Author: Margaret Kingsbury

In this informative picture book, two friends take a class field trip to a butterfly sanctuary, where they learn all about the life cycle of the painted lady butterfly. Afterward, the girls are inspired to make a community garden that will attract the butterflies and help them thrive. It’s a great picture book to learn more about butterflies and to inspire kids to contribute to their communities.

This gorgeously illustrated nonfiction identifies butterflies from around the world. It’s a large, fascinating book describing commonly known butterflies and lesser-known beauties. It includes a world map, illustrations of a butterfly’s life cycle, and more. My daughter and I use it as a reference book whenever we spot a new kind of butterfly in our nearby community garden.

This is a delightful picture book about friendship and the differences between a moth and a butterfly. Two caterpillars become best friends, but when they both undergo their transformations, their differences pull them apart. Moth prefers the night, while butterfly prefers the day. Will they find a way to continue their friendship? With its vibrant illustrations and adorable friendly main character, this book is a great way to introduce compare/contrast concepts as well as insect facts to young readers.

My daughter just started reading chapter books this year, and The Critter Club is one of her favorite early chapter book series. In the latest book in the series, Marion volunteers to be part of a butterfly release at the Santa Vista Arboretum. But none of her friends can volunteer with her, and her little sister refuses to because she’s scared of bugs. Marion’s determined to help her sister overcome her fears, but in the meantime, Marion needs to overcome her own anxiety over trying to make everything perfect.

This cute English/Spanish bilingual board book features hungry monsters and delectable sweets. Each page offers a new monster a different, sweet Mexican treat, but the monsters keep turning them down! What do these picky monsters want? Pan de Muerto, of course! The back of the book offers descriptions of all the desserts mentioned in the book.

This second new board book has a cute little skull finger puppet for kids to play with. It’s a counting book featuring common items on Día de los Muertos, like three skeletons leading a parade and nine family photographs on the altar. It’s a vibrantly illustrated, interactive board book perfect for toddlers.

Mar is really excited to welcome dead family members when they visit on The Day of the Dead. With the help of her parents and Abuela, she remembers family members who have passed, what they enjoyed, and tries to incorporate those likes into the holiday preparations so that their spirits will be happy. This is a sweet picture book about honoring ancestors and celebrating their memories.

Priya loves Diwali, but this year is different. This year, Priya and her family have moved from India to the United States, and it seems like no one celebrates Diwali here. Priya misses the fireworks and festivities in the streets. However, as she makes rangoli art, her neighbors stop by and ask if they can celebrate Diwali with her. Maybe Diwali looks different in the United States, but it can still be celebrated with friends.

This vibrantly illustrated picture book follows the tune to “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe.” “One, two, mehndi for you,” the opening pages say. From yummy jalebis to colorful fireworks and zooming rickshaws, this is a super fun Diwali sing-along for younger kids.

Devi’s favorite holiday is Diwali. This sweet picture book follows Devi through the day as she celebrates with her mama, papa, and nani and visits friends and family who celebrate as well. Every family has a different way of honoring the day, from plentiful samosas to chow down on to hiring a DJ and breaking out in dance. But Devi loves helping with the Diwali puja ritual most of all.

Harini is excited to share everything she knows about Diwali during circle time at school, but when she arrives at school she’s surprised to find that other kids are dressed up for Diwali too. It turns out that Harini isn’t the only student who celebrates the holiday, and as each student takes turns sharing Diwali history during circle time, Harini learns many things about the holiday. This is a great introduction to the holiday.

This adorable interactive board book is the perfect Halloween read for toddlers. I love Flavia Z. Drago’s vibrant illustrations, and this even includes a surprise guest from her previous picture book Gustavo, the Shy Ghost. It also encourages readers to make spooky sounds with each of the monsters. Be prepared to read this one 20 times in a row.

I am a sucker for cute ghost illustrations, and the ghost in this picture book is one of the more adorable ones I’ve seen. The glasses! *heart eyes* Ghost is lonely, and wants to play with friends, but no one can see Ghost, which makes it a little hard. Then Ghost meets Balloon and finds a ready and willing friend. But when a hide-and-go-seek game goes wrong, Ghost loses Balloon. Don’t worry, this one has a happy ending! You can see a couple of images from the book on my Instagram! I lucked out and brought it along to a pumpkin stand for pictures and it just so happened that the stand was ghost-themed!

This fun read-aloud features a skeleton band performing at the White House for our favorite presidential family — the Obamas. While all is fun and games outside, when the band moves inside, they find the White House haunted! Thankfully, even the ghosts on the inside know how to rock. This is delightfully rhythmic and would make a great segue into talking about the White House!

This is a non-scary middle grade about family curses and evil spirits. Freddie and his family are well known for their bad luck and clumsiness, which has earned Freddie the nickname of Faceplant Freddie. When he discovers an amulet from the Philippines, he thinks his luck has changed, but then it turns out the amulet is haunted by his bad-tempered great-granduncle Ramon, and that the evil spirits who murdered him have returned. With lots of adventure, friendship, and breakdancing (yes, breakdancing), this novel is a super fun read, and perfect for the Halloween season.

A young boy’s favorite place in the world is the dock near his house, where he fishes and enjoys watching nature. When a hurricane hits his town, the dock is decimated. He sets out to rebuild the dock by himself, but as neighbors notice his efforts, they lend a hand until a new dock is built. This beautifully illustrated picture book also includes backmatter about how hurricanes are formed.

After Adam, who has down syndrome, hears the mayor on TV ask everyone to pitch in on clean-up efforts around town after a major storm, Adam loads up his wheel barrel, calls for his dog, and sets out to pitch in and help. Everyone is so worried, and Adam finds many ways he can lend a hand. While this picture book doesn’t specify what kind of storm wrecks Adam’s town, the story definitely applies to the aftermath of a hurricane.

This lyrical nonfiction picture book describes the Beaufort wind scale, from a gentle wind to a tumultuous hurricane. After the hurricane, the community comes together to rebuild. Backmatter includes more information about the scale and wind speeds. It’s a lovely STEM picture book.

This award-winning middle grade novel takes place during Hurricane Katrina. Twelve-year-old Lanesha lives with Mama Ya-Ya in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. Both have magical abilities despite being unrelated: Mama Ya-Ya can see into the future, and Lanesha can see ghosts. Days before Hurricane Katrina hits, Mama Ya-Ya predicts its arrival. Now it’s up to Lanesha to help her community.

In this adorable picture book, Leila, who is usually perfect at all witchy pursuits, struggles to bake the most perfect cake for the Magnificent Witchy Cake-off. Baking is hard, even with the help of her froggy companion! Thankfully, with the help of three supportive sisters, she finally figures out the trick to baking. Does she win the contest? Nope. But winning isn’t everything.

This super fun read-aloud has Spanish words scattered throughout the rhythmic prose. Told in the second person, this picture book gives advice about what to do if you realize your babysitter is a bruja. The colorful illustrations depict a little girl in just such a predicament. But in the end, it turns out that a bruja babysitter is an absolute blast.

Ah, this nostalgic, bittersweet picture book made me cry. It’s about a little girl named Hilda who helps the witch Hazel around the house. Witch Hazel tells stories from her past as she sweeps dust away, and the dust magically recreates her memories. When Witch Hazel dies, Hilda despairs, until a little sweep of dust recreates a memory of Hilda and Hazel together, and she knows Witch Hazel will never be truly gone as long as she remembers her. *wipes away tears*

In this hilarious picture book, a witch on a cooking show attempts to demonstrate how to make frog soup to her viewers. However, these frogs aren’t about to congenially allow themselves to be spooned into a soup. No thanks. They take off every which way, and this cooking show witch is left to scramble after them. This picture book gets big belly laughs from my little witch.

This heartwarming picture book is about how a home rented by Cuban refugees becomes a safe place in the community for other immigrant families to find refuge in. Esperanza at first thinks their new rental is small, but soon she sees how large it can become with her family’s generosity in sharing it with other immigrant families like them, who come to the U.S. with nothing. It’s based on the author’s childhood experience.

Based on a true story, this picture book takes place on the Mexico-U.S. border. When Noemi and her mama arrive at the border, they’re told they need to add their names to a ledger, which keeps track of those wanting to cross. The Notebook Keeper is another refugee in charge of the ledger, and Noemi is impressed by her kindness. When the Notebook Keeper calls her own name from the list, she gives the ledger to Noemi and her mother to keep up with. This book includes backmatter that describes this process in more detail.

In this lyrical, contemporary retelling of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty, a young Puerto Rican girl, is raised to be proud of her lineage as a Boricua of Taíno and African descent. However, when she gets older, she picks up on how the media and other racist people she encounters view people like her as less. She loses her sense of identity and self-love. But with the help of her family and community’s love, she “wakes up” to the injustice and begins to love herself and her people once more. This is such an empowering retelling.

I am a sucker for a good intergenerational picture book, and this one is stunning. Julia’s grandmother lives just outside Mexico City in a beautiful cottage. During the last few months of her mother’s pregnancy, Julia stays with her grandmother for the first time without her parents. Somehow Grandma senses whenever Julia is homesick and knows just what to do to help her feel better. This picture book is beautifully illustrated and includes poems by Tania de Regil’s great-grandfather, handwritten by her grandmother.

In this adorable picture book, mermaid Cadence longs for a kitten friend after watching kittens play by the shore. However, playing with a kitten is a bit difficult in the water. Can she find a furry friend to snuggle and play with? A nearby watching otter might be the perfect match for Cadence. This is an excellent read-aloud, and the colorful illustrations are lovely.

Heba, who is Pakistani American, is so excited to swim like a mermaid in the pool wearing her brand new yellow burkini, which matches her mama’s. However, when she arrives at the pool, the other kids don’t think she’ll be able to swim in her burkini. At first, she feels self-conscious, but Mama reminds her of all the mermaid girls before her, and Heba finds the confidence to enter the pool and show the other kids her swimming skills.

This cute early reader features three stories about mermaid Vera and her friend Octo-kid Beaker. With bright, colorful illustrations and funny and adventurous stories with simple, easy-to-follow prose, this new series is perfect for burgeoning readers. There are currently two books in the series, this one and Mermaid Days: The Sea Monster, with a third to release early next year, Mermaid Days: A New Friend.

This gorgeously illustrated guide to mermaids for kids ages 7+ follows a fictional, 19th-century explorer as she poses as a man and boards the HMS Challenger, which was a real ship. She takes detailed notes in her notebook as the ship encounters mermaids, including their history and lore. This is the latest book in the Folklore Field Guides series and all of them are so fascinating and accompanied by beautiful illustrations.

This little girl protagonist has two great families: her mom and her daddy and his partner Harry. She also has the perfect schedule worked out to split the time between the two, but when her mom picks her up from school on Tuesday — Daddy’s day — she feels thrown off. Things just aren’t right! However, her dads and mom have a surprise that will make everything better. This is a super fun, LGBTQ+ inclusive picture book.

While the other three books on this list present happy divorced families, this picture book deals with the initial sadness of finding out your parents are divorcing. Thursday is the protagonist’s favorite day of the week, but when her parents tell her they’re divorcing on a Thursday, it ruins the day for her. At first she feels stuck in sadness and frustration, but nature and the comfort of a unicorn lovey she found next to the trash help her to awaken to the world again slowly. This is a sensitively written, sad yet hopeful picture book about divorce.

My daughter and I have been slowly making our way through The Critter Club early chapter books, and while this book isn’t new, it’s new to us. Amy’s parents are divorced, and her Dad is remarrying a woman who has a child Amy’s age, Chloe. Amy is so excited to meet Chloe, but they immediately clash. To Amy, it feels like Chloe is being intentionally mean to her. Over the weekend, both girls are constantly at odds, until a wayward Dalmation helps them connect, and Amy realizes she and Chloe were just having one big misunderstanding.

This new early chapter book series is adorable. When Anne the librarian was a child, she had a beloved doll, Ivy. When she finds Ivy in a box, she adds her to her library’s book buddy collection. Kids can check out a book buddy for two weeks and write their own little book about their adventures. Ivy is adopted by a girl who is staying with her dad for the weekend. She rarely gets to visit her dad, and she’s resentful of her younger step-siblings who are always there, and who monopolize her time. She loves staying with her mom, but she misses her dad too. She tells all this to Ivy, who calmly listens. Maybe Ivy and the other book buddy companions can help! Told from Ivy’s perspective, this is a delightful and imaginative book for early readers.

This interactive board book is a lot of fun for toddlers. With bandaid flaps, a pop-up ice pack, and even a baby that can be taken out and cared for, this is such a good way for very young children to explore injuries and how to take care of them. It’s one of our most-read board books.

This picture book biography is a fascinating glimpse into the life of Tu Youyou, who became the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize after discovering a cure for malaria based on traditional Chinese medicine. After a childhood bout with tuberculosis, Tu Youyou became interested in viruses and how they worked. This eventually led her to studying medicine in college and to leading her own research team. This is an excellent addition to STEM and women in science collections.

We’ve been reading this picture book a lot lately. From the five types of germs to how the immune system works, this book explains germs using simple, child-friendly language and silly illustrations. It’s an excellent introductory text to the topic that’s also a blast to read.

This follow-up to The Secret Life of Boo-Boos is a more thorough introduction to viruses. It includes information about how viruses reproduce, the immune system, wearing masks, vaccines, and more. While more in-depth in its approach, it’s still child-friendly with cute illustrations, and would be a valuable addition to elementary school libraries.