Picture Book Titles

FAMILIES: If you would like to provide your reader(s) with opportunities to engage in books this summer,

scroll below to find some optional book title recommendations! Award winners and new titles are included.

Please make sure to check the books your child reads to make sure it is an appropriate and "Just Right Book". The topics of the books vary in maturity and age range.

Feel free to read reviews from the Common Sense Media website.

ALA 2025 Notable Children's Books

Notable should be thought to include books of especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry and pictures for all age levels (birth through age 14) that reflect and encourage children's interests in exemplary ways.

For More ALA Notable Children's Books Click Here

NCTE Charlotte Huck Award

2026 Honor

Kwesi and Nana Ruby Learn to Swim

by Kobina Commeh

2026 Honor

The Playdate

by Uje Brandelius

Coretta Scott King Book Award

Given to outstanding African American authors and illustrators of books that demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.

2026 Winner

The Library in the Woods

written by Calvin Alexander Ramsey, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

2026 Honor

André: André Leon Talley–A Fabulously Fashionable Fairy Tale

illustrated by Lamont O’Neal, written by Carole Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders

2026 Honor

City Summer, Country Summer

illustrated by Alexis Franklin, written by Kiese Laymon

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award

Awarded to a United States publisher for a children’s book considered to be the most outstanding of those books originating in a country other than the United States and in a language other than English and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States

2026 Winner

Tapioca Stories, for Croco

by Azul López

Translated from the Spanish by Kit Maude

2026 Honor

Picking Tea with Baba

by Xu Bin

2026 Honor

Pilgrim Codex,

by Vivian Mansour

NCTE 2025 Notable Poetry Books and Verse Novels

The NCTE Award for Excellence in Children's Poetry Committee creates an annual list of Notable Poetry Books and Verse Novels published in the current year by any poet, living or deceased, and of any nationality.

The History of We

by Nikkolas Smith

Rap It Up!

by Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Boston Weatherford

A Universe of Rainbows: Multicolored Poems for a Multicolored World

by Matt Forrest Esenwine

Black Diamond Kings: Heroes of Negro League Baseball

by Charles R. Smith Jr

The Pine Cone’s Secret: A Life Cycle Poem

by Hannah Barnaby

A Forest Song

by Kirsten Hall

Harriet Tubman, Force of Nature: A Biography in Poems

by Caroline Brewer

Dear Acorn (Love, Oak): Letter Poems to Friends

by Joyce Sidman

Cows and Sheep and Chicks that Cheep: Farm Poems

by Douglas Florian

Awesome Earth: Concrete Poems Celebrate Caves, Canyons, and Other Fascinating Landforms

by Joan Bransfield Graham

The NCTE Orbis Pictus Award®

Recognizing excellence in the writing of nonfiction for children.

2026 Winner

Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Written by Megan Clendenan

Illustrated by Brittany Cicchese

2026 Honor

The Keeper of Stories

by Caroline Kusin

2026 Honor

Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa

by Sara Andrea Fajardo

2026 Honor

Dreams to Ashes

by Livia Blackburne

Pura Belpré Award

Presented annually to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth.