Children’s book reviews: picture books, middle grade, and early reader titles for young audiences.
Some books for children carry a weight far beyond their page count. Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept, written by Jayneen Sanders and illustrated by Craig Smith, is a picture book that tackles one of the most difficult conversations a parent or caregiver can have with a young child: the difference between a safe secret…
A Wild Ride by Niki Danforth is an adventure story for young readers centered on a girl named Ronnie Lake and her passion for horses. Published in 2015, the book follows Ronnie through a summer of competition, friendship, and growing confidence as she trains and rides at a horse camp. Danforth, who brings a genuine…
Roald Dahl published The BFG in 1982, and in the forty-plus years since, it has never stopped finding new readers. That kind of staying power is not accidental. The book works because it does something genuinely difficult: it presents a world of real menace and real friendship with equal conviction, and it trusts children to…
Nita’s First Signs, written by Kathy Macmillan and illustrated by Sara Brezzi, is a board book that introduces American Sign Language to very young children through a simple, warm story. Published in 2018 by Familius LLC, the book follows a baby named Nita as she learns her first signs alongside family members. At just 12…
Cookie Island, written by William Baldwin and published in 2023 by Decozen Publishing, is a children’s picture book that combines a simple adventure story with the pleasures of baking. The book follows a young protagonist who discovers a magical island populated by cookies and other baked treats, and the story unfolds as a light fantasy…
Astrid Lindgren published Pippi Longstocking in Sweden in 1945, and the book has not stopped moving since. It has been translated into over seventy languages, adapted into films, television series, and stage productions on every continent, and it has made its central character one of the most recognizable children’s fiction protagonists in the world. The…
Andrew Clements published Frindle in 1996, and it has been a classroom staple ever since. That is not an accident. The book is genuinely funny, sharply observed about how schools work, and built on a concept so clean and clever that it functions both as a great story for children and as a meditation on…
Robert Louis Stevenson serialized Treasure Island in a children’s magazine called Young Folks between 1881 and 1882, and the story has never stopped sailing. It invented, or very nearly invented, the genre of pirate adventure fiction as we know it: the treasure map with an X, the one-legged sailor, the parrot on a shoulder, the…
Elizabeth’s Constellation Quilt, written and illustrated by Olivia Fu, is a picture book about a young mouse named Elizabeth who sails across the sea to visit her grandmother. During the voyage, Elizabeth watches the night sky and connects each constellation she sees to a square on the quilt her grandmother gave her. By the time…
The Green Musician, written by Mahvash Shahegh and published by Wisdom Tales in 2015, is a picture book rooted in the storytelling tradition of Persian and Islamic culture. It tells the story of a gifted musician who plays for a king, and through his music transforms the world around him in ways that no one,…