Spotlight Titles
Refreshed monthly, the reviews below are representative of what you can expect in a typical issue of the Bulletin.
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Picture Books
Cowley, Joy My Tiger; illus. by David Barrow. Gecko, 2026 [32p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9798765683200 $18.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 3-7 yrs
The no-nonsense narrator of this clever picture book has a tiger who simply loves cake. The big cat dutifully follows behind the boy as the two head to the bakery to get Tiger’s favorite treat, and as the famished feline chomps on his dessert, the child tells the baker that Tiger isn’t dangerous, “He only eats cake.” Unfortunately, Tiger’s sweet tooth predictably leads to a cavity, and he is soon yowling with pain, so the little boy drags Tiger to the dentist. She also—understandably—asks if Tiger is dangerous, to which the boy again dutifully replies, “He only eats cake.” Tiger tries to hide but is eventually forced to the chair, where he howls and growls as the dentist drills into his teeth. After she’s finished, the dentist says Tiger can’t eat cake again and recommends he eat what other tigers eat—and Tiger is only too happy to comply. The minimal text takes up very little space here, consisting of just a few lines of short sentences, with the refrain of “He only eats cake” repeating throughout. It’s the artwork that must carry the humor, then, and it does so with aplomb: multiple full spreads comedically emphasize Tiger’s huge body in relation to the little boy as Tiger licks a bakery window in anticipation or as the boy drags Tiger by his tail across the page toward the dentist’s office. The color palette is made up of aptly candy-colored pastels with the giant, expressive orange and black tiger standing out in every scene. Readers will sympathize with Tiger and his love of sugary confections, and little ones will rejoice in the subversive ending that thankfully does not extol the virtues of dental care. JMM
Fiction
Moss, N. West Birdy. Ottaviano/Little, 2026 [288p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780316446419 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780316446617 $9.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6
Eleven-year-old Birdy and her younger brother Mouse have always lived in New York City, but when their mother dies after a long battle with cancer, the siblings are shipped upstate to live with a distant aunt and uncle that they’ve never even met while the state figures out what to do with them. Although the older couple provides a loving home where, for the first time in the kids’ lives, the fridge is stocked and an adult is always around, Birdy worries that she and her brother will be split up or have to set out on their own, so she starts squirreling away money from her aunt’s coffee can of savings. Things keep getting better, however, with a sweet, heretofore unknown uncle visiting and then uprooting his own life in order to be closer to Birdy and Mouse. Still, Birdy constantly worries about what is going to happen to her and her brother, but when the grown-ups realize Birdy has been stealing, she has to learn how to ask for forgiveness and allow herself to be loved before her actions ruin their chances of becoming a permanent family. There’s plenty of uncertainty and adversity here, but no trauma-for-trauma’s-sake; instead, Moss presents a gorgeously imperfect narrator who, after years of being a caretaker, must learn to be a kid and a member of a family with loving adults. The messiness of grief is handled with delicacy and compassion, especially in Birdy’s feelings of relief when she no longer has to deal with her mother’s illness, despite loving and missing her terribly. Without preachiness or pat characters, Birdy’s story also highlights how essential adults (and even just older kids) can be for troubled youngsters. CBR
Nonfiction
Doughty, Katy How to Survive the End of the World: A Graphic Exploration of How to (Maybe) Avoid Extinction; written and illus. by Katy Doughty. MITeen, 2026 [256p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781536232790 $24.99
Paper ed. ISBN 9781536242829 $14.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 6-12
Death comes for us all in the end and, given that 99.9 percent of all species that have ever lived on Earth are extinct, the demise of humanity as a whole is pretty much guaranteed. But just because extinction is inevitable doesn’t mean it can’t be surprising, as proven in this irreverent, informative graphic novel that explores six general categories of ways the world could possibly end (but, the book assures us, there are plenty more avenues to take). First up are our smallest enemies, the dreaded microbes that could wreak havoc on the world’s population, as seen during the Black Death and even COVID-19. In this section, Doughty gives readers a rundown of historical pandemics, colonization and Indigenous trauma, virology, and public health. But of course, humans are as much a threat to ourselves as any unstoppable germ, as explored in the next three chapters that tackle nuclear warfare, climate meltdown, and AI; geopolitical relations, computer science, and vulcanology are spotlighted here, along with a smattering of legal and US national politics. Then there are the forces that are utterly out of our control, like asteroids, black holes, and dying suns, which, frankly, feel a bit like a relief given their unlikelihood. For such a dire topic, the tone is engaging and hardly doom-and-gloom, blending a huge variety of topics with a charming gallows humor. The content doesn’t totally match the title’s premise—there aren’t a whole lot of survival tips here—but the synthesis of information, drawn from interviews with historians, medical experts, and scientists, offers deep explanations that look at the multiple factors that go into an extinction event. Cartoony art in traditional comic-book layouts follows our young guide throughout the possible disasters while other illustrations, insets, and vignettes visually expand upon textual info. The end won’t be pretty, but Doughty makes it pretty darn amusing. KQG
