, someone has changed the title of his book! He had intended to produce a serious work, and instead, it has been transformed into a series of jokes, cartoons, and subversive nonsense. His menacing stare, meant to intimidate the perpetrators, hasn’t worked. The stern warning, “No smiling,” seems laughable to readers.
Speaking of laughter, it’s strictly forbidden! Yet readers persist in defacing Jelly’s portrait with a moustache and clown ears, making obnoxious noises, and undermining the book’s aspirations. Jelly had posted a carefully composed list of serious subjects on his blackboard: “concrete, anchors, fossils, chess, formal wear.” With the last term emended to “underwear,” adults sharing the book with kids will understand Jelly’s frustration. If they miss the little clownfish beneath Jelly’s thinly disguised plea, “Fine. What do I care? You can clown around,” a brief explanation might be in order.
If you are missing Narwhal, he shows up near the end, holding a mirror up to his desperate friend. At first Jelly fails to recognize himself, but he finally concedes that he does look silly, at that silliness has its place. Go with your strong suit, Jelly.
Frog’s Day Out (A Lift-the Flap Book, Tales from Acorn Wood) – written by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler Scholastic, 2026
Frog’s Day Out combines the undeniable appeal of lift-the-flap books with the category of books about animals who live harmoniously in friendly villages (for example, here and here and here and here and here). It is a sturdy board book about a frog taking a trip to the seashore. Children are invited to look inside his satchel, as well as peeking into Cat’s hatbox. Excitement characterizes the atmosphere, as Frog, Cat, Dog, and other animal friends meet at the station and board a train.
When illustrators portray anthropomorphic animals, they choose how to balance their human and non-human qualities. Here, in the pictures by Alex Scheffler (accompanying the text by Julia Donaldson), Frog wears a Hawaiian shirt, making him appear perhaps the least self-conscious of the bunch. Hedgehog carries the biggest piece of luggage, a “holdall” which is similar to Mary Poppins’s carpetbag in size. It holds equipment for digging in the sand. Pig, not surprisingly, brings a picnic basket, but Beaver’s colorful beach ball is the least to his species’ activities. The train conductor is a bear, giving him the authority you might trust from an animal driving a train.
In reading lift-the-flap books with young children, you realize that the special feature is hard to duplicate. Eric Hill’s Spot series features both lift-the-flap and non-interactive stories. Toddlers may prefer the former, but, eventually they learn that the two kinds can coexist and both tell interesting stories. There is definitely a way in which lifting the flaps convinces readers that they are actually propelling the story forward.
When Frog emerges from the dressing room in his red-striped one-piece suit, it’s hard to disagree that “he does look smart.” It’s just what you would expect from Frog.
My Roman Summer – by Bruna de Luca Scholastic Press, 2026
Fiction that fits into a comfortable genre, including a romance where a potential conflict metamorphoses into love, needs to be elevated into to hold the reader’s interest. My Roman Summer succeeds, with believable characters, a carefully placed plot, sensitivity, and humor. As in introduction, or affirmation, of Italian language and culture, it’s delightful. The scratch and sniff cover edition adds a lovely touch, (not the first time I”ve fallen for this gimmick), but if you need that to validate Livia Nardelli’s story, you aren’t paying attention.
Livia lives in Scotland with her Italian immigrant parents. She sometimes wavers between two cultures, but this conflict is enriching, not defeating. (“Ma…apologizes to the border control officer for my British passport as if I’m a pineapple pizza she’s smuggled into Italy.”) When Livia and her mother, Caterina, go to Rome for the summer to visit her grandmother, family issues and secrets surface, particularly in a thick atmosphere of hostility between Caterina and Livia’s grandmother, Nona Adelina (Nina). Stubbornly attached to the bar (café) that has been owned by her family for years, Nina refuses to acknowledge that it is on the brink of financial collapse. In the hospital with a broken leg, she argues with her daughter, and seems ambivalent about her visiting granddaughter.
Meanwhile, Giulio, a handsome young man who rides a Vespa, can seem to do no wrong, provoking Livia’s jealousy and confusion. He brings Nina, a surrogate grandmother to him, fresh pasta with Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper, and humiliates Livia’s difficulty twisting it onto her fork, as any native Roman would know how to do. Worse, Livia begins to suspect that Guilio may have nefarious intentions, possibly engineering the loss of the business that defines her life. It seems as if a summer in Rome will send her racing back to Edinburgh with nothing but relief.
Enrolled against her will in Italian language classes to perfect her less-than-perfect Italian, Livia meets a supportive group of new friends, each with their own personal, or bureaucratic, reason for joining her in the school. Aspiring chef, Ren, enlivens the failing bar with his eclectic dishes, including “seaweed Parmesan gougères…made with Japanese nori.” Kenzi, from a Moroccan family, is fluent in both Arabic and Italian, but her parents are convinced that a certificate from the language classes will help her to obtain Italian citizenship. Livia is not the only person who sometimes wonders, “if I don’t belong here, where do I belong?”
Giulio is incredibly handsome, and also sensitive and intelligent. Livia’s attraction to him is at first conditional. He can’t be a villain, but how can she explain his communication with the predatory banker who hovers over the failing bar? Bruna de Luca’s narrative expertise keeps the story from veering into cliché at every vulnerable point. “Santo Cielo!” The twists and turns are precarious, but all roads lead to Rome, Edinburgh, and a satisfying conclusion.
Eon: My Pet Tardigrade – written by Cybèle Young, illustrated by Cybèle Young and Nell Jocelyn Tundra Books, 2026
This enthralling picture book has several potential audiences. It could be categorized as part of STEAM, since the tardigrade is an actual microscopic animal, one that can survive in an array of environments, and even emerge from a kind of dormant state called “tun,” essentially coming back to life. They are microscopic in size, and oddly resemble, at least in the opinion of some observers, tiny bears or pigs. In addition to young scientists, the story of Eon, the pet tardigrade will appeal to readers who like miniatures, both real and fantastic, and form attachments to these special creatures endowed with fascinating qualities. Anyone, young or old, interested in outstanding picture book art, paper sculpture, and the combination of pencil drawing with collage-influenced composition, will love this book.
A girl first encounters Eon, as she will name him, under the lens of a microscope. He peers from behind a microscopic plant. When his face is appears enlarged, he seems to have “two little eyes.” Unlike the other flora and fauna surrounding him, “he ambled and plodded like a bear.” Soon the girl, rendered in graphite pencil, feels so strongly that she wishes she could hug this new pet; the white page bears bright red folded paper hearts, which are only a hint of the artistry to come.
Does the story of Eon and the girl resemble narratives about fairies? Yes, and it also forms part of the genre about nurturing an animal and then, selflessly, releasing it to the world where it can flourish, such as Love Is and A Fairy Friend by Claire Keane. In her revealing afterword, Cybèle Young explains how she first observed tardigrades, but also, how they became intertwined with her background creating miniature paper sculpture. When Nell Jocelyn, also an accomplished paper artist, became involved in this project, a fully formed narrative about curiosity, creativity, and attachment was realized. Young also draws on her experiences as a mother and grandmother to trace both the emotional genesis and physical production of the book.
If you, or the children in your life, have ever designed meticulously scaled furniture and accessories for dolls, pets, or fairies, you will relate to Eon’s good fortune. There are small dioramas with folded paper staircases, playful paper gears, erupting volcanoes, and fishing swimming through the sea. Recreation is available as the smallest paper circus, and a birthday picnic with seemingly edible delicacies must make Eon happy. There is a Ferris wheel, a folding chair, and a goose-necked lamp, all occupied by Eon. Each creation is exquisite, and together, the graphic composition of all the images is a seamless story.
Still, one day Eon ceases to thrive and goes to sleep. The girl gently sends him on his voyage to a more appropriate home. Maybe comfortable bedding and indoor lighting are not conducive to his survival. The process of creating these items is not pointless; it has its own intrinsic value, running parallel to the girl’s nurturing feelings and confidence in her achievement as an artist. If she and Eon are reunited, that will be wonderful.
The Fluffy Futon – written and illustrated by Yuichi Kusano, translated from the Japanese by Cathy Hirano Gecko Press, 2026
In Yuichi Kusano’s The Fluffy Futon, a grandmother takes a nap on the bedding of the title. What begins as a solitary rest soon becomes crowded with farm animals, who take up a great deal of physical space on the futon without disturbing the grandmother. If the story is a fable, it is one without a simple and convenient moral.
The pictures are quietly beautiful, and the grandmother is comforting. We never learn much about her, but we can infer some qualities from the simple text and subdued colors of the drawings. As the story begins, she is airing the futon on the porch of her traditional Japanese home. The endpapers show her purposefully carrying the futon to the porch, with a smile on her face. She is followed by a parade of farm animals and a young boy, but it is not clear if she is aware of their presence or not.
The first animal to arrive is a yawing cat, apparently ready for a rest. The grandmother must be hardworking, as the house looks orderly from the outside. It is less certain why the cat is tired. The two-page spread positions three quarters of the futon on one page; it crosses the book’s gutter and is completed on the next page, along with the cat. White space surrounds the animal ,and its shadow is visible. The grandmother looks quizzically at the cat, but yawning is contagious. Soon she lies down and falls asleep. We don’t know if she is dreaming.
A mother hen and her chicks come along. Unlike the cat, they are a family. Then a pair arrive, a boy and his dog. A goat wearing a big, noisy, bell joins the nap, along with a pig and her piglets. Each page shows a different constellation of sleepers, moving and sharing their space. But the grandmother remains the central figure. She doesn’t need to assert her importance, but eventually her outstretched arms and relaxed body send the animals to the margins.
When the grandmother wakes up, her eyes still seeming half asleep, she pronounces that it has been a “lovely nap,” and that it is “time to get up.” The cat is still sleeping, but the grandmother must have more focused and productive labor in her tranquil home. In the last scene, the futon is the character, resting alone on the porch, with shoes neatly lined up below for anyone who wears them.
Twig Friends – written by Andrew McDonald, illustrated by Ben Wood Bright Light (Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing), 2024
Twig Friends Go Wild – written by Andrew McDonald, illustrated by Ben Wood Bright Light (Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing), 2025
I’ve already written about the two other volumes in the Twig Friends graphic novel series. The first book by Andrew McDonald and Ben Wood introduced the woody characters, Ziggy Twig, Noodle Twig, Red Twig, and the rounder and more pessimistic Stump, in their habitat, and here I review that book and a fourth book in the series In Twig Friends, Red Twig states his sense of superiority because of his unusual red color, but his conviction is really only skin, or bark, deep. When Red’s attempt to surprise Ziggy results in the near destruction of Ziggy’s snail zoo Red experiments with other surprises. He learns that surprises are just generally not appreciated, at least not when they involve sneaking, flinging, or otherwise interrupting important plans. However, the natural beauty of leaves turning color, or a generous gift of additional snails, will be welcome.
The theme of color continues when Noodle’s friends collaborate in helping her to create works of art. They brainstorm ideas for subjects, and Stump offers advice on finding natural pigments: green beans, red berries, yellow leaves. He even becomes a kind of stamp pad by dipping his round foundation in the paints and leaving an image on the ground. The pictures in this chapter have bright shades, reflecting the characters’ joy in learning that “there are no rules with ART. You can do whatever you want!”
The title of Twig Friends Go Wild may seem redundant. After all, the first book had affirmed that “All twigs are wild,” a fact affirmed by every one of their adventures. Noodle’s absorption in art is an inspiration to Red, who, nevertheless, discovers that he needs to find his “OWN thing,” and that this journey involves frenetic flings between different potential interests. Knitting, boating, and board games, all seem like possibilities. A collision with Stump brings on the inevitable bout of Stump sadness, but Red is thrilled to learn that he has magical powers that can transform his friend’s mood. Even if his superpowers turn out to be intermittent, his friend’s acceptance turns out to be more important than magic. Red’s hyperkinetic need to fling himself into flight, like Stump’s sadness and Noodle’s creativity, are what make each one of them unique.
The Magic Library of Waterfall Way – by Julie Abe Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2026
Imagine that you’re a child whose fate will be determined by your membership in one of the following categories: Extraordinarily Remarkable, Quite Remarkable, Slightly Remarkable, or Unremarkable. Of course, those harsh judgments often seem to be part of any childhood. In Julie Abe’s middle-grade novel, Lyra Hunt is an orphan on a quest. In order to avoid the dreaded fate of her status, she will need to find a guild that will accept her. As in many of the classical works of children’s literature that seem to have inspired the author, Lyra’s sensitive and bookish nature is paired with courage. With the help of mentors and friends, she will determine her fate.
Guild matchers are responsible for placing everyone in the Alterran Empire in their appropriate niche. With each child’s status unalterably decided by the age of one year, at a Prophecy Reveal event, there seems to be no escape from this rigid practice. Not surprisingly, high-status people seem to perpetuate their own privilege, as the Slightly Remarkable but utterly inept boy who is accepted into the Guild of Warriors when his parents make a donation. Lyra has no such option available. Her parents had been members of the now defunct Guild of Paperweights; even the lowly Guild of Pinecone Collectors rejects her.
This dismal scenario is rendered even more difficult by the constant propaganda emanating from the Guild of the Crown News, an official organ of the regime. Some chapter titles are derived from its lies, while others are countered by the truth. “Books must be protected at all costs. And I must protect those who will read them, too,” is The Chronicles of Lyra Hunt. Books matter, and so does having the courage to speak out and defy authority.
Sensory descriptions of the idyllic magical village where Lyra finds refuge enhance the narrative. (“From the bakery across the street, a whiff of freshly baked baguettes washed over us.”). Judicial use of magical elements also lends a cinematic touch, with inanimate objects assuming lifelike powers: “’The faucet’s upset. My apologies.’ When it noticed me, the water began to stream ominously.” Brief, but powerful, statements reinforce the source of Lyra’s strength, as when the generous and wise Gemini, Master of the Guild of Scholars, explains that books have been a key to her survival, especially in a world where “most prefer the, well, simplicity of the Guild of the Crown’s newspaper and books.”
By the end of the novel, Lyra and those who support her quest have subverted categories and gone some distance towards replacing acceptance with skepticism, both about official lies, and the sense of helplessness those lies are meant to engender.
My Best Friend Is a Butternut Squash – written by Heather Smith, illustrated by Kass Reich Tundra Books, 2026
It’s hard to see how the title of Heather Smith and Kass Reich’s new picture book could not be intriguing. Is it literal, or a metaphor? Children sometimes develop attachments to unusual toys, or, in psychological parlance, “transitional objects.” In My Best Friend is a Butternut Squash, a boy named Alex adopts the vegetable of the title, and grants it personhood with crayons and imagination. Soon he is taking it out for walks in a stroller and identifying him, when asked, as a two-month-old baby.
Like a purely imaginary friend, the butternut squash can be a different age on different days. One day Alex cradles it in his arms; the next day they are twins, dressing alike and anticipating one another’s thoughts and words. Alex’s mom is really good-natured, even bestowing a kiss on this beloved companion. There is no limit to the possibilities for dramatic entertainment, including a “spectacular sword fight” that is completely harmless. Reich’s gouache and colored pencil drawings capture a child’s point of view, but they are also sophisticated, matching the expression on Alex’s face with that of his endlessly flexible friend, who can be a fairy, a pirate, or even a doctor. The doctor scenario has a bit of heartbreak. Like all children, Alex experiences anxiety, answering the squash-doctor’s question about his symptoms with the troubling answer, “It’s my heart…Sometimes I think it’s shrinking.” The squash wisely advises Alex not to worry, reassuring him that he has “a very big heart,” a quality the reader has already suspected about this sensitive boy.
The butternut squash has a backstory. His original home was Alex’s grandfather’s garden. Maybe uprooting him has created problems that Alex had not suspected, like being excluded from games in the schoolyard. Other children don’t necessarily share Alex’s “big heart,” in accepting the inevitable square peg who won’t fit the round hole, especially if he is an item of produce in a human world. When Alex meets Trudy, he learns that her special object is an old alarm clock, with the disturbingly personified accident of broken hands. Then the other shoe drops, with Alex admitting that the butternut squash’s eventual fate is to be compost. Uh oh.
Just when adults reading this charmingly idiosyncratic book with children might become concerned, the kids work it out. Alex and Trudy find a solution to the transient nature of squashes, clocks, and maybe everything. They defy convention and create their own universe of play, where art supplies and affection are more important than fitting in.
Mint to Be – by Katie Cicatelli-Kuc Scholastic, 2025
I don’t want to give up away any keep developments in my review of this wonderful young adult, or adult, novel. Mint To Be is the second in a series from Katie Cicatelli-Kuc, set in Briar Glen, a New England Village whose competing coffee shops debuted in Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice. It has a Scratch and Sniff sticker on the cover, and it also features a romance potentially fraught with conflict. If readers find that the novel evokes a holiday movie, no brand mentioned, they may feel validated when the heroine’s mom, after comparing a new romance to a five-month-old baby, admits that her optimism may be partly rooted in watching such staples: “I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been watching too many holiday movies. But I’ve always thought that you and Aidan would end up together some day. It’s a parent thing.”
Aidan is Aiden Cooper-Gallo. He and Emma Sherman have been friends forever, literally, since their early childhood. Neither character is a cloying stereotype. Aidan has some difficulties with anxiety, but is never diagnosed with a specific, reductive, condition. Emma is accomplished and ambitious. It’s clear that she intuitively understands Aidan’s vulnerabilities and is always there to help him. She is also obsessed with New York City. Her acceptance as a transfer student to a private high school there, panics Aidan. But he is not the kind of friend, regardless of his intense feelings, to undermine Emma’s dreams. Chapters alternative between Emma and Aidan’s voices, and flashbacks, both recent and longer ago, build consistent characters.
Emma is somewhat reluctant to decode her own feelings, which makes her easy prey, or, to use a much less judgmental term, vulnerable, to finding her first boyfriend at Easton Academy. His name is Sam, and he privileged and arrogant. No, he’s not a monster. He even seems to be sincerely attached to Emma, and makes some effort to understand her attachment to the small town which is her home. He doesn’t relate to dogs, unlike Emma and Aidan. Aidan’s dog, Mackerel, is mildly personified, not enough to be silly, but he is a character in the novel.
Going back to Emma’s mom, her “parent thing” is wholly positive. None of the adults, or almost adults, close to Emma, including her parents, older sister Kerry, and Jo of the eponymous Cup o’ Jo café, try to force decisions on her. The same is true for Aidan, whose grandparents are also supportive and kind, although Grandma has a welcome, acerbic touch: “Like I said, I’ve seen his type a million times.” Both Emma and Aidan need to reach their own conclusions.
Even when Sam reveals his true colors, one of which is a definite shade of controlling, there is nothing exaggerated about either his actions or Emma’s response. Even if everyone in Mint to Be follows a certain course, it is not, regardless of the title, completely predetermined.
Sarabeth’s Garage – written by Melanie Florence, illustrated by Nadia Alam Tundra Books, 2026
Books about grandparents and grandchildren fill a special role. Children’s books that emphasize the right for girls to push boundaries and find their place in the world, without regard to restrictive gender norms, are also promising. Of course, literary and artistic excellence are never superseded by ideology. In Melanie Florence and Nadia Alam’s picture book, Sarabeth’s Garage, a lively text and expressive pictures show a believable child pushing back against the expectations of her beloved grandmother. By the end of the story, love and loyalty strengthen their relationship.
There are picture books that create an entire world peopled by the main characters as well as secondary ones, and all the essential items that make them seem real. This is one of those books. Sarabeth’s family is bicultural; her father and grandmother are of South Asian ancestry. Their background is not directly addressed, but it is implicit in some of the values that her grandmother holds, although it is never claimed that her ideas are exclusive attributable to her age or ethnicity. (“In my day, little girls played with dolls, not cars and trucks.”) This is not one of those books. It’s a book about individuals and context, woven together.
The book opens with an essential fact: “Sarabeth loved cars.” The richness of Alam’s illustrations draws the reader’s attention to so many elements. Sarabeth’s bright red apron has a brush and pencil sitting in its pockets. She is wearing beaded bracelets, and has a band aid on her arms. Gripping a pliers, Sarabeth works on a contraption, maybe a design for a vehicle. All the objects on her worktable are carefully composed against their white background. A tape measure is partly extended. Cookies on a plate have bites taken out of them; pencils and tools seem to be pointing towards one another. The scene captures the process of creation.
Metaphors are part of Sarabeth’s imagination, as in a scene where she compares cars and their engines to animals in motion. But one person, ironically, slowing her down, is the family matriarch, Grandma. Sarabeth’s parents are fully supportive of her dreams. Her mother, curled up on the sofa with a book, one hand on her beautifully pregnant belly, is proud of her daughter’s skills. Sarabeth’s father, a mechanic, is her role model. They even wear matching blue coveralls while working in his shop. Grandma is important to Sarabeth; she cannot simply ignore the older woman’s stern statements. The assumption that these prejudices are based on a lack of understanding is reasonable, but Grandma believes that Sarabeth is the one who does not understand.
The two-page spread of their complete family shows both togetherness and independence. Dad and Grandma sit close together. Mom, curled up on the sofa with a book, one hand on her beautifully pregnant belly, is absorbed in her reading. Sarabeth’s brother is completing his math homework, and she herself is constructing a cardboard mock-up of an invention. Their dog is asleep at her side, and other accessories; a cup of tea, a set of paints; reflect the fact that conflict over Sarabeth’s passion for cars exists alongside other aspects of their home life. A poignant picture of Sarabeth trying to scrub the industrial dirt off herself indicates that she is trying to accommodate herself, to some degree, to her grandmother’s expectations. Pink and blue bubbles float above the tiles. She is standing on tiptoe, wearing one white sock. But her face is still marked by the grease spots of her future profession.
One difference between this book and some others about grandchildren and grandparents is its honesty about friction. A family dinner indicates visually that generational differences are not easily bridged. (image) A vase of flowers sits in the center of the table, but Sarabeth and her grandmother are both frowning intently. Mom tries to diffuse the situation by minimizing the importance of “a little grease stain.” But Grandma is not inflexible. When a problem with her car, which she avidly still drives, leads her to need help, she knows where to find it. This outcome is not improbable. Grandma’s apparent stubbornness is part of her strength. When Sarabeth gently reminds her that “in my day, girls can do anything they want, Grandma,” there is no sense of disrespect, or even triumph. Her car is up and running again, “and she revved the engine softly to make it purr like a kitten.” Now the two of them share a metaphor.
Imaginary Elevators 