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Spring 2026 Picture Books on My Radar

Spring 2026 Picture Books on My Radar

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Spring 2026 Picture Books on My Radar

There’s something about springtime that draws me toward picture books. I don’t know if it’s the optimism or the cheery or soothing illustrations, or simply a hunger for art following the cold winter days. Whatever the reason, I am ready for some picture books to bring in the spring!

Not all of these titles are published in Spring 2026, but they are all on my reading list this month, so I’m sharing them all at once. There are a few nonfiction titles here that I found energizing as well as some sweet, uplifting stories and even an unusual alphabet book listing instruments from all over the world.

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Spring 2026 Picture Books on My Radar

Woods & Words: The Story of Poet Mary Oliver
Sara Holly Ackerman
Illustrated by Naoko Stoop
Beach Lane Books
Published April 1, 2025

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

I heard about this book during the ALA awards announcements. I believe this title received a Stonewall Honor. The soothing color palette and beautiful images are filled with the forest creatures Oliver celebrated in her poems. The narrative highlights Mary Oliver’s love of nature and offers snippets of her life, including details about her partner, Molly. The backmatter has a more substantial biography for older elementary-aged readers. As a fan of Oliver’s poetry, I really enjoyed this one.

We Are American, Too
Kirsten Mei Chase
Illustrated by Jieting Chen
Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Published June 10, 2025

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

A family celebrates their history, honoring relatives who journeyed to the United States as they visit places important to their history. They end at a rally where other Asian Americans point out their own American experience and heritage. Mei shares her family’s history, reminding all the attendees that they are American, too. The illustrations are absolutely stunning in this bold, beautiful book. The characters’ faces are so expressive, and the message is so timely. Shelve this next to Eyes that Kiss in the Corners by Joanna Ho.

Notre-Dame: The World’s Cathedral
Lynn Curlee
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published May 5, 2026

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

This informative text offers a look at the history of Notre-Dame Cathedral, including the 2019 fire and the long rebuilding process. Illustrations highlight the architecture and history of the building as well as its cultural significance. Bold colors make the illustrations pop and draw readers deeper into the world of the Cathedral. Backmatter also includes sources, a glossary, statistics, and interesting facts. A must-have for older elementary school-aged readers interested in French history or architecture.

Just One Oak: What a Single Tree Can Be
Maria Gianferrari
Illustrated by Diana Sudyka
Beach Lane Books
Published April 7, 2026

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

This adorable book offers a wealth of information about the ecosystem surrounding oak trees. Each illustration highlights one aspect of an oak tree’s role in the environment. Animals and insects in the illustrations are labeled. At the bottom of the page, a glossary term related to the image may be defined. Gianferrari has included so much information here, and it’s presented in such an accessible way. Readers will want to peruse each page before turning to the next. This is a perfect companion to a project or unit on seasons or the environment.

Saif’s Special Patches
Humera Malik
Illustrated by Ravan Sader
Soaring Kite Books
Published March 4, 2025

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

Saif’s mother makes a special patchwork quilt with pieces of shirts he wore on special days. As he ventures into new experiences, he wonders if today will be the day his mom adds a new patch to his quilt because he has learned something new. Though the adventures don’t always turn out the way Saif expects, his quilt reminds him that the experience and the memory matter more than performing a new activity perfectly the first time in this warm, inviting story.

Instruments of the World
Kricket Moros
Kricket Press
Published March 1, 2025

Amazon | Goodreads

This unusual alphabet book, written in verse, highlights instruments found all over the world. I love the bold illustrations and the fact that the author chose both familiar and unusual instruments to highlight here. This would easily benefit an elementary school music classroom or program, and young readers interested in music would enjoy it as well. My mom picked this up at a dulcimer conference earlier this year, and I’m really glad she passed this copy on to me. I’m excited to share it with the little musicians in my life.

From the Fields to the Fight: How Jessica Govea Thorbourne Organized for Justice
Angela Quezada Padron
Illustrated by Sol Salinas
Bloomsbury
Published April 15, 2025

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

I’m so excited to see this book on the shelf. It tells the story of a young girl who spoke up about injustice and pressed for change, even though it took years. This part of American history isn’t something we always highlight, but it’s so important. For kids to have stories like this, about leaders who made a difference, who began their work as children, is so powerful. The bright colors on each page emphasize the story’s urgency and draw attention to the expressive faces in the illustrations. I wish this had come out in time for Women’s History Month, but it publishes in plenty of time to add it to your Hispanic Heritage reading list.

I’m So Happy You’re Here: A Celebration of Library Joy
Mychal Threets
Illustrated by Lorraine Nam
Random House
Published February 3, 2026

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

Is there anyone who brings more joy to readers than Mychal Threets? I haven’t caught the new episodes of Reading Rainbow yet, but I have followed him on social media for years and can’t imagine a better ambassador for books. This book is packed with cheerful illustrations and large-print text. It has just a line or two on each page, making it perfect for a read-aloud or beginning independent reader. It briefly highlights some activities and reasons someone might visit the library and encourages readers to get a library card.

What Picture Books Are on Your Radar?

Have you read any picture books lately that stood out to you as new favorites? What’s coming out soon that you’re looking forward to reading?

Review: A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

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A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart #3)
Stephanie Garber
Flatiron Books
Published October 24, 2023

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About A Curse for True Love

Two villains, one girl, and a deadly battle for happily ever after.

Evangeline Fox ventured to the Magnificent North in search of her happy ending, and it seems as if she has it. She’s married to a handsome prince and lives in a legendary castle. But Evangeline has no idea of the devastating price she’s paid for this fairytale. She doesn’t know what she has lost, and her husband is determined to make sure she never finds out . . . but first he must kill Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.

Blood will be shed, hearts will be stolen, and true love will be put to the test in A Curse for True Love, the breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Once Upon A Broken Heart trilogy.

My Review

After reading the first two books in the series, I wanted to know how Evangeline and Jacks would navigate the obstacles standing between them and whether they could craft their own happily ever after.

I wasn’t expecting some of the directions the series takes. There was a character who seemed like a pretty decent person, perhaps a bit spoiled, but who was beginning to make better choices. Then he took a hard right into serious evil, and I had to recalibrate how I thought about him. Which is okay—it just came as a bit of a surprise.

I can’t decide if I’m starting to outgrow the Bad Boy stories where someone has a pretty long list of wrongs and callous actions to their name, but somehow, I’m still rooting for the heroine to find a way to be with this person. I like Jacks, but I sometimes cringed at the way he treated other people. Reading certain scenes definitely required some willing suspension of disbelief as Evangeline, whose lost memories left her incredibly vulnerable and who knew someone was trying to kill her, didn’t question the reckless stranger who kept appearing out of nowhere.

I did appreciate the romantic tension between them and the continued themes about curses and true love in the fairytale-esque world Garber created. I love the way that the magic works, especially with regard to curses taking a life of their own and stories continually changing with each telling or reading.

All in all, I am glad to have stuck with the series all the way to the end. It was fun reading something so swoony and romantic. I think romantasy fans will like the sweeping fairytale magic of the story world and Evangeline’s starry-eyed commitment to find her happily ever after.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Main characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. In one scene, a boy and girl begin to undress one another. They fall asleep before getting fully undressed.

Spiritual Content
A group of immortal Fates have limited special abilities. The story also contains vampires. Some humans have the ability to perform spells or curses, which require magic to be broken.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Evangeline hears about a wolf attack that leaves a boy horribly scarred. A boy dies, apparently from some kind of poison. Someone poisons a girl. A large number of vampires bite people. Someone ties up another person and threatens to torture or kill them. A person starts a fire, endangering others’ lives. Someone punches a man repeatedly, breaking his nose and bruising his face.

Drug Content
Evangeline drinks wine at a social event.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Never Never by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

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Never Never (Never Never 1-3)
Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher
Hoover Ink, Inc
Published July 25, 2016

Amazon | Goodreads

About Never Never

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Hopeless joins forces with the New York Times bestselling author of Mud Vein. Together, they have created a gripping, romantic tale unlike any other. “How odd to be made of flesh, balanced on bone, and filled with a soul you’ve never met.”

Charlize Wynwood and Silas Nash have been best friends since they could walk. They’ve been in love since the age of fourteen. But as of this morning…they are complete strangers. Their first kiss, their first fight, the moment they fell in love…every memory has vanished. “I don’t care what our real first kiss was,” he says. “That’s the one I want to remember.”

Charlize and Silas must work together to uncover the truth about what happened to them and why. But the more they learn about the couple they used to be…the more they question why they were ever together to begin with.

“I want to remember what it feels like to love someone like that. And not just anyone. I want to know what it feels like to love Charlie.”

My Review

Originally this book was released as three individual novellas. I read at least the first one when it came out, but I’d never finished the rest of the series until now. I’d been feeling pretty worn out and just wanted an easy read, so I picked up the e-book of the complete series of NEVER NEVER.

While it’s an easy read, and I enjoyed that, I struggled with some elements of the story. I felt like the romance kind of glorifies a pushy guy who doesn’t listen to his girlfriend and rationalizes that behavior as evidence that he loves her so much. That tends to make me uncomfortable in a story because it’s a red flag for a possible abusive relationship.

I liked that Charlie and Silas both face this constant time deadline, where their memories will reset, so they have to figure out how to leave clues for themselves or how to build on what they learned the last time with higher tension as they get closer to a reset.

On the whole, I am glad I finished the series– it’s one that I would think about now and then because I’d left it unfinished. So I’m glad I know how it ends. I feel like the themes and some of the ways Silas and Charlie relate to each other may have been more common or idealized at the time the book came out. I felt like Silas’s pushiness interfered with my ability to invest in the romance, so it was a bit of a miss for me in that respect.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Brief racial slur. Strong profanity used frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Sex between a boy and girl. Kissing and sexual situations. In one scene, a school guidance counselor tries to kiss a student she’s been having an affair with. (No mention of this being abusive in terms of her position, even though she uses her job to get him alone with her, even when he doesn’t want to be.) In another scene, a girl tells a boy he can’t touch her a certain way and he proceeds to try to do it anyway. The text treats this as kind of a “boys will be boys” sort of activity.

Spiritual Content
List.

Violent Content
Silas gets into several fistfights. References to bullying behavior. Charlie calls a girl she has a history of picking on “objectively ugly”. Charlie is held in a small room she at first believes is a mental hospital where she’s drugged.

Drug Content
Charlie’s mom is an alcoholic and can’t take care of Charlie or her sister. Charlie is held in a small room she at first believes is a mental hospital where she’s drugged.

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Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry

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The Giver (The Giver Quartet #1)
Lois Lowry
Clarion Books
Published April 26, 1993

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Giver

In Lois Lowry’s Newbery Medal–winning classic, twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community.

Life in the community where Jonas lives is idyllic. Designated birthmothers produce newchildren, who are assigned to appropriate family units. Citizens are assigned their partners and their jobs. No one thinks to ask questions. Everyone obeys. Everyone is the same. Except Jonas.

Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. Gradually Jonas learns that power lies in feelings. But when his own power is put to the test—when he must try to save someone he loves—he may not be ready. Is it too soon? Or too late?

Told with deceptive simplicity, this is the provocative story of a boy who experiences something incredible and undertakes something impossible. In the telling it questions every value we have taken for granted and reexamines our most deeply held beliefs.

The Giver has become one of the most influential novels of our time. Don’t miss the powerful companion novels in Lois Lowry’s Giver Quartet: Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

My Review

I think this is the third or fourth time I’ve read this book, but definitely the first since I’ve been blogging. I would like to read and review all four books in the quartet. The second book, GATHERING BLUE, is one I’ve read before, but I haven’t read the other two.

One of the things that stood out to me this time reading the book is the way that Jonas’s role in the pivotal moment in the book is to ride his bike for scene after scene. Whereas back at home, the community members are reeling from the presence of Jonas’s memories, and the Giver is busy helping them process the new feelings.

Reading the book again as an adult, I find it an interesting choice that we follow Jonas out of the community and don’t witness the other community members experiencing those memories. Jonas really wanted his family and Fiona to experience the emotions and memories he experienced.

I love the book, though. Jonas journeys from passively following instructions and believing that the rules of the community are all for the best. As he learns about pain and loneliness (both from the Giver’s memories and his new role which mandates that he not speak about his training to anyone) he begins to question the way the community operates. He begins to wonder if the “sameness” which forbids anyone experiencing color, emotions, or individuality actually robs the community of something precious and valuable.

It’s an important idea, especially in the current conversations about book banning and restrictions on conversations about identity. Is there a point at which we harm ourselves by so completely sanitizing books and conversations? Do we diminish or lose the ability to empathize with others or process the existence of pain in the world this way?

Anyway. All that to say that I’m glad I reread THE GIVER. It’s been thirty years since the book was first published, and it still clearly has some important things to say.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Jonas and the Giver both have light eyes. That appears to be a marker for the ability to receive memories. No other race details given.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Jonas feels attraction toward his friend Fiona.

Spiritual Content
The community celebrate the life of members when they reach a certain age, before a “ceremony of release” in which a community worker euthanizes the member with an injection.

Violent Content
Jonas watches a ceremony of release in which an adult injects and euthanizes a small child. Jonas experiences memories of war in which a soldier on a battlefield dies, crying out for water. He also experiences starvation and grief in memories.

Drug Content
Community leaders instruct Jonas to take a daily medication to stop any feelings of attraction/arousal.

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Review: The Storm Keeper’s Island by Catherine Doyle

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The Storm Keeper’s Island
Catherine Doyle
Bloomsbury USA Children’s
Published January 22, 2019

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

About THE STORM KEEPER’S ISLAND

When Fionn Boyle sets foot on Arranmore Island, it begins to stir beneath his feet …

Once in a generation, Arranmore Island chooses a new Storm Keeper to wield its power and keep its magic safe from enemies. The time has come for Fionn’s grandfather, a secretive and eccentric old man, to step down. Soon, a new Keeper will rise.

But, deep underground, someone has been waiting for Fionn. As the battle to become the island’s next champion rages, a more sinister magic is waking up, intent on rekindling an ancient war.

My Review

The Storm Keeper’s Island is my favorite book that I’ve read for far this year. It’s definitely one of those books whose characters stay with you and has that extra sense of magic. Fionn and his grandfather (and even his know-it-all sister) had me hooked from their earliest scenes.

Fionn chases after his older sister on a hunt for a secrete cave which, once a generation, grants a wish. Tara’s snooty boyfriend means to use it to call himself the next Storm Keeper. But all Fionn wants is to bring his dad back. The only problem is the cave lies hidden somewhere on the edge of the island, and Fionn is terrified of the ocean. So right away there are huge stakes, and lots happening between rival families on the island. Fionn’s grandfather, Malachy, has this super quirky, ridiculous feel to him, but you never doubt his love for his family.

I won’t give anything away, but the climax of the story totally got me. Oh. My. Gosh. All the weeping. I think I cried for like 25 pages. In a good way. Such a good way! So many things snapped into place and happened the way they really had to, but it made for such a powerful confrontation and strengthened the story’s focus on the value of family connections and sacrificial love.

I totally recommend THE STORM KEEPER’S ISLAND. If you liked THREE TIMES LUCKY by Sheila Turnage or BE LIGHT LIKE A BIRD by Monika Schröder then definitely check out THE STORM KEEPER’S ISLAND.

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Takes place on a small island. Everyone is Irish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
The Storm Keeper has a certain kind of magic power. He can capture a storm and particular memory of something in a candle that can be burned and re-experienced. See violent content for more.

Violent Content
Fionn witnesses a battle between Dagda, the island’s ancient protector, and a sorceress who seeks to destroy it. Seeing this confrontation sparks a connection between Fionn and the sorceress– like she knows he has a special calling on the island, and she wants to steal his power.

Drug Content
None

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Affiliate links appear in this post.