15 Must-Read February Children’s Book Releases

While I adored Deborah Marcero’s previous picture book staring the bunny Llewellyn — In a Jar — I think I like Out of a Jar even better. Llewellyn has a lot of feelings. He feels scared at night, excited during music class at school, disappointed when his balloon flies away. But it seems like it’s never okay to express his emotions, so he begins bottling them up in jars, tucking them away so no one can see them. But there are too many feelings to bottle, and Llewellyn comes to realize he only feels like himself when he can express them. This is such a fantastic picture book about learning and naming emotions, and the importance of being free to express them.

This picture book is so hilarious, and a great example of depicting queer joy in children’s books! A family of two dads, two children, and a mischievous cat are desperately trying to get ready before Grandma Marge arrives. One dad takes charge and lists everything to do on the refrigerator with magnetic letters. But when the cat hears the dad list “clean the cat,” the cat decides to play around a little with the letters to avoid bath time, with absurd results. This is a much-requested picture book by my 4-year-old, who then likes to pretend she’s the cat and rearrange all the alphabet letters on our refrigerator. Readers might recognize the illustrator, who also illustrated the Questioneers series.

It’s career week at school, but Nigel — a young Black child — doesn’t feel comfortable sharing his dreams with the rest of the class. Instead, he shares his dreams with the moon, about how he imagines becoming an astronaut, or a dancer, or a superhero. But with encouragement from his parents and the silent strength of the moon, Nigel decides he can finally tell the world his dreams. This is a super sweet and empowering picture book.

Both my daughter and I adored Forsyth’s award-winning picture book Pokko and the Drum, and Mina is Forsyth’s stylistic follow-up. It features a young mouse named Mina, who is a bit fed up with her father’s surprises, though she mostly ignores him. Then one day he brings home what he calls a squirrel, but Mina can most definitely see it’s a cat. But her father won’t listen to her! This vibrantly illustrated picture book has the same sort of dark humor as Pokko and the Drum. Young readers who enjoy Jon Klassen’s hat books will also enjoy Forsyth’s humor.

From the award-winning author of Esperanza Rising comes this beautiful new fantasy about a Mexican princess. On the eve of Solimar’s Quinceañera, she visits the oyamel forest — a land her royal parents are considering selling to a nearby kingdom — to visit the monarch butterflies. While she’s there, the butterflies descend upon her and give her the magical ability to predict the future. When her father and brother leave on trading business to Puerto Rico, the nearby King Aveno ransacks the castle and takes Solimar’s mother captive. Now it’s up to Solimar to save her kingdom.

I was immediately drawn to this novel by the super sweet, lovely cover, and I’m happy to say the novel itself lives up to the cover. It’s a much-needed contemporary novel about the daughter of a Palestinian Christian father and a Lebanese mother moving from her beloved immigrant community in Detroit to San Antonio. Yasmeen did not want to move, and her fears are proven correct by her initial experiences in Texas, where very few students share her Arab identity and culture. When she joins the math team, she makes friends with Ayelet, a Jewish first-generation Israeli American whose father coaches the math team. However, she has to hide her friendship from her family when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hits close to home.

This new contemporary fantasy novel based on West African and Igbo mythology is an absolute blast. Cameron Battle’s parents disappeared two years earlier. Ever since, his grandmother has kept hidden The Book of Chidani, a collection of Igbo folklore that Cameron and his ancestors grew up listening to. During a sleepover, Cameron and his two friends Zion and Aliyah decide to open the book for the first time in two years. When they do so, they’re magically transported to the kingdom of Chidani, but instead of finding the enchanting land from the stories, they find a kingdom on the brink of destruction.

Omar, the son of servants, is thrilled when he learns he’s received a full scholarship to the prestigious all-boys Ghalib Academy Boarding School. He can’t wait to go to school, join the science and soccer team, and make new friends. During orientation, he makes friends with several other scholarship students. However, once school begins, they’re met with the reality of being a scholarship student. Omar is forced to work menial chores, and none of the scholarship students are allowed to join any school teams. He also has to maintain higher grades than the students who pay tuition. Fed up, Omar and the other scholarship kids decide to take a stand and demand equal treatment. Fans of Amal Unbound will enjoy this one just as much!

I completed the adult edition of this antiracist workbook when it released a couple of years ago, and I’m so happy it’s been revised for younger readers. This workbook is great to work on in groups or partnering with a parent. It provides the history and context of antiracist beliefs and then challenges young readers to examine their own racial biases. Ultimately, the book challenges pre-teens and teens to stand up and speak out against racism. Unlike the adult edition, this isn’t divided into days, and readers can take each challenge at their own pace.

Asha and Sam, both autistic, are best friends. They do everything together, but when Sam is accepted into an elite private school, both are left to navigate middle school on their own. Sam is immediately set apart from his classmates when a teacher shares an article about “The Miracle Boy,” who made it into the elite academy despite his disability. He makes friends with Prestyn, a wealthy girl who lives in Donnybrooke, the biggest mansion in town. This upsets Asha, because Prestyn used to bully Asha. Asha, who is East Indian like the author, loves architecture, and despite her distaste for Prestyn, she’s always been curious about Donnybrooke. This debut middle grade is told from three perspectives: Asha, Sam, and the mansion Donnybrooke. It’s a clever and emotional read.