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And Then We Saw the Bag...: Trash to Them, Treasure to Us

Emma AdBåge, trans. from the Swedish by Melissa Bowers (Arctis)

AdBåge captures a household’s dynamic in this hilarious account of parental tidying’s aftermath. After two youths return to discover their home freshly decluttered, their parents try to downplay the extent of the cleanup. Dumping out the contents of a garbage bag, the protagonists undertake an intensive recovery operation, putting everything back in its place. Child autonomy wins the day in this laugh-out-loud tale.

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Dad

Christian Robinson (Balzer + Bray)

Dedicated to “caregivers who give what they never got,” Robinson’s moving, animal-centric ode to fathers portrays parents with realistic faults. Narration unfolds through opposition; while a seahorse models a dad who “holds on tight,” a shark father “needs lots of space.” Amid the examples’ push and pull, which convey how a dad sometimes “lets you down,” a steadying message reassures.

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Goodbye, Koi

Jack Wong (Orchard)

Wong traces a family’s relocation through a child’s musings in this affecting tale. After a father and child rehome their pet koi ahead of their move, the young narrator processes the shift via internally focused text. In this thoughtful work, redirecting feelings about an upcoming unknown softens a sense of loss without diminishing its significance.

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The House with Nobody in It

Jon Klassen (Candlewick)

Incorporating a jump scare and an unreliable narrator, this gently eerie board book ghost story invites readers to tour the ostensibly empty residence that inspires the volume’s shape. As readers progress, deadpan prose acknowledges the abode’s contents—except for the spectral figure that appears in one room. Klassen again displays a remarkable knack for creating lingering, fully realized works through the sparsest storytelling.

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I Am Here

Kim Hyo-eun, trans. from the Korean by Aerin Park (Scribble US)

Using simple prepositions, Kim cleverly presents the world from a growing baby’s point of view in this bright-eyed board book. Unfolded vertically, accordion pages reference common sights an infant notices from below (“under/ the sun”); unfurled horizontally, the book’s reverse side foregrounds the vantage point of an older, toddling child (“beside/ a cat”). This uniquely engineered title articulates the ever-shifting process of becoming.

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I Am the Mountain

Steven Weinberg (Holiday House/Porter)

Twining seasonal and sensate perceptions across a sumptuously painted four-part narrative, Weinberg’s arresting picture book offers a full-bodied education in encountering the natural world—via the perspective of a mountain. The result urges readers to slow down, attend with every sense, and appreciate the myriad ways a terrain’s riches reveal themselves.

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I Will Eat You in the End

David Duff, illus. by Marianna Coppo (Holiday House/Porter)

Duff and Coppo’s Beckettian two-parter lays out the realities of the life cycle with unstinting matter-of-factness and disarming wit. After an enormous sauropod inadvertently takes out a pink worm, a humorously paced back-and-forth reveals the democracy of mortality—and results in a beautiful friendship. Funny and emotionally generous, this delivers hard truths in a way young readers can hold onto.

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Loops

Jashar Awan (Simon & Schuster)

Via a horizontal format that turns “learning to be a big kid!” into a full stage show starring a child in motion, Awan spotlights a common milestone on the wobbly path to maturation: wearing “big-kid shoes.” Though the laces come undone and the kicks slip off, the young narrator refuses to dwell on frustration. It’s a confidence-boosting work about the monumental nature of early accomplishments.

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The Muéganos

Jaque Jours (Transit)

Just like the Mexican street candy with which they share their name, the Muégano family, five bunnies connected at the torso, is “never apart.” Young Julia “wouldn’t have it any other way” in Jours’s tender solo debut, but her longing to go in her own direction causes a physical rift, a painful inevitability that offers meaningful insight into a child’s first independent steps.

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Navigating Night

Julie Leung, illus. by Angie Kang (Random House/Schwartz)

In this touching picture book, a rainy evening sees a child considering two nighttime journeys: their father’s takeout delivery route and Baba’s story of his own experience getting turned around as a youth. Leung and Kang highlight a distinct bond and sacrifices made across generations, building with feeling to the idea that “we can all help each other find our way.”

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Night Ride

Christopher Myers (Kokila)

Myers delivers a visual love letter to Black childhood and New York City with a stunning wordless picture book that follows five kids bicycling across the boroughs. Lighted and photographed stained glass windows comprise each landscape, layering vibrant colors into scenes that reflect the children’s sense of belonging and camaraderie. It amounts to a freewheeling portrait of kids fully inhabiting a locale.

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The Ones Who Came Before

Kevin Maillard, illus. by Sibu T.P. (Roaring Brook)

Maillard and Sibu T.P. muse on themes of belonging in this reverent narrative about connection across time and place. When Aabanya travels to visit her grandfather, she contemplates the area and learns about its residents while hearing her elder's stories of their shared Indigenous culture. It’s a dynamic portrait of the natural world’s long history.

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Open: Every Seed Has Its Moment

Robert Agis, illus. by Sarah Jacoby (Candlewick)

A sprouting seed receives loving support in Agis and Jacoby’s radiant meditation on the act of growing. Soft-focused artwork begins trained on the seed before splitting into a series of cutaways that reveal goings-on above and below the soil’s surface. When the plant bursts ecstatically into bloom, its contribution to the world makes for a joyful crescendo.

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A Riddle of Eels

Nicholas Day, illus. by Corey R. Tabor (Random House Studio)

“The eel is hard to hold. It slips from our grasp,” and so does certainty itself, Day and Tabor hint in this awe-inspiring nonfiction title, which explains just how little is known about the commonplace creature. In a world that strives to assure that everything can be mapped, this astounding book celebrates one vast, wondrous mystery—and suggests that some riddles are worth savoring.

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Story Rug

Sophie Blackall, illus. by Phoebe Wahl (Little, Brown)

Solo play turns into communal collaboration in Blackall and Wahl’s expertly crafted picture book. After Class 203’s “braiding CRAZE” results in a length of plaited textiles that snakes down the hallway, the schoolmates coil their handiwork into a rug that embodies not just the peer group’s partnership but the incorporated items’ backgrounds, too. It’s a sparkling chronicle of individual strands twined.

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The Sweetest of Lemons

Daniel Nayeri, illus. by Rahele Jomepour Bell (Levine Querido)

In Nayeri and Jomepour Bell’s dazzlingly circuitous picture book, a refueling break unfurls into a layered story of longing. A nested narrative pairs the account of a family road trip with a meandering folk tale, depicted in alternating gouache images and collage illustrations. This smartly constructed work is fully invested in its own expansive telling.

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Troubled Waters: A River’s Journey Toward Justice

Carole Boston Weatherford, illus. by Bryan Collier (Bloomsbury)

Boston Weatherford and Collier relay an engrossing history of the Alabama River from the water body’s perspective in this distinctive picture book. Incorporating facts and lyrics, resonant text traces that which has flowed “past my banks,” including enslaved people fleeing bondage, the Trail of Tears, and Bloody Sunday. Depicting figures above and below the water’s surface, collaged acrylic and watercolor illustrations acknowledge a continuation of resistance.

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A Very Good Parade

Eleanor Davis (Abrams)

Cartoonist Davis makes a triumphant solo picture book debut with the tale of a child who wills a parade into being—one that builds to a marvelous racket of a performance and a glorious tuba “BAROOMPA!” Uncorking the joy latent in an ordinary day, it’s an enthusiastic ode to come-as-you-are community and to a child who refuses to march alone.

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While We’re Here

Anne Wynter, illus. by Micha Archer (Clarion)

Wynter and Archer capture a day’s contrasting rhythms in this compassionate, intentionally paced tale about an outing that doesn’t go according to plan. A child and caregiver rush out to catch a train and get to a city park—only to discover that they’ve missed their event. Dallying en route home, the two powerfully model the ease that can emerge from unstructured time.

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The Wise Pickle

Sarah Howden, illus. by Sabina Hahn (Tundra)

With a briny wit, Howden and Hahn offer up a sly parable suggesting that radical acceptance can be goofy, profound, and green. After a googly-eyed pickle drops from the sky, it begins offering existential observations to local wildlife. Minimalist vignettes and smart plotting land the ending somewhere between ridiculousness and enlightenment. Full of tangy absurdity, this is a tale fit to be relished.

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