Here is a mixed bag of picture books, nonfiction takes, and a graphic novel, let’s dive right in:
Tova’s Sweet Solution by Melissa Taylor (Author), Lise-Anne Aurélie (Illustrated by)
Tova loves her family’s bakery, but it turns out that she can’t tolerate some of its ingredients; she has an allergy!
Honeygrain, the main ingredient in most confections, is not good for her. What to do? Tova and Squirrel start baking and experimenting, with a lot of failures in the mix, because a sweet solution is not, by any means, a magical one: you need to try countless times to get the right flavor, texture, and crunchiness into a recipe when trying to replace ingredients.
Luckily, there is always a secret ingredient that can fix things!
This is the first book by Melissa Taylor of Imagination Soup fame; let us hope it is not the last one!
Tova’s Sweet Solution is available since April 21, 2026.
Publisher: Red Comet Press
Pages: 36/ Hardcover
EAN/UPC: 9781636551906
Up next, a book about refugees:
April’s Journey Annamaria Piccione (Author), Luis Amavisca (Author), Francesc Rovira (Illustrated by)
This is a silent book, featuring no adults, about kids caught in the rubble and destruction of a war or catastrophe.
While fleeing, April meets Julio, another child who has lost everything. They only have their stuffed animals and their backpacks, full of memories.
Together, they start a gruesome walk, climbing mountains, sleeping in abandoned houses, and even embarking on a raft towards a safer place.
This is a silent and yet powerful book about what refugees face, as there are thousands of displaced children all around the globe as we speak.
April’s Journey is available since April 14, 2026.
Publisher: Nubeocho
Pages: 40 Hardcover
EAN/UPC: 9788410406803
Now for a beautiful story about solitude:
The Visit by Núria Figueras (Author), Anna Font (Illustrated by), Lawrence Schimel (Translated by)
So many scared little kids will find themselves in this situation, even for a short time! This book delicately invites you to relax and listen inwards.
Little Fox expects to spend some time by herself, as her mother has left the den to hunt. But then, she hears a knock at the door. Her visitor is Silence.
At first, Silence feels big and strange. Then they share a snack, and Silence helps her hear her heartbeat, even her own thoughts. Maybe time spent with Silence isn’t so bad after all. Maybe Silence can be her friend.
Solitude and independence can look like this: make Silence your friend and create space for it to visit.
The Visit is on sale since April 14, 2026.
Published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
Hardcover | Pages: 56
ISBN: 9780802856555
Up next, a beautiful book about the magic of written words:
Little Monk Writes Rain Hsu-Kung Liu (Author), Rachel Wang Yung-Hsin (Translated by)
This is a gentle exploration of disability, suffused by a little bit of magic.
As rain falls, Old Monk invites Little Monk to practice calligraphy.
“Let’s write the character for rain!” he proposes. For the next twenty years, as Little Monk becomes Big Monk, he sits down with his brush every day, meditating on and writing the character for “rain.” Performing this task instantly fills him with calmness.
Maybe Little Monk will become a Big Monk without learning any other character, and that may seem like a flaw to the other students. But then, one day, a drought will plague a city, and Big Monk will pack his things, hoping to do his part.
Can a pile of calligraphy sheets make any difference?
The text is poetic and calm, just like Big Monk!
Little Monk Writes Rain is be available since March 03, 2026.
Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
Pages: 48 Hardcover
EAN/UPC: 9780802856579
Up next, a book about cherries:
Bing’s Cherries by Livia Blackburne (Author), Julia Kuo (Illustrated by)
Written to mimic the tall tales, not unlike Paul Bunyan, Bing’s cherries is an homage to a real character: the Chinese migrant responsible for the best cherry variety out there.
Ah Bing was a father who travelled across the sea from China looking for work. In Oregon, he met a man who hired him to work in his orchards, where eventually, Bing cultivated the delicious cherries we know of today.
The special thing? His variety comes from experience, experimentation, and will. Although his life did not end in America, his legacy continues to this day, every time we pick a bowl of cherries.
Bing’s Cherries is on sale since March 10, 2026.
Published by Knopf Books for Young Readers
Hardback | Pages: 48
ISBN: 9780593902813
Up next, a take on children’s questions:
Can You Grow a Striped Banana? Jill Santopolo (Author), Momoko Abe (Illustrated by)
A mother answers the questions her child has, some of them seemingly impossible, whimsical, and of the out-of-the-blue variety.
“I can’t grow a striped banana. I can’t stretch like a giraffe. I can’t hear an earthworm’s whisper or make a spider laugh,”
But I tell you what I can and always be able to do: be there for you.
Sometimes these requests are not orders per se but explorations about the limits of our world, and of our capacity as parents.
Can You Grow a Striped Banana? is on sale since April 21, 2026.
Published by Rocky Pond Books
Hardcover | Pages:32
ISBN: 9780593858851
Now for a non-fiction book about evolution:
Finding Life. A Prehistoric Search and Find Sophie Williams (Author), Sophie Williams (Illustrated by)
This search-and-find book invites us to contemplate various epochs–from the Precambrian Era through to the Holocene.
Each spread features a selection of relevant creatures that can be found hiding in the landscapes. Like Pulmonoscorpius, the two-foot-long scorpion, or the tiny dinosaur, Eoraptor.
It is a very simple spread, one landscape for each era, but minutely drawn and detailed.
Finding Life is on sale since March 03, 2026.
Published by Cicada Books
Hardcover | Pages: 40
ISBN 9781800660540
Up next, a biography:
The Curious Life of Cecilia Payne. Discovering the Stuff of Stars Laura Alary (Author), Yas Imamura (Illustrated by)
Cecilia Payne studied at Cambridge, dreaming of becoming a great astronomer in a time when women still did not have access to knowledge.
Cecilia packed her bags for Harvard, where she could surround herself with women who also loved astronomy and physics.
These “Harvard Computers” shared their treasures with her–thousands of photographs of starlight. The book tells the story about how Cecilia started asking big questions and testing some answers, answers that still shape our understanding of the composition of stars to this day.
“When a famous astronomer told her she could not possibly be correct about the stars being made of hydrogen and helium, Cecilia doubted herself. But this makes me like her all the more—because we all have weak moments. What matters is what we do next. Get angry? Call ourselves failures? Blame other people? Cecilia did none of these. She just carried on with her work until it became clear that she had been right all along. Then she used her story as a lesson for her students, as a reminder that even the most eminent scholars can be wrong—so do your work carefully, trust yourself, and keep an open mind”.
The Curious Life of Cecilia Payne will be available since January 27, 2026.
Published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
Hardcover | Pages: 56
ISBN: 9780802855152
Up next, a nonfiction book about night pollution:
Who Hid the Stars? How Light Pollution Changes Our World by Valentina Gottardi (Illustrated by) Danio Miserocchi (Author) et al.
Light pollution is a scarcely known subject, LED lights were only massively adopted around thirty years ago, but the consequences can be felt across the entire animal chain:
Streetlights outshine the stars. Artificial light has an unexpected impact on our planet. From fire to LEDs, city lights now are so bright that they interrupt bird migration patterns, gather insects and their predators, affect turtles’ path to the sea, and affect plant growth as well.
However, humans can fight light pollution and stop it from harming nature, and the book abounds in ideas.
Who Hid the Stars? will be available since March 24, 2026.
Published by Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
Hardcover | Pages: 44
ISBN: 9780802856517
Finally, a graphic novel that works both as a memory and a slice of life in an unexpected place:
Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters. A Graphic Memoir by Yevgenia Nayberg (Author)
Yevgenia had a very interesting childhood.
Nicknamed Genya, she has known from age five that she wants to be an artist. However, the year she turns eleven, when she has to apply to the prestigious art school that her mother attended, the catastrophic Chernobyl accident disrupts everything in Soviet Ukraine.
Nothing in the country is quite as it seems; adults mock the government in private, distrust the news, and live in a completely different time, the Iron Curtain time, where news about America where often scary and scarce.
Her mother has to evacuate her and her younger brother to avoid radiation, but valiantly decides to bring her back to the capital for the exams.
The most beautiful thing about Genya is how she remembers things, what she and her classmates worry about, how she remembers practicing for the art exam, how her teachers and other adults around her behave (much to her despair at adulthood), and how, ultimately, she will succeed and make it into the academy! You go, girl. Also, her drawing style is as unique as her life.
Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters will be available since April 14, 2026.
Published by Neal Porter Books
Hardcover | Pages: 144
ISBN: 9780823460588
