A young space explorer discovers the natural beauty of the abandoned Earth, left to grow untamed in this beautifully expressive, wordless picture book.

A pink-haired, round-faced astronaut steps from a small spaceship onto the deserted planet, greeted by swaying grass, a tall daisy, and the bright sun. The young space traveler, who has visited dozens of other worlds, is amazed to locate a viewfinder whose reel of sepia-toned photographs depicts the planet's past. A pseudo-treasure hunt commences in which the explorer sees each of the landmarks captured on the tiny transparent squares now overrun by odd mushrooms.

Christine D.U. Chung's boundlessly imaginative drawings take on a surreal quality with Salwa Majoka's dreamlike use of color and light. The Toronto-based artists nestle a cosmic escape in an earthly setting. Their protagonist meets a shy rat, rambunctious monkeys, and a mother and baby giraffe, all with aquamarine fungi sprouting from their fur. Viewfinder is a gorgeous, digitally sketched and painted picture book debut that welcomes the deeply curious to piece together a surprising and touching tale of what it means to find home. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

How is Emma, a dog, full of "wonders"? By literally being full of puppies! In the blindsidingly moving Emma Full of Wonders, Elisha Cooper (Train) offers a picture-book tour through a dog's experience of pregnancy and puppy birth, although the fact that Emma is expecting may come as a big, beautiful surprise to readers.

An omniscient narrator introduces Emma, "a large dog/ with many small dreams." These "dreams" take the form of a clutch of fantasy puppies who float above Emma's head in apparitional gray tones. While Emma Full of Wonders doesn't mention its protagonist's pregnancy, Cooper speckles the story with hints. "Some days Emma woke from her naps and still felt tired," the narrator says at one point. Why is she so tired? And wait: Is her belly getting bigger? Toward the end of the book, which features understated ink-and-watercolor art throughout, the narrator relays that Emma's "whole body felt strange," after which a series of wordless spreads show her delivering and tending to her newborns. Cooper captures the miracle in illustrations so tastefully straightforward that words are unnecessary. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

We Are Definitely Human is a fabulously illustrated, rib-tickling, and affecting picture book--a Kids' Indie Next List pick--in which Mr. Li and his neighbors demonstrate the potential of kindness and cooperative spirit.

It's midnight when something crashes outside Mr. and Mrs. Li's house. Mr. Li investigates, and finds three strangers with "very big" eyes, "very blue" skin, and body shapes that are "very hard to describe." But Mr. Li doesn't worry because these strangers "are DEFINITELY human."

X. Fang (Dim Sum Palace) has made an out-of-this-world picture book that features hilariously deadpan aliens and charming, though (maybe?) clueless, human protagonists (plus one wisely skeptical dog). Outrageously giggle-inducing dialogue from the aliens is characterized by non sequiturs and garbled syntax, and Fang revels in the disconnect between human expectations and alien quirks. Mixed-media illustrations in strong purples, yellows, blues, and greens are a delight. This book's wonderful message of offering help where help is needed is wisely and gracefully delivered. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Author Gary Golio and Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator E.B. Lewis collaborate again (Dark Was the Night) for Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem, an artful picture book that provides a loving snapshot of photographer Roy DeCarava (1919-2009), who saw Harlem in an "old crumpled soda can," the spray of a fire hydrant, and mirrored in the eyes of the people "passing each other on the street."

Golio has penned an elegant ode to a notable photographer, filling his narrative with sensory details and enriching it with quotations from DeCarava himself. Lewis's stunning watercolor art showcases the people and the neighborhood, offering a variety of perspectives to reflect DeCarava's vision and work. Backmatter gives more details about the extraordinary man who worked many different jobs, but made use of "his free time... to record the beauty of what he saw around him." --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author

Author, artist, and designer Sanae Ishida melds her literary talents (Little Kunoichi) with her sewing prowess (Sewing Love) to create the exquisitely empowering picture book Sashiko's Stitches.

Sashiko is overwhelmed by "so many feelings" that sometimes all she can do is cry. Her mother embraces the girl, then reminds her about the origins of her name. Sashiko goes back "many, many hundreds of years" to when families of hardworking Japanese fishermen mended their damaged clothing using "tiny little stitches." Repeated repairs resembled beautiful patterns, so the menders began purposefully creating distinct designs, calling the stitches "sashiko," meaning "little pierces."

Ishida is a masterful storyteller, symbiotically pairing words and images. She writes of Sashiko's feelings as "big heavy clouds, weighing her down into the ground"; Ishida's inviting, saturated watercolor illustrations ingeniously underscore Sashiko's emotional overload by engulfing her in darkened swirls, her sunken legs trapped by burrowing animals and tangled roots. The story is appended with further information about sashiko, including common patterns. "One stitch at a time," Ishida skillfully ushers Sashiko's journey toward calming recovery. --Terry Hong

In a stunning debut 12 years in the making, JoAnna Lapati's intricately illustrated picture book biography of Rosetta Wakeman, Guts for Glory, presents a singular account of secretive military history through arresting artwork and the subject's own words.

Lapati uses scratchboard, evocative of 19th-century wood engravings, and digitally tints the period-authentic drawings in crisp military blues and atmospheric sepias. The detail Lapati achieves in this notoriously demanding medium is gasp-inducing; each line of Rosetta's hands is etched with the utmost precision. The endpapers alone justify this purchase, but backmatter notably reveals that Rosetta "is the only female soldier whose letters represent a woman's point of view during the Civil War." Lyons's handwriting peppers the artwork with her missives excerpted in text. Extensive backmatter includes research bolstered by Lapati's participation in Civil War reenactment groups.

This title, amplifying women's role within Civil War military history, is a natural precursor to Erica Armstrong Dunbar's 2023 Susie King Taylor and a technically staggering artistic debut. --Kit Ballenger, youth librarian, Help Your Shelf

The dare-to-be-different picture book blends beautifully with the kids-to-the-rescue story in Millie Fleur's Poison Garden by Christy Mandin (Lucky; The Storytellers Rule), a Kids' Indie Next List pick.

"Garden Glen was a place of sameness," begins the book's omniscient narrator. Identical houses line the streets--with one exception: a quasi-haunted-looking house on a hill has "no one to love it" until Millie Fleur and her mom move in. Unfortunately, Garden Glen's Rosebud Club is not down with avid gardener Millie Fleur's unusual and wildly blooming buds. Millie Fleur's Poison Garden succeeds as a spirited swipe at lazy-brained conformity and leaves readers with much to think about: they may wonder why Millie Fleur and her mom moved to town and whether their paranormal interests--moving boxes are labeled "spell books" and "potions"--indicate that they're witches. Working digitally with a palette that features both earthy and queasy greens, Mandin inserts exquisite visual winks, including Millie Fleur's Venus flytrap paper doll chain and her pet frog's Broadway-big facial expressions, which hilariously mimic the girl's own. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author

Black U.S. history is dynamically showcased through food, drink, crafts, games, and music playlists in The Juneteenth Cookbook, author Alliah L. Agostini and illustrator Sawyer Cloud's thematic sequel to their picture book The Juneteenth Story. Co-author and recipe developer chef Taffy Elrod brings 20 years of experience in the food industry to this celebratory and accessible cookbook for children.

Each section--Drinks, Appetizers, Mains, Sides, and Desserts--features three or four recipes based on "historically relevant foods," as well as an activity that encourages kids to find ways to celebrate. Agostini and Elrod include recipes that "are linked to Juneteenth and broader African American and Black culinary and cultural traditions" and provide "some often overlooked but fascinating context" for many of the items. Cloud uses an abundance of hues to focus young readers' attention on her vivacious art, which features soft lines that portray an array of inclusive skin tones, hairstyles, and facial features. Agostini and Elrod's text mixed with Cloud's illustrations make for an empowering cookbook that encourages intergenerational celebration, storytelling, and fellowship. --Rachel Werner, author and teaching artist at Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshop and The Loft Literary Center

In Veera Hiranandani's Amil and the After, a tender companion to her 2019 Newbery Honor-winning The Night Diary, Amil, the fraternal twin of the first book's narrator, Nisha, takes center stage.

The family, nominally Hindu, is living in Bombay after Partition (the 1947 separation of India and Pakistan). Although Papa, 12-year-olds Nisha (a writer) and Amil (an artist), and their paternal grandmother, Dadi, are settled in a small apartment, their beloved Muslim cook, Kazi, must hide his identity. The immediate family, too, has a potentially dangerous secret: Papa was Hindu and Mama, who died during childbirth, was Muslim.

Readers of The Night Diary will likely find their appreciation for the first book enhanced by Amil's memories, though the boy's story stands sturdily alone. Amil's artistic skills grow throughout the novel, as shown by the naïve-style black-and-white line drawings by Prashant Miranda, who offers more details in each consecutive illustration. An extensive glossary and author's note provide background that may be essential in helping young readers understand the historical period in which this compelling novel takes place. --Melinda Greenblatt, freelance book reviewer

Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly introduces a tender-hearted tween boy with anxiety who learns to live mindfully from a time traveler in this buoyant and entertaining middle-grade novel (a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and a Kids' Indie Next List title).

In 1999, 12-year-old Michael worries about him and his single mom surviving Y2K, believing the theory that computers will glitch when systems switch to 2000 and shut down the world. But it isn't Y2K that threatens the universe first--it's a 16-year-old visitor named Ridge, half Filipino like Michael, who has traveled back from 2199.

Kelly (Hello, Universe) has written a kind boy who thinks first of others yet is weighed down by his uneasy mind and wavering self-worth. Ridge reassures Michael with precepts from the future, like the idea that staying in "the first state of being" (the here and now) matters more than obsessing over what-ifs. This helps steer Michael toward accepting that "not knowing is part of life." The First State of Being is tremendously touching--a fantastic and upliftingly fun read. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

U.K.-based creator Kengo Kurimoto's graphic novel debut, Wildful, is visual storytelling perfection. The plot is simple: a girl and her dog meet a new friend on their daily walks. Close attention to Kurimoto's exquisitely detailed art, however, reveals multiple layers of delightful transformation.

Wildful is divided into seven chapters, each beginning with a similar scene of a girl walking her dog. She's utterly distracted in the first chapter, headphones on, eyes glued to her phone. But when the dog sees a fox and barrels through the opening of a dilapidated fence, Poppy chases Pepper. A wool-capped boy wrangles Pepper and returns the pup to Poppy. As chapter two commences, Poppy and Pepper head straight for the fence; Poppy and the boy reunite for a wondrous adventure.

Kurimoto uses pen and ink to produce his meticulous sepia-toned illustrations. He's an indisputable master of perspective, giving readers beautiful views. His insightful precision depicts Poppy's closed-eye appreciation of birdsong and the intricacies of a blooming wildflower. Kurimoto brilliantly manages to thread exploration, memory, renewal, and gratitude throughout his exact, ruler-straight panels. Wildful is a breathtaking, wildly welcoming achievement. --Terry Hong

The much-lauded British title Impossible Creatures, first in a new fantasy series by Katherine Rundell (Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms), arrived in the United States as a number one Kids' Indie Next List choice and an immediate bestseller.

Animals have always been drawn to Christopher Forrester. The boy is spending a reluctant holiday with his grandfather at his remote lakeside cabin in Scotland, when an injured baby griffin appears beside the lake. Christopher's grandfather has no choice but to reveal the family secret: they are the guardians of the passageway to the Archipelago, a "riotous, glorious place" where humans live alongside mythological creatures.

Impossible Creatures is a bold and unforgettable start to a captivating series. Rundell creatively uses the hallmarks of British children's literature to develop a standout fantasy--the dangers are real, the narrative voice sophisticated, and the array of creatures dizzying. Black-and-white spot art and full-page illustrations by Ashley Mackenzie (The 66th Rebirth of Frankie Caridi) ground the story in a reality that features cozy kitchens as well as flying coats. Impossible Creatures places itself in a class all its own. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer

The Things We Miss, a Kid's Indie Next List pick, is an evocative, affecting time-travel novel that vividly confronts the struggles of grief.

J.P. is a "generally oversized" girl who is grieving her father's death and her grandfather's cancer diagnosis. She wishes she could just "jump ahead to some future when [she] was less awkward and more confident." After a particularly trying first day of seventh grade, J.P. gets that opportunity when she finds a new door in her neighbor's treehouse. She walks through and magically time-jumps "seventy-two-hours-ish" into the future without anybody realizing. It's exciting at first, but when J.P. starts taking a "mental vacation" too frequently, and misses important events, she has to decide whether skipping the pain is worth skipping life.

Leah Stecher effectively uses time travel to insightfully examine depression in her debut middle-grade novel. She shows J.P. battling body dysmorphia, inadequacy, and low self-esteem with escapism and avoidance. This thoughtful, heart-wrenching speculative novel is a poignant reminder that life has "lots of uphills so you can enjoy the downhills afterwards." --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader

"Blackness is inherently queer," writes George M. Johnson (We Are Not Broken; All Boys Aren't Blue) in Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known, a triumphant and deeply personal illustrated essay collection that pays homage to 12 LGBTQ+ Black artists and the resounding impact they've made on future generations.

In refreshingly approachable language, Johnson highlights individuals from the prolific 1920s arts movement--including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ma Rainey--noting that many weren't public about their sexuality but expressed it through their art, "leaving us a road map for the future." Each person from the queer Harlem Renaissance is captured in a stunning, brilliantly colored double-page illustration by Charly Palmer (The New Brownies' Book). Palmer's telltale bold brushstrokes and vivid hues depict the artists in close-up, with meaningful collaged items surrounding them. The images, much like the queer icons they depict, beg to be studied and proudly displayed. Flamboyants, through Johnson's dedicated research and devotion to their subjects, successfully demonstrates how "what was once done in silence and in the dark has moved toward the light." --Kieran Slattery, freelance reviewer, teacher, co-creator of Gender Inclusive Classrooms

Three-time Michael L. Printz Award-winner A.S. King employs her signature surrealism to portray the emotional reality of domestic abuse through an unflinching feminist gaze in Pick the Lock, which follows 16-year-old Jane, who has rarely left her family's estate since March 2020. Her father used the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to keep Jane and her younger brother confined to their Victorian mansion, where he has locked her mother into the System, a network of human-sized pneumatic tubes that run throughout the house. When Jane finds a cache of footage from hidden cameras around the house, she finally begins to understand "the truth about everything."

Pick the Lock is King at her most accessible, in large part due to how quickly and firmly she anchors readers in Jane's corner. Readers whose lives have been impacted by abuse will want to take care when they engage with King's virtuoso depiction of how it can become normalized within families. Crucially, King also never allows readers to lose sight of the "tender, sweet love" that ultimately empowers Jane to free herself and her family. --Stephanie Appell, freelance book reviewer

In The Art Thieves, Walter Award-winner and citizen of the Cherokee Nation Andrea L. Rogers (Man Made Monsters) returns with a stirring story about choosing to create a new future when disaster seems inevitable.

The world is ending; or at least, that's what it seems like to Stevie who, along with the rest of the planet, is experiencing "a cycle of drought and super-storms." Stevie, a Cherokee teenager living in Texas, works at an art museum. At the museum, Stevie meets artist intern Adam, a Costa Rican woodcarver who admits to her that he is from "seven generations in the future." He "was raised with one purpose," he says: "To make the future better."

Rogers's sophomore YA novel skillfully discusses the current affairs, pop culture, and climate change-related extreme weather events of the future, powerfully relating them to historical and contemporary legacies of racism and oppression. This provocative and insightful work of Cherokee futurism projects and imagines the kinds of decisions and personal sacrifices people might need to make to improve the world. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Jen Wang (Stargazing) shows just how creative and versatile an artist she is in Ash's Cabin, her Kids' Indie Next List title featuring a teen who seeks self, ancestry, and home in the California wilderness.

Fifteen-year-old Ash had a special relationship with Grandpa Edwin, who lived on a rural ranch. Edwin was "resourceful but odd" and spoke of "building a secret cabin where no one could find him." Now, the family is selling the property. Ash, who feels trapped and diminished by a world that has difficulty accepting their gender identity, receives permission to spend August at the ranch. But Ash doesn't mean to stay--Ash is planning to go solo into the wild to find Edwin's secret cabin.

Wang uses a consistently earth-toned palette and skillful formatting, creating something that is a mix between a graphic and illustrated novel. Ash's Cabin is a wilderness tale that features the great unknown both within and without, as Ash struggles to survive the elements and their own loneliness. Readers of graphic novels, queer fiction, nonfiction, and wilderness stories should find something to adore here. --Siân Gaetano, children's/YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Andrew Joseph White opens Compound Fracture, his third YA novel (a Kids' Indie Next List pick), with an unapologetically grisly account of a riot and a murder. What follows is a volatile, compelling mystery about an autistic transmasculine teen in a poor town in West Virginia who fights to reclaim his family's radical legacy.

Sixteen-year-old Miles Abernathy's world shatters when he obtains photos proving that Sheriff Davies intentionally caused the car wreck that traumatized Miles's father and killed a friend. The Abernathys have been fighting for justice for decades. Miles's great-great-grandfather led a coal miners' labor riot and was murdered by a member of the Davies clan. When Davies's son and his cronies discover Miles has the photos, they beat Miles and leave him for dead. After Miles is released from the hospital, he accidentally kills one of the boys who hurt him and reignites the generations-old war.

White (The Spirit Bares Its Teeth) makes Miles a convincing product of his upbringing through candid, often gruesome, first-person narration punctuated by text exchanges. White explores the violent realities of capitalism and transphobia while celebrating the resilience and collective strength of the working class. This book will almost certainly leave readers battered, bruised, and inspired. --Kieran Slattery, freelance reviewer, teacher, co-creator of Gender Inclusive Classrooms

This touching YA graphic novel (a Kids' Indie Next List pick) follows an endearing Vietnamese American teen who desperately seeks true love despite her family's history of tragic romances.

High school junior Valentina Trãn once adored Valentine's Day--so much so that she imagined a cherubic cupid "Saint V" was her guide. When Val learns that her mother didn't die years ago, as her father claimed, but left him, Val disavows the holiday all together. Saint V transforms into the specter of the man he really was, and the girl decides to give him her heart in a year if she fails to find true love. Val's journey to find love parallels a careful nurturing of frayed familial ties with her father and her previously estranged grandma.

Lunar New Year Love Story is a buoying tale about being open to the pain of love from Eisner- and Printz Award-winner Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese). Caldecott Honoree LeUyen Pham (Outside, Inside) brings remarkable depth to Yang's heartfelt story through her digital illustrations. Charming and sweet. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

Multi-award-winning author and 2020-2022 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Jason Reynolds enters the world of YA romance with the hilariously sweet, candid, and guileless Twenty-Four Seconds from Now...: A LOVE Story.

Seventeen-year-old Neon and his girlfriend, Aria, have been dating for two years and have decided that they are both ready to have sex. This Kids' Indie Next List title features Reynolds's distinct, direct, and informal style in Neon's intimate first-person narration. Reynolds (Long Way Down; Track Series) tenderly covers the big topics he's taken on--love, sex, bodily autonomy, and consent--through mindful and attentive advice from Neon's older sister, parents, and grandparents. Neon receives nothing but sex-positivity from his loved ones, including his Dad's refrain: "don't bring no babies in here unless they know how to count money."

Not only is this the perfect book for sex-curious youths, Reynolds's messages on how to approach sex, how to be gentle, and how to respect each other give readers profuse, healthy versions of Black love and community. --Natasha Harris, freelance reviewer