Allan Say has had a long, storied career as a children’s author and illustrator. He won the 1994 Caldecott for Grandfather’s Journey, about his grandfather’s voyages from Japan to America and back, and wrote about his own childhood in The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice. Say was born in Japan in 1937, came to the United States at age 16, and eventually settled in Portland, Oregon, in 1999. Tonbo is a contemplative, creative look back on his own life, accompanied by his beautifully luminous oil paintings. 

Tonbo follows an old man with a cane taking a morning stroll through the park. A large white bird startles him, reminding him of a toy airplane he once had as a child, which he called “Tonbo,” the Japanese word for dragonfly. Suddenly engulfed in his memories, he chases after the elusive toy, finding himself mysteriously transported to a number of places from his youth, and each person he encounters treats him as if he is getting younger. “What are you looking for, young man?” one woman asks. When a captain calls him “son,” the man laughs, saying, “Excuse me, but I may be older than your father.” 

At first, readers see everything from the old man’s perspective. We see the people he encounters and sometimes his shadow. Say’s use of color is magnificent, using mostly muted, dreamlike tones highlighted by intense blocks of color—an orange chimney and mint green roof set against a dark blue ocean; the teal blue of the sky; the green awning and pink outer wall of an ice cream shop. It is at the ice cream shop where the protagonist realizes that the young man he sees in the window is his own reflection. It’s a sophisticated, nuanced progression that may take a few readings for some children to understand, but once they do, it will seem like magic. 

Eventually, the protagonist becomes his kindergartener self, back in a garden in Japan, where he finally finds his beloved airplane. Moments later, he’s an old man once more, back with his “old friends—aching hands and knees.” He encounters a group of children on a field trip and leaves them a special gift, in a lovely gesture that brings to mind the circle of life.

Tonbo is a remarkable ode to the interplay between aging and memory, and how the distant past can suddenly come to life again in the blink of an eye. It’s also a wonderful multigenerational conversation starter about how certain memories can live inside us forever. 

Umami, a little brown-and-white penguin, lives with lots of other penguins in a snow-blanketed village by the sea. It’s a lovely place, with one unfortunate exception: “Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the penguin village ate cold fish. For dessert? Cold fish. Your birthday? More cold fish.”

The budding gastronome and eponymous star of Jacob Grant’s Umami has had enough. While the other penguins seem content with their limited menu, Umami craves variety and she’s determined to find it, even if she has to take a solo journey across the sea.

When she lands in a new place bustling with a variety of food stands patronized by all sorts of animal customers, tantalizing aromas convince Umami to dive right in. “Oh, my sweet little beak!” she thinks, “Nothing ever smelled so spectacular.” A whirlwind of gastronomic delirium ensues as the plucky penguin samples everything she’s been missing: Salty or sour, bitter or sweet, spicy or her namesake umami, Umami tries it all, her taste buds tingling as her gustatory horizons open wide. She must share these wondrous new foods with the village!

Back home, Umami nervously presents her neighbors with a surprise feast. It’s a sweet gesture—and the backdrop for hilarious tableaux in which her guests’ widened eyes and sidelong glances crescendo into glorious milk-glugging, fire-breathing, table-flopping chaos. Dramatics aside, though, they finish every bite. Perhaps Umami has a future as chef for her newly hungry village?

Grant’s art for Umami won the 2024 Bologna Children’s Book Fair Illustration Exhibition, and it’s easy to see why: It’s expressive, adorable, visually witty and the perfect accompaniment to his inspiring, amusing story about the joys of living life with flavor and gusto. Umami will prompt readers to have fun identifying dishes they recognize or choosing new ones to try, as well as spotting loads of amusing details throughout (the squirrel who’s shocked at the size of Umami’s pasta order is not to be missed). Umami is a festive treat of a book sure to make storytimes and mealtimes even more delicious.

Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, a blue whale dies peacefully while making her 90th annual migration to northern waters. Through Emmy Award-winner (for Bill Nye the Science Guy) Lynn Brunelle’s poetic writing and Caldecott Medalist Jason Chin’s splendid illustrations, Life After Whale explores how the death of the largest animal on Earth leads to a sublime explosion of new life. As a blue whale’s body—which measures up to 110 feet long, with a heart that alone weighs 400 pounds—descends to the sea floor, “a whole new world will arise,” with millions of organisms congregating to find sustenance and shelter from what scientists call a whale fall.

Death isn’t an easy topic to tackle in a picture book, but Brunelle’s gorgeous prose successfully frames the whale’s passing not as a tragedy, but as a tranquil and essential part of nature. Both old and young readers will be captivated by the strange, sublime process of the whale fall, as this magnificent creature becomes a vast forest that provides for countless fascinating inhabitants of the deep sea: hagfish, crabs, mussels, sea cucumbers and more. 

As Brunelle describes in clear, vivid language what amounts to over a hundred years’ worth of complex food chains and species interactions, Chin includes spot diagrams of processes and specific sea life that show readers what to look for in the book’s larger illustrations, which often stretch across the majority of a spread. Chin’s elegant watercolor and gouache art is crucial to the majestic atmosphere that makes Life After Whale an exemplary science book for children: With his careful details and grand compositions, the processes of decomposition and scavenging—such as a “larva of a bone-eating zombie worm” attaching itself to one of the whale’s rib bones—become beautiful and otherworldly instead of grotesque. Life After Whale is the perfect book to encourage young potential scientists to see the cycles of nature as intriguing rather than scary. Reading it ignites the kind of extravagant wonder that you might feel while exploring the moon. 

Miss Leoparda, a delightful fable written and illustrated by Natalia Shaloshvili, opens with the titular character secure in the embrace of her treetop bed, surrounded by quiet rolling hills, which she traverses every day in her work as a bus driver. Miss Leoparda reliably shuttles a variety of animals—many of whom wear fetching hats and other winsome accessories—to do “their animal business.” It’s an idyllic image of communal life: Every seat on the bus is taken, and rabbits, zebras, cats, bears, elephants and even a rather suspicious-looking wolf peacefully share space with one another.

One day, a gas-guzzling, exhaust-spewing car zips past the slow-moving bus, drawing the animals’ attention: “That was amazing!” they exclaim. The novelty of new technology lures the animals, one by one, away from the bus and behind the wheels of their own individual cars. But soon the streets are clogged with traffic, the skies are choked with smog, and the animals are increasingly irritable. Even Miss Leoparda’s beloved tree is targeted when it’s time to expand the roadways to make room for what some might call progress.

Miss Leoparda refuses to give in to this hollow enticement, however, and she eventually finds a creative, sustainable solution to restore her community and the environment at the same time. The message feels organic rather than heavy-handed, reinforced by the pleasantly hazy illustrations created in acrylic paint and watercolor crayons. Shaloshvili’s artwork is as expressive in its landscapes—the greenery of Miss Leoparda’s original habitat contrasting with the dour gray of the traffic jam—and on a more intimate scale, as the animals’ expressions, somewhat reminiscent of Jon Klassen’s illustrations, manage to be both deadpan and surprisingly expressive. This one’s sure to get budding environmentalists eager to enact change in their own communities. 

A tiny figure stands on the prow of a dark ship, against a backdrop of blues and grays. The moon and stars dot the sky and shimmer in reflections upon the surface of the water. This is the very first—and perhaps the most captivating—image we see in Thea Lu’s Dive, Dive into the Night Sea, which takes readers on an adventure to a place most of us will never visit.

Lu’s first-person narration makes the reader part of the story, sharing the inner thoughts of its unnamed diver protagonist.The writing is very simple and straightforward, with only one detailed inset with facts about plankton. While this makes the book linguistically accessible to even very early readers, it may leave readers who are looking for more factual information about the ocean wanting. 

The standout of Dive, Dive into the Night Sea is Lu’s artwork, which uses unique perspectives to bring us under the water. We look up at the boat floating on the surface, we peek into a reef, get very cozy with a parrotfish and feel tiny swimming beside enormous whales. The story is told in blue-gray and muted shadowy tones, with a few colors revealed by the diver’s flashlight beam, highlighting the vibrant life in the depths. But even outside the light, manta rays feed, octopuses hide behind rocks and a pod of whales rests. Lu’s art is calm and detailed, making the dive feel safe and interesting, rather than full of adrenaline. That said, keep your eyes peeled for the very last image, which features an extremely large, lurking creature, leaving the story on a bit of a cliffhanger. 

While some of Lu’s fish are bizarre or toothy, nobody is overly scary or dangerous (minus potentially the lurking creature—readers will have to decide). Tranquil colors, relaxed narration and an unhurried feel give Dive, Dive into the Night Sea—as well as the ocean itself—an inviting and dreamlike quality.