September 2025 Stars & Big Picture

Starred titles are books of special distinction. See the archives for selections from previous months.

Bramer, Shannon Nightmare Jones; illus. by Cindy Derby. Groundwood, 2025 [56p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781773069463 $13.00
E-book ed. ISBN 9781773069463 $12.00
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 6-8

Day, Nicholas A World Without Summer: A Volcano Erupts, A Creature Awakens, and the Sun Goes Out; illus. by Yas Imamura. Random House Studio, 2025 [304p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593643877 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780593643891 $11.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 6-9

Kung, Isabella Nunu and the Sea; written and illus. by Isabella Kung. Knopf, 2025 [48p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593812723 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780593812747 $6.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* 4-8 yrs

Nguyen, Trung Le Angelica and the Bear Prince; written and illus. by Trung Le Nguyen. Random House Graphic, 2025 [224p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593125472 $24.99
Paper ed. ISBN 9781984892669 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781984892683 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 9-12

Rose, Elle Gonzalez Marisol Acts the Part. Joy Revolution, 2025 [320p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593900529 $19.99
Paper ed. ISBN 9780593900512 $12.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780593900536 $8.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 7-10

Sardà, Júlia The Witch in the Tower; written and illus. by Júlia Sardà. Candlewick Studio, 2025 [64p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781536243017 $19.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 2-5

See this month’s Big Picture, below, for review.

Senf, Lora Pennies; illus. by Alfredo Cáceres. Atheneum, 2025 [384p] (Blight Harbor)
Trade ed. ISBN 9781665967242 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781665967266 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 4-7

Song, Mika Night Chef: An Epic Tale of Friendship with a Side of Deliciousness!; written and illus. by Mika Song. Random House Graphic, 2025 [160p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593303153 $20.99
Paper ed. ISBN 9780593303146 $12.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780593303177 $8.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 2-4

Stead, Rebecca The Experiment. Feiwel, 2025 [288p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781250374769 $17.99
E-book ISBN 9781250421463 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 5-8

Suwannakit, Tull Higher Ground: A Graphic Novel; written and illus. by Tull Suwannakit. Crocodile, 2025 [136p]
Paper ed. ISBN 9781623715854 $11.95
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 4-6

Tian, XiXi All the Way Around the Sun. Quill Tree/HarperCollins, 2025 [304p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780063086074 $19.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 9-12

Williams, Jen The Sleepless. Wednesday/St. Martin’s, 2025 [336p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781250409256 $21.00
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 8-10

Yun, Jihyun And the River Drags Her Down. Knopf, 2025 [400p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780593904879 $20.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 9-12

The Witch in the Tower

By Júlia Sardà

Middle siblings occupy an uneasy spot in the contemporary family imaginary, overshadowed by their elder and younger siblings and stereotypically destined for a lifetime of therapy. Similarly, a second book is often under threat of being overlooked: bearing the weight of expectations from the first, its own unique character can disappear under comparisons or vanish completely behind anticipation of a promised finale. Sometimes, however, it insists on its unique, coequal identity, as is the case with this month’s Big Picture, a follow-up to Sardà’s The Queen in the Cave. Charmingly subversive, the author/illustrator’s sophomore effort and its middle sister heroine earn their place and shine with their own sturdy light.

Middle child Carmela is feeling hurt, listless, and angry because of her older sister Franca’s absorption with her new, cruel friends. Leaving youngest sister Tomasina behind, Carmela sets off to “walk until you can’t walk anymore, and then you walk a little more.” Her wanderings take her to a tall tower, where a strangely prescient witch advises a dejected Carmela to take a bath with “toad essence and honey to clean the disdain from your skin. Snakebite sauce to banish the bad blood, and swan bone to ease your resentment. Now smear your hair with mermaid grease to wash away the envy.” Next, it’s time to concoct and down a potion made of Carmela’s own tears, followed by a climb up the wondrous tower where, guided by the witch, Carmela learns to see the world—and herself—from a new perspective. “Carmela,” says the witch, “You are another small world, and within you are the sun, the moon, and also the stars.”

Buoyed by her hostess’s sympathy, Carmela calls a witches’ wild rumpus: “Let the outcasts come! Let the lonely, the lost, and the different ones come! May they stop their roaming. May they all come home!” Soon, a crowd of outlandishly garbed, grinning witches, mermaids, harpies, fairies, and other fabulous beings join Carmella’s small black-clad figure to sing, dance, and feast on chocolate cake until dawn. When the revels end, it’s time for Carmela to go back, the journey having equipped her to cope with changes in her sisters and in herself.

With this companion to The Queen in the Cave, Sardà offers a heartfelt invitation to unconventional, lonely kids of all ages. By giving Carmela’s unpleasant feelings their due, the story validates readers’ experiences of isolation and even their own capacity for unkindness as a response to unhappiness. Indeed, although Carmela returns to her sisters in a better frame of mind, their cozy reunion doesn’t deny that Francesca has hurt her or that she herself has been irrationally angry with Tomasina. The witch, meanwhile, is the mentor or future self we all hope for, and her kind understanding emboldens Carmela to gather a community of kinship beyond her loved ones. The nuanced ending affirms the bond between Carmela and her sisters but suggests that however much she loves her family, they don’t have to be her whole world.

Sardà’s measured, straightforward text is unabashedly, almost bluntly whimsical, from the witch’s quaintly mystical phrases (“Eye of a toad and pupil of a goat!”) to the clipped, matter-of-fact narration of fantastical events. The ebullient digital art complements and expands the verbal story, with maximalist detail and folk-art-esque motifs backgrounded by ample white space. Words and pictures are meticulously separated, but the text placement is never boring: sometimes conventionally placed below rectangular framed images, other times poking into the frame when a mirrored hall skews the usual straight lines. In other scenes, architectural, astronomical, and botanical decorative elements frame the text in a vignette. Sardà proves to be a master of composition, grounding visual abundance in carefully balanced geometric arrangements. In one spread, a low perspective shows only Carmela’s black peaked hat visible above a field of mazelike waving grasses; in the next, the viewer emerges to see the witch’s tower standing rock-solid in a perfectly balanced landscape. Near the book’s close, Carmela soars on a broom through a softly colorful, galaxy-studded sky, her changed state of mind reflected by the daring overhead perspective.

Having gained a new understanding of herself and the possibilities in the world around her, Carmela returns to her sisters, secure now in her unique wildness. In a world that too often uplifts the same old patterns of exceptionalism while quashing actual creativity, this book is a visual and verbal ode to oddity. Let books be weird; let kids be weirder. Let’s celebrate the gloriously strange.

—Fiona Hartley-Kroeger, Reviewer

Cover illustration from The Witch in the Tower. Copyright © 2025 by Júlia Sardà. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA on behalf of Walker Books, London.