Our 2025 Best Children's and YA Books list features some of the most creative, spellbinding, or extraordinarily illustrated titles Shelf Awareness has reviewed this year. Young readers will find realistic stories about bellies and being bilingual, enchanting adventures through storms and art history, and a slightly spooky tale with utterly charming characters. Middle-grade readers are shown World War II and the very bottom of the ocean, two cli-fi novels, one fantastical and filled with pirates and another that is (scarily) possible but remarkably hopeful, and an underwater fantasy with a ghost protagonist. And our young adult picks feature thoroughly researched nonfiction, uncommon love stories, and an absolute blast of a babysitting adventure. Click here to read our reviews of the top kids' titles for 2025. (Shelf Awareness's Best Adult Books are here.) --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness
Picture Book
Cat Nap by Brian Lies (Greenwillow Books)
Everybelly by Thao Lam (Groundwood Books)
The Interpreter by Olivia Abtahi, illus. by Monica Arnaldo (Kokila)
Island Storm by Brian Floca, illus. by Sydney Smith (Neal Porter Books)
The Slightly Spooky Tale of Fox and Mole by Cecilia Heikkilä, translated by Polly Lawson (Floris Books)
Middle Grade
Graciela in the Abyss by Meg Medina, illus. by Elena Balbusso (Candlewick)
Higher Ground by Tull Suwannakit (Crocodile Books)
I'm a Dumbo Octopus: A Graphic Guide to Cephalopods by Anne Lambelet (Graphic Universe/Lerner)
Scarlet Morning by ND Stevenson (Quill Tree Books)
The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido)
Young Adult
The Assassin's Guide to Babysitting by Natalie C. Parker (Candlewick)
The Best of All Worlds by Kenneth Oppel (Scholastic Press)
The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum (HarperCollins)
Hick: The Trailblazing Journalist Who Captured Eleanor Roosevelt's Heart by Sarah Miller (Random House Studio)
The Leaving Room by Amber McBride (Feiwel & Friends)
White Lies: How the South Lost the Civil War, Then Rewrote the History by Ann Bausum (Roaring Brook Press)