12 of the Best New Children’s Books Out October 2023

Have tissues handy for this beautiful picture book about grief that celebrates the abundant memories of a Black family. Zora’s Aunt Bea is a storyteller, a former actress who loves performing family history for her niece. The two have a blast dressing up and remembering family stories. Aunt Bea has a book where she keeps the family’s stories, and Zora is curious about what her story will be. When Aunt Bea gets sick, Zora is the one to tell her the stories, and when she passes away, Zora inherits the book, and it’s up to her and her uncle to tell Aunt Bea’s story in its pages. The mixed-media illustrations are stunning.

Join luminaries like Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka in a party for wordsmith Langston Hughes in this jubilant picture book honoring his legacy by award-winning author Jason Reynolds. The rhythmic story is a blast to read aloud, not so much a biography of the man but a biography of his words and the way his words could evoke emotion. The colorful and clever illustrations embed words and phrases into each scene: a mother’s body composed of the letters in mother, Maya Angelou walking up stairs made of words, and lights in an apartment building spelling “Harlem.” It’s a stunning picture book and a wonderful way to introduce children to Langston Hughes, though I imagine all Langston Hughes readers will want this on their shelves regardless of age.

This beautiful Indigenous bilingual picture book is written in both English and Anishinaabemowin. It opens with a child holding a mnoomin seed, imagining everything a seed remembers and experiences, from the moose uprooting plants to prevent overcrowding to young fish hiding from a heron behind seed sprouts. Halfway through, the story moves back to the child and the way the child and community care for the mnoomin seed and harvest, ensuring the interconnected ecosystem continues flourishing.

A young boy has moved into an apartment building with his grandmother after his mother’s incarceration. On the side of the building is a painting of a green heart with a yellow hand in the middle. When people touch the heart, they remember something that makes them happy. One neighbor recalls cooking dumplings and filling red envelopes with her sister. Classmates think of their father, who had to travel to the South to work harvesting in fields. The boy loves learning other people’s stories, and when he’s lonely, he knows he too can touch the hand and remember his mother, and know that she will come back someday. This is a stunning, compassionate, and hopeful picture book about a topic that gets little coverage in picture books.

This lyrical and beautifully illustrated picture book is by the same creators behind My First Day. When the grandfather left his home, he found a new one in a beautiful jungle where he built a house and farmed the land. He’s now taught his grandson Tí how to care for the land, listen to its songs, and find its gifts. When the son grows up, he continues the tradition of watching over the land and listening to its songs, and teaches his children how to do the same. Magical illustrations pair perfectly with the tender intergenerational story.

This slim, moving middle grade novel is based on the author’s experiences. Eleven-year-old Thọ spends his days cricket fighting and playing soccer with his friends. But it’s 1980 in Vietnam, and he’s aware that the Communist army could force him and his brother into the military at any moment. He’s already had friends disappear to escape this fate. His parents buy him and his brother a means of escape on a ferry, but the ferryman charges more at the last minute, and only Thọ’s brother is able to leave with the ferry. Thọ flees another way, but his journey is fraught with danger. This is a compelling refugee story.

Thirteen-year-old Leandro and his younger sister Gabi live in a future dystopian California ravaged by climate change and other disasters. As Spanish speakers descended from farmers, he and his sister are at the bottom of a social caste system. Leandro has always dreamed of leaving the city and exploring, but there is little hope of that ever happening. When his sister is caught stealing, Leandro takes the blame for her and is exiled by having his consciousness downloaded into a hummingbird drone. Now, he can explore the world, but he’s left his sister in danger. This imaginative and beautifully rendered dystopian is by the author of the award-winning middle grade The Last Cuentista.

This charming and very relatable middle grade novel explores middle-school friendships and personal identity. Charlie’s father has just retired from the military, and she’s spent most of her life moving, constantly having to start over in a new place and make new friends. She’s never been very good at making friends, but now that she and her family have finally settled down and bought a house, she’s determined to make a good impression. Things get off to a rocky start when the janitor accidentally spills water over her as he cleans the window on Charlie’s first day of school. Another girl comes to her rescue, and Charlie is invited into her friend group of three other Black girls with curly hair. However, Charlie isn’t so sure about one of them, and she mistakenly thinks if she pretends to like everything they do, they’ll like her better. This plan definitely backfires.

This impressive historical middle grade novel by Jacqueline Woodson takes place in 1970s Brooklyn, New York, in an area known as Bushwick. It’s summer, and Sage’s firefighter father has recently died. Sage’s mother is writing a book, and Sage roams the neighborhood, befriending a new boy named Freddy. Sage loves her neighborhood, but a string of fires leads the media to dub it the Matchbox, and her mother decides they’ll need to move. Meanwhile, Sage struggles with local bullies who don’t think girls should be playing basketball. She also doesn’t want to leave her community, her home, even though she can see that the neighborhood is changing. 

This is a lovely collection of three Indonesian fairytale retellings in a graphic novel format based on stories the author heard as a child. Clar retells them in a traditional way but with a feminist focus. In one, a selfish princess’s sister curses her to live life as a snail, but when a fisherwoman rescues her, she gains a different perspective on life. In another story, two sisters take solace in the scarves their mother made them before she died. But they know they’ll need to eventually escape their abusive father if they can find the courage to do so. In the last story, an older woman unexpectedly becomes a mother after a giant visits her and gives her a seed. She loves her daughter but knows the giant will be back for her one day. These gorgeous stories show how nonromantic love can change us, keep us safe, and empower us. I would love to read even more retellings like this!