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Animal Albums from A to Z

Cece Bell (Walker US)

This clever, irresistibly prodigious abecedarian features album art and one song’s worth of liner-note lyrics apiece from 26 invented animal recording artists—creaturely crooners whose works represent myriad musical genres and decades’ worth of design aesthetics. For new listeners and seasoned audiophiles alike, this rigorously imaginative tour de force displays Bell’s no-detail-left-behind creativity, which turns each rockin’ concept “up to 11.”

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Being Home

Traci Sorell, illus. by Michaela Goade (Kokila)

Across a joyful arc that shows a family embracing change, an Indigenous child looks gladly forward to moving from an ill-fitting city to “our ancestors’ land/ and to our people.” Sorell’s spare, rhythmic language and Goade’s soft-edged, organic landscapes twine to explore a family’s connection to a place and community—thoughtfully characterizing “the rhythm of being home.”

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Dog vs. Strawberry

Nelly Buchet, illus. by Andrea Zuill (Random House Studio)

When Dog is given a plump red strawberry, this work’s narrator breathlessly announces “the greatest race of all time!” Buchet’s heightened language and Zuill’s cinematic sense of silliness follow Dog’s frantic battle of wills with the fruit. Featuring a protagonist who’s both cunning competitor and genial goofball, it’s an enthusiastic love letter to canine behavior wrapped in a laugh-out-loud sportscast spoof.

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Emergency Quarters

Carlos Matias, illus. by Gracey Zhang (HarperCollins/Tegen)

After Ernesto begins walking to school without his parents, he holds onto the single “for emergencies” quarter his mother presses into his hand each morning—until a surprising “emergency” at the barber shop offers a winning opportunity for independent decision-making. Matias and Zhang supply lively sensate details, artfully portraying Ernesto’s community and his own canny balancing of prudence and pleasure.

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Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller

Breanna J. McDaniel, illus. by April Harrison (Dial)

Before becoming an expert storyteller, Augusta Braxton Baker (1911–1998) “was an amazing story listener,” begins McDaniel and Harrison’s vital history of a vital figure. Intricate mixed-media collage meticulously highlights Baker’s route to helping “people become better listeners” and her creation of a library collection that ensured Black children would “have heroes that rose up and looked, talked, and shined bright.”

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In Praise of Mystery

Ada Limón, illus. by Peter Sís (Norton)

In the cadenced text of this deliberately paced poem by Limón—which is etched on Europa Clipper, a NASA spacecraft heading toward Jupiter and its moons—the work’s speaker draws everyday existence on planet Earth into relationship with watery Europa. Primal blue spreads from Sís evoke depth and distance, resulting in an expansively wrought work that describes two realms connected across unimaginable distance.

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Joyful Song: A Naming Story

Lesléa Newman, illus. by Susan Gal (Levine Querido)

Everyone wants to know the name of Zachary’s newborn sibling. But before the synagogue baby-naming ceremony, Mama and Mommy sub in playful endearments, gently reminding that the official name will be revealed at the event. Newman and Gal lavishly capture the coziness of Zachary’s neighborhood and the sacred space where a warm community gathers to welcome their newest member.

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Just Like Millie

Lauren Castillo (Candlewick)

After a child who’s recently moved house declines to make new friends, their mother takes them to an animal shelter, where they meet a “just right dog.” The pleasure that the animal takes in companionship and the family’s daily walks make all the difference. Castillo’s tender work highlights both a close, transformative bond and the way that new connections can ease upheaval.

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The Last Stand

Antwan Eady, illus. by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey (Knopf)

When Papa becomes too tired to run his farmer’s market stand—the last in a close-knit community—the young narrator, and those Papa has long nurtured, find a way to move forward in care. The Pumphreys’ crisp illustrations, created with handmade stamps, convey a palpable feeling of abundance as Eady unfurls a subtle intergenerational story that hints at broader sociopolitical issues.

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Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall

Lynn Brunelle, illus. by Jason Chin (Holiday House/Porter)

Magnificent watercolor and gouache spreads by Chin and meticulous text from Brunelle capture the grace of a blue whale in life alongside the bustling ecosystem that surrounds it in death, as its body provides nourishment for countless creatures over more than a century. It’s a brilliant breakdown of how death supports life and how populations grow and are sustained.

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Little Shrew

Akiko Miyakoshi (Kids Can)

Via understated storytelling and simultaneously winsome and melancholy artwork, Miyakoshi examines the everyday life of a small shrew existing modestly among humans. From a breakfast of honey biscuits to preparations for an annual visit from dear friends, renderings of quiet, precisely completed routines and the occasional celebration bring security and contentment to this intimate early reader told in three parts.

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Mabel Wants a Friend

Ariel Bernstein, illus. by Marc Rosenthal (S&S/Wiseman)

Fox Mabel “always got what she wanted,” even when doing so requires subterfuge, but a friendship with generous rabbit Chester teaches her to value others for more than how they meet her needs. Bernstein and Rosenthal once again dazzle at demonstrating social-emotional nuance in this savvy, playground-set work about how wants can go beyond a desire for self-gratification.

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My Daddy Is a Cowboy

Stephanie Seales, illus. by C.G. Esperanza (Abrams)

When Daddy wakes this immersive work’s young narrator before dawn, the two grin at each other, then head out for a horseback ride. Seales’s affectionate text and Esperanza’s thick-stroked oil paintings depict the outing, capturing the open feel of early morning alongside the beauty of one-on-one time while following a child whose “Daddy is a cowboy.... And so am I.”

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The Pelican Can!

Toni Yuly (Little, Brown)

Rhyming questions are answered with the titular cry in a triumphant work that displays the pelican’s power and grace. “Who can see it’s time to eat?” Yuly begins, showing two adult pelicans and a nestling in silhouette. The motif continues as the pelican hunts and returns in this closely observed tale in which the natural world supplies a full scope of visual drama.

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The Squish

Breanna Carzoo (HarperCollins)

The indignities keep piling up for this affirming picture book’s oft-toppled sandcastle protagonist. Its efforts at fashioning itself bigger and even giving up are to no avail, but a sea change occurs when two sandpiles unite into one dual-towered castle that’s ready to weather life’s storms. Carzoo’s story of solidarity and resilience offers plenty of good-hearted, goofy verve.

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The Table

Winsome Bingham and Wiley Blevins, illus. by Jason Griffin (Holiday House/Porter)

Bingham, Blevins, and Griffin present a powerfully layered work about two families—first one, then another—who live their lives around the same kitchen table. As the furniture passes from one home to the next, the transition makes for a mirrored telling that bears witness to the lives of two households “with parents that work hard and long hours and love each other.”

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Tamales for Christmas

Stephen Briseño, illus. by Sonia Sánchez (Random House Studio)

Briseño and Sánchez chronicle a matriarch’s pre-Christmas tamale production as, “with masa in one hand, corn husks in the other,” she makes enough to sell “to fill the space underneath the tree.” Brisk text tracks the woman’s incredible progress across energetic spreads that follow the making of a whopping 1,000 dozen tamales in a triumphant work jam-packed with activity and pure familial love.

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We Are Definitely Human

X. Fang (Tundra)

Following their flying saucer’s crash-landing near Mr. and Mrs. Li’s rural home at midnight, a trio of aliens tries their darndest to convince the couple that “we are DEFINITELY human.” After the humans welcome the aliens as guests, what starts out as a laugh-out-loud fish-out-of-water comedy from Fang becomes a freshly funny close encounter of straightforward acceptance.

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We Who Produce Pearls: An Anthem for Asian America

Joanna Ho, illus. by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya (Orchard)

Bold, pop art–style graphics and lyrical phrasing distinguish this affecting picture book “inspired by specific figures, events, and movements in Asia and across the Asian diaspora.” “We” statements from Ho (“We who dream... seek... cultivate”) hint at a rich history that Phingbodhipakkiya reveals via dozens of crisp, bright-hued digital portraits accented with stylized landscapes, bursts of flora, and other natural elements.

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You Broke It!

Liana Finck (Rise x Penguin Workshop)

A range of adults respond with knee-jerk admonitions to classic kid behavior (“You broke it!” a full-grown bird rebukes a hatching chick) in Finck’s comic spin on grown-up demands. When a small octopus told to “Keep your hands to yourself” speaks up for kids everywhere (“I AM JUST BEING ME”), the response results in a multiarmed hug poised to inspire patience in any dynamic.

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