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Join a family of four as they make challah, a braided Jewish bread used for many holiday meals. It’s Friday evening, which means Shabbat is here. An excitable child narrator guides Mom, Dad and Baby through the recipe as they prepare for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. Written by Charlotte Offsay and illustrated by Jason Kirschner, Challah Day! (Holiday House, $18.99, 9780823454112) is a scrumptious celebration of family traditions.

Starting at sundown on Friday, Shabbat dinner marks the beginning of the Jewish day of rest. Although we witness the family as they light the Shabbat candles and sit down for the traditional dinner, the book stays focused on making challah, making Challah Day! a sweetly straightforward and celebratory read for Jewish families as well as those wanting to learn more about Jewish culture. Offsay’s jaunty and quick-paced rhyming couplets are perfect for reading aloud and pair well with other picture books about cooking with family, like Linda Sue Park and Hoe Baek Lee’s Bee-Bim Bop! or Lisa J. Amstutz and Talitha Shipman’s Applesauce Day.

Matching the bouncy tone of Offsay’s writing, Kirschner’s charmingly dynamic illustrations highlight the characters’ actions in realistic detail against simple backgrounds. The muted, pastel colors do not detract from the story’s vibrancy. Several full-spread illustrations are especially lovely, such as when the challah dough is being braided, or when children jump across larger-than-life bags of sugar, salt and flour.

After the story is finished, back matter not only offers a recipe for “Challah for a Crowd” but also provides context and information about challah and its surrounding traditions. In addition to highlighting the different ways that challah can be made, Offsay also shows readers various ways that Jewish people come together to celebrate. Challah Day! is simple, but its warmth and joy are palpable. By the end, your mouth will be watering.

Challah Day! is simple, but its warmth and joy are palpable. By the end, your mouth will be watering.
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In the daytime world, Felix struggles to fit in with his classmates at school. But in the nighttime landscape, he runs free as a wolf. Felix tells himself he is perfectly OK with this dichotomy. But maybe, deep down, a part of him wishes for more than just OK. Inviting and creative, Peter Cheong’s first book as author and illustrator is both a tale of nighttime adventures and a heartwarming metaphor for finding one’s place in the world.

Every Night at Midnight bounces between day and night, contrasting Felix’s two worlds and identities. Daytime is open and bright, with delightful school chaos that feels homey and inviting. His classmates are cheerful, their faces kind. Nevertheless, it’s clear that school is not a safe place for Felix; the white space that surrounds these illustrations highlights his loneliness and separation from his classmates. Meanwhile, at night, the catawampus houses, streets and sky collide in a pseudo-gothic mashup in deep blues and grays. Lights shine from windows while Felix, in wolf form, roams the roofs and balconies and empty streets, encapsulating the freedom of escape—just like a dream in which you’re flying. Cheong’s style is consistently appealing, but his nighttime scenes are especially engaging.

Felix’s narration balances a somewhat somber tone with earnestness, conveying his cool bravado as well as his underlying hesitation and longing. Every Night at Midnight has plenty of company on bookshelves alongside other children’s stories about fitting in, but Felix’s wolf-transformation is as unique in detail as it is universal. We all know the feeling of pretending to be confident in solitude while wishing we could join the group. We’ve all had moments of rejoicing in our uniqueness while yearning to share it with someone who understands. 

Felix has a big imagination and splendid ideas, but his wolf life also represents the things that hold us back—things that, while making us exceptional and inimitable, also separate us from others. Whether you read it as an allegory or simply a story about flying dreams, Every Night at Midnight resonates with beauty and heart.

Whether you read it as an allegory or simply a boy’s nighttime adventures as a wolf, Every Night at Midnight resonates with beauty and heart.
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When Hungry Ghost Month arrives, the veil to the underworld lifts to allow bug-eyed, starving ghosts into the world of the living, where they feast on food left out by thoughtful mortals . . . and hunt for the delicious souls of the newly deceased. July Chen’s dad insists these ghosts aren’t real, so she ignores them—even though she alone can see them.

Other than her dad, no one that July meets ever seems to remember her, so she slips through life unnoticed—until she runs into the wandering soul of the wandering soul of William, a still-­living boy. William has experienced countless near-death experiences since birth, and the latest freak accident has landed him in a coma. July promises to help William return to his body, but soon starving spirits descend upon them and William’s tether to the real world begins to fray, forcing July to look at the truth of her own life: why people forget her, why she possesses special yin-yang eyes that allow her to see ghosts and how far she is willing to go to rescue her new friend.

Author-illustrator Remy Lai, known for her award-­winning graphic novels Pie in the Sky and Pawcasso, brings her trademark colorful style to a darker yet equally charming palette in her new folkloric contemporary fantasy, Ghost Book. Not a single panel is wasted, and readers who pay close attention to the art will be deeply rewarded by neatly placed clues that foreshadow the story’s final twists.

Lai explores grief and other hard topics with a careful hand, avoiding a descent into overwhelming sadness. Serious topics—the loss of a parent, the fear of dying and the pain of betrayal—are juxtaposed neatly with the presence of an adorable ghost named Floof and jokes about how passionately ghosts love dumplings. Prevailing above all is the power of friendship, and July’s and William’s attempts to save each other’s lives will thrill readers.

Lai limits her human cast to a handful of characters, but the myriad spirits she pulls from Chinese mythology will inspire readers to learn more about the real Hungry Ghost Festival. Kids who like to mimic the art styles of graphic novels will be equally inspired by both the hungry ghosts, drawn in detail with gaunt faces and hideous boils, and the simpler forms of Floof and the friendlier background ghosts. For kids who eat up graphic novels like Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol, Pilu of the Woods by Mai K. Nguyen and Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier, Ghost Book will make a perfect addition to their shelves.

Remy Lai juxtaposes serious topics with charming humor in Ghost Book, a lushly illustrated folkloric contemporary fantasy that will inspire readers to learn more about the real Hungry Ghost Festival.
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In the marvelous Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School, Justin Roberts provides an invaluable life lesson for anyone fearful of approaching something new: Lean into those nerves. Roberts borrows a page from fellow musician and author Bill Harley (Sitting Down to Eat) by turning one of his own most popular hits into a picture book. During a drive to school, a girl’s mother explains that those butterfly feelings are normal and happen to everyone. Even Mom and the girl’s dad felt them when the girl first arrived as a baby. “Don’t hold them in,” her mother says. “Just let them fly.”

Paola Escobar’s art visualizes the child’s fears with colorful, delicate swirls of butterflies that follow her as she gets up and heads to school, reinforcing the message that these nerves are actually a lovely, useful force. With its reassuring text and cheerful illustrations, Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School provides a simple yet powerful message about harnessing one’s fears: “Those butterflies made me realize that the flutters inside are wings opening wide . . . guiding me through my first day.”

With its reassuring text and cheerful illustrations, Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School provides a simple yet powerful message about harnessing one’s fears.
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How to Get Your Octopus to School cleverly addresses school hesitancy by making an octopus the student whose young female human owner is in charge of coaxing him there. In the process, readers learn a lot about octopuses: They are great at hiding, they have strong suction cups for holding onto things, and they squirt ink when nervous. Becky Scharnhorst’s lighthearted text emulates these characteristics, overlaying certain words with a pattern resembling octopus ink, such as when the book concludes, “When you finally arrive at school, you’ll probably be exhausted, but your octopus will be . . . EXCITED!”

Jaclyn Sinquett’s illustrations portray an energetic yet friendly struggle between octopus and human. This anthropomorphized creature is an adorable little fellow who will get laughs from readers as he considers an endless number of first-day outfits, settling on a jaunty blue and gold ensemble. How to Get Your Octopus to School reassures readers that a happy ending awaits on that big first day.

How to Get Your Octopus to School cleverly addresses school hesitancy by making an octopus the student whose young female human owner is in charge of coaxing him there.

In the follow-­up to her playful and witty I Cannot Draw a Horse, Charise Mericle Harper returns with another humorous, metafictional picture book about creativity. Harper’s clever illustrations and text contain multiple layers and connections, ensuring that children will enjoy I Cannot Draw a Bicycle for years.

The story begins simply, with words set against a graph-paper background. An unnamed narrator explains, “This is my shape,” indicating a rounded gray lump that resembles a gumdrop or a gravestone. That lump, however, can be transformed by the narrator into a lot of things, including a cat, a skateboard and a horse. The cat seems happy atop the skateboard, but the horse is harder to please, because this equine wants a bicycle. However, the narrator isn’t able to comply: “A bicycle is hard to draw. I cannot draw a bicycle.”

So shenanigans begin, as the cat, horse and narrator interact with one another through easy-to-read speech bubbles. While the cat might be fine with a “cool” substitute such as an icicle, the horse (with mulelike stubbornness) stays firm. Things are stuck at an impasse until the horse asks a most logical question: “Why is a bicycle so hard to draw?”

The answer, sure to draw peals of laughter from readers, makes clear that no one in this book is fully prepared to draw a bicycle. Nevertheless, everyone tries, harnessing creativity, showcasing collaboration and coming up with a giggle-inducing, unexpected resolution that seems destined to launch these characters into a future adventure.

Harper taps straight into the preschool funny bone, making I Cannot Draw a Bicycle an excellent choice for read-aloud storytime. With its spare text and clean, inviting design, this book also functions well for early readers. And by fostering shape recognition and an understanding of geometry, I Cannot Draw a Bicycle provides an excellent base for encouraging young artists to draw their own cat, horse or—who knows—maybe even a bicycle!

Charise Mericle Harper taps straight into the preschool funny bone, making I Cannot Draw a Bicycle an excellent, giggle-inducing choice for read-aloud storytime.
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Rosemary Wells has been entertaining children with her sly, sweet characters and stories for decades, and she does so once again with On the Night Before Kindergarten. Milo’s parents are excited for Milo’s first day, but Milo, a young kitten, is plagued by bad dreams about what might happen: showing up wearing only his red rubber boots (causing everyone to laugh), forgetting how to count to six or getting stuck on the school bus as it zips past his house.

Young readers will love watching Milo’s parents fret incessantly about his dreams while Milo goes on to enjoy a fantastic first day. Wells has a way of reaching into young readers’ souls and reassuring them about their fears—while making them laugh in the process. She bathes Milo’s dream scenes in a starry blue background, a motif she later repeats in small spot illustrations to indicate what his parents are worrying about. A fine, funny joke on Milo’s father nicely ties the story’s end to its beginning. On the Night Before Kindergarten is an excellent choice for any young child about to face a new situation.

Young readers will love watching kitten Milo’s parents fret incessantly about his dreams while Milo goes on to enjoy a fantastic first day in On the Night Before Kindergarten.
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Mia is of two tribes: Her mom is Jewish, and her dad is Muscogee. Mia’s dad and his new family live in Oklahoma, far away from California, where Mia lives with her mom and stepdad, Roger. Since marrying Roger, Mia’s mom has begun to take participation in Judaism much more seriously.

Exhausted by her experiences at Jewish day school and frustrated with her mother’s refusal to speak about her dad, Mia works out a secret plan to visit her dad in Oklahoma and learn more about her Muscogee heritage. While Mia initially feels like an outsider there, it doesn’t take her long to bond with an older cousin and feel at home with new traditions. But Mia’s mom quickly realizes that Mia’s not on the school trip she claimed to be and comes to get her. Will this incident be the final fracture in Mia’s family, or will it create a bridge between tribes?

Inspired by author and cartoonist Emily Bowen Cohen’s real-life experiences growing up Jewish and Muscogee, graphic novel Two Tribes (Heartdrum, $15.99, 9780062983589) examines the complex tensions and beautiful facets of a childhood between cultures and in a blended family. Cohen supports the story with a vibrant but realistic illustration style peppered with the occasional abstract image.

Where Two Tribes shines is in its portrayal of Mia as a self-possessed 12-year-old who is attuned to the importance of embracing differences rather than pretending they don’t exist. Cohen provides a nuanced picture of how Mia has in some ways come to resent her Jewish heritage because of the way it’s been placed in opposition to her dad’s Indigenous culture.

The story is somewhat unbalanced by Mia’s Jewish family and rabbi, who are portrayed more antagonistically than the other characters. For example, when Mia’s school rabbi makes a racist joke about Native Americans at dinner with Roger and Mia’s mom, it’s brushed off by all the adults as a simple mistake rather than a genuinely problematic remark. However, Mia’s family and her rabbi eventually begin to understand how they have failed Mia in certain aspects.

With its incredibly complex subject of personal identity, Two Tribes might have benefited from the additional space given by a traditional novel form to explore its themes more deeply rather than coming to a picture-perfect resolution. That said, perhaps the increased accessibility of the graphic novel format serves this book well. For children just coming into adolescence, a biracial background—especially involving two marginalized groups—can make for a tangled web of difficulties. By seeing their stories represented, things might start to make sense.

The graphic novel Two Tribes examines the complex tensions and beautiful facets of a childhood between cultures and in a blended family.
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Rubin lives in a tiny town next to a large forest, and at school, he likes to listen to the orchestra, including his sister and her cello. He leans through an open window, resting his arms and head on the sill, listening reverently and wishing he could join. Rubin is thrilled when the maestro hands him a violin and suggests he learn to play. Although Rubin can only produce screeches, the maestro assures him that he’ll soon play at a concert.

Eventually, Rubin heads into the forest to practice, where a crowd of cats gathers around him to hear him play. Zhang writes with verve about the cats and their impassioned singing: “Miiaaoooo,” goes the feline crowd in a “thicket of cacophonous sound,” their howls “a leaping crescendo.”

When at last Rubin performs with the school orchestra at their concert, the pace quickens and the mischief ramps up as a group of waltzing cats appears. Delightful depictions of cats crowd the pages—sometimes nearly every inch—with their leaping, dancing and singing, and soon everyone gets “caught in the whirlwind of Rubin’s sound, flying.”

Ezra Jack Keats Award winner Gracey Zhang (Lala’s Words) fills the illustrations of When Rubin Plays with vivid colors: plenty of scarlets, blues and greens, as well as backgrounds of vibrant yellow and orange. There is an infectious energy to Zhang’s loose lines, particularly the hand-­lettered “eeeeiiii” sounds of Rubin’s violin.

Zhang states in her author’s note that she was inspired to set her story in Santa Ana de Velasco, Bolivia, after learning about the rich tradition of baroque classical music in the Chiquitos Province and its former mission towns. As a tale about the joys of creating music, When Rubin Plays lands a triumphant ending.

Gracey Zhang fills the illustrations of When Rubin Plays with vivid colors and an infectious energy that crescendos throughout a triumphant tale about the joys of creating music.

Since long before 12-year-old Erie was born, lockwood trees have been planted to protect towns from terrible wildfires known as the Arborklept. Designed by the inventor Dr. Lunata Elemnieri, the lockwood keeps everything out—the fires, the smoke and the winds. But the lockwood in Erie’s hometown of Prine was the first of its kind. Planted improperly close to the town’s center, this lockwood also keeps out sunlight. 

Day in and day out, the whole town of Prine nearly suffocates in darkness, so children who are large enough to climb yet small enough to fit through the vines of the lockwood must cut it back each morning. Erie is one of these children. She spent years learning from her older sister how to safely climb, fall and wield a FOLROY hatchet. It’d be daunting work for anyone, but it’s especially difficult to send children into such dangerous conditions, so the townsfolk only receives a few hours of sunlight each day. 

But that’s the way it goes. If you don’t like it, you can endure the long process to get papers permitting a move to the city of Petrichor. 

Olivia A. Cole’s middle grade novel puts the reader in the passenger seat alongside Erie as she navigates the challenges of being the youngest child in a family that has long kept secrets while coping with climate tragedies. After making a startling discovery one night in the lockwood, Erie goes on an adventure to uncover all of her world’s mysteries. Where the Lockwood Grows creates a beautiful mix of hope and honesty about impending climate disasters and the drive of younger, wiser generations to imagine a better world for us all. 

Where the Lockwood Grows creates a beautiful mix of hope and honesty about impending climate disasters and the drive of younger, wiser generations to imagine a better world for us all. 
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A daily trip to school is a monumental journey for the narrator of Yenebi’s Drive to School. Yenebi, her younger sister, Melanie, and her mother, Mami, rise at 4 a.m. to cross the border from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego by 7 a.m. Yenebi doesn’t mind the hours of waiting in la linea—the lines of cars awaiting inspection by U.S. authorities—noting that her mother’s wakeup call “makes my ears happier than an alarm clock ever could.” Along the way, she sees a festival of sights, sounds and smells, as vendors tempt car passengers with tacos al vapor, burritos and pan dulce.

Author-illustrator Sendy Santamaria notes that this story arose from her own childhood spent on both sides of the border: “It often felt like home was always around me but never somewhere tangible. . . . It was the moments of waiting, of being in between both countries, that felt like home.” She seamlessly weaves Spanish phrases and dialogue into her crisp text, and her art is an explosion of vibrant color, adding to the book’s multisensory celebration. Yenebi’s Drive to School demonstrates excellently that there are many ways to get to school and that the lessons and rewards of education are worth striving for.

Author-illustrator Sendy Santamaria seamlessly weaves Spanish phrases and dialogue into her crisp text and adds to Yenebi’s Drive to School’s multisensory celebration with art that is an explosion of vibrant color.
STARRED REVIEW

Our top 10 books of August 2023

Our top 10 books for August 2023 include Colson Whitehead's riotous sequel to Harlem Shuffle, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's latest horror novel and an engrossing look at race in Shakespeare’s works.
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Children's

Ghost Book

Remy Lai juxtaposes serious topics with charming humor in Ghost Book, a lushly illustrated folkloric contemporary fantasy that will inspire readers to learn more about

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Crime Fiction

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Our top 10 books for August 2023 include Colson Whitehead's riotous sequel to Harlem Shuffle, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's latest horror novel and an engrossing look at race in Shakespeare’s works.

Chinese Menu by Grace Lin

Little, Brown | September 12

Chinese American food—General Tso’s Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken—is just as quintessentially American as hot dogs or apple pie (which originated from German and Dutch cuisine, respectively). Our mouths all water when we imagine a steaming takeout box of lo mein . . . but have you ever put your chopsticks down and stopped to wonder about the history behind your favorite Chinese American dishes? Acclaimed author Grace Lin—who won the American Library Association’s prestigious Children’s Literature Legacy Award in 2022—promises to whisk readers off into the origin stories of their favorite foods with Chinese Menu, a veritable feast of exciting folktales and rich illustrations. 


Dogtown by Katherine Applegate and Gennifer Choldenko, illustrated by Wallace West

Feiwel & Friends | September 19

Katherine Applegate (Animorphs series, The One and Only Ivan) and Gennifer Choldenko (Tales from Alcatraz series, Dad and the Dinosaur) have both been superstars in children’s literature for decades. With countless awards between them, they’re now joining forces alongside illustrator Wallace West for this illustrated middle grade novel about a dog shelter whose abandoned inhabitants include both real and robot dogs. Regardless of circuitry, both types of dog just want to go home: a fact realized by Chance (a mutt) and Metal Head (exactly what that sounds like) as they set aside their differences and join forces in searching for a place of belonging.


Kin by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Jeffery Boston Weatherford

Atheneum | September 19

Writer carole Boston Weatherford and her son, illustrator Jeffery Boston Weatherford, are a powerful duo, with no shortage of acclaim to their names: Carole has won four Caldecott Honors, a Coretta Scott King Award and a Newbery Honor—the last of which she won with You Can Fly, which was illustrated by Jeffery. Their latest middle grade novel-in-verse, Kin, is the product of extensive and painstaking efforts to piece together their family history through genealogical research. Jeffery’s intricate black and white illustrations accentuate Carole’s poetry, which conjures the voices of her ancestors in the context of not only their enslavement and pain but also their strength and triumphs. 


Oliver’s Great Big Universe by Jorge Cham

Amulet | September 26

Jorge Cham has created a hit web comic series (PHD Comics), a podcast with more than 600,000 monthly listeners (“Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe”), a bestselling adult nonfiction book (We Have No Idea) and an Emmy-nominated PBS Kids show (“Elinor Wonders Why”). Plus, he’s got a doctorate in mechanical engineering. Now he’s ready to make kids laugh out loud while exploring big topics like black holes, the solar system and even aliens with Oliver’s Great Big Universe, the first installment in an illustrated, diary-style middle grade series featuring 11-year-old Oliver as he takes on not only astrophysics but also . . . middle school.


The First Cat in Space and the Soup of Doom by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Shawn Harris

Katherine Tegen | October 3

New York Times bestselling author Mac Barnett and Caldecott honoree Shawn Harris’ The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza adapted their hilarious online cartoon series—recorded live over Zoom during quarantine—to graphic novel format. This sequel continues the kooky adventures of First Cat, LOZ 4000 (a toenail-clipping robot) and the Moon Queen as they work to save the Queen after she gets poisoned—by soup, of all things.


Zilot & Other Important Rhymes by Bob Odenkirk, illustrated by Erin Odenkirk

Little, Brown | October 10

Hot on the heels of his legendary stint as crooked TV lawyer Saul Goodman, the beloved Emmy Award-winning actor (now starring in AMC’s “Lucky Hank”) and New York Times bestselling author (Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama) Bob Odenkirk is sure to charm both children and adults with this collection of poems, which originated twenty years ago as a way for Odenkirk to introduce the world of writing and illustrating to his children. Quarantine brought the family back to these whimsical rhymes, which feature memorable characters such as Tony Two-Feet the pigeon and a man named Willy Whimble who lives in an old tuna can. Anyway, Odenkirk’s ploy worked: His daughter, Erin Odenkirk, provides the book’s lively illustrations.


Ways to Build Dreams by Renée Watson

Bloomsbury | October 17

A recipient of the Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Award, Renée Watson has delighted young readers everywhere with her bestselling Ryan Hart series, which dominated “Best of the Year” lists with its first installment, Ways to Make Sunshine. This final book celebrates Black joy as its bright titular protagonist learns more about her ancestors and local Black pioneers during Black History Month. The accomplishments and hopes of previous generations teach Ryan how to work towards her own dream—even when life isn’t so sunny.


Detective Duck: The Case of the Strange Splash by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver, illustrated by Dan Santat

Amulet | October 17

The world is seeing a well-deserved Henry Winkler renaissance due to his turn as Gene Cousineau on “Barry,” but there was a time when the Emmy Award-winner was undergoing a lull in his acting career. His manager suggested Winkler write a children’s book about his experiences with dyslexia (which Winkler didn’t know he had until he was 31). Along with writer Lin Oliver, Winkler created the bestselling Hank Zipzer series, which led to a TV adaptation, as well as three other book series . . . Now, the power duo, along with Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Dan Santat, is back with the first installment in a new, full-color chapter book series about a crime-solving little duck named Willow Feathers McBeaver, who’s here to combat the human-caused problems occurring to her home ecosystem, the lovely Dogwood Pond.


Sir Morien by Holly Black and Kaliis Smith, illustrated by Ebony Glenn

Little, Brown | October 24

Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles) is no stranger to capturing the imaginations of children, and she’s just the person needed, along with poet Kaliis Smith and illustrator Ebony Glenn, to cast a spotlight on the brave but little-known North African knight, Sir Morien, from Arthurian legend. In this charming picture book, Sir Morien sets off for England in search of the father he’s never met, but he soon finds out that questing is hard—and every knight he meets is eager to fight. 


Juniper’s Christmas by Eoin Colfer

Roaring Brook | October 31

Fans of the megahit Artemis Fowl series will receive an early Christmas present this year from Eoin Colfer: a new novel that promises more thrilling, fantastical escapades marked by his trademark humor and captivating style. After Juniper Lane’s mother goes missing, Juniper teams up with a mysterious, grumpy carpenter named Niko who owns flying reindeer yet insists he’s not Santa Claus. 


Discover all of BookPage’s most anticipated books of fall 2023.


This fall, readers can expect to be dazzled by offerings from beloved children's book creators such as Grace Lin and Eoin Colfer. Stars like Bob Odenkirk and Henry Winkler are also among those who promise to conquer our hearts with new laugh-out-loud books.

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