Discover the full preview listings overleaf (p14-22 )
Picture book
Kael Tudor ( 5), Kate Hindley (illus) Marching Band Nosy Crow, 5th, £12.99, HB, 9781839948978
5
The journey of a lively marching band gets increasingly wacky as the group travels to a beach, up a mountain and even to outer space before zooming back home to bed. The story is told in an energetic rhyming text, and each vista is packed with new things to spot – a mermaid playing a shell, a tiger drinking juice – meaning this is a picture book children will be drawn to time and time again. It is publishing simultaneously in paperback (985).
Fiction 9-12
Mike Edwards ( 7) Riverskin Walker Books, 12th, £7.99, PB, 9781529523980
7 Fiction 9-12
Phil Earle ( 4) The Dawn of Adonis Andersen Press, 5th, £7.99, PB, 9781839134197
Earle smashes it out of the park once again with this stunningly brilliant prequel about the birth of Adonis – the silverback gorilla protagonist of When the Sky Falls. The year is 1911 and a pregnant gorilla has been smuggled from the Congolese rainforest to the London docks. A nefarious criminal hopes the baby will make his fortune, but a young girl called Nellie is adamant that won’t happen and sets off across London, aided by the criminal’s former right-hand-boy, Toff. Enthralling, emotive and life-affirming.
Tess lives underneath the River Tees with her Aunt Peg and her monstrous Unkle Darkwater, who Peg keeps chained up at all times. When Peg develops the signs of dementia, Tess decides to leave the “turns”, a network of tunnels underneath the River Tees, and find out the truth about her family and where she came from. This is an original literary adventure from Edwards, a spoken word performer, about belonging and discovering one’s origins, and is steeped in the stories and myths of the North East of England.
6 Teenage & YA
Lauren Wilson ( 6) The Goldens HarperFire, 19th, £8.99, PB, 9780008687526 Debut author Wilson takes a swipe at the dark side of influencer culture in this deliciously dark and incredibly cool thriller. Chloe is an ordinary girl who meets Clara, a famous influencer and model, and is
drawn into her circle, even moving into Clara’s grand family mansion. But Clara’s behaviour becomes wilder, and Chloe starts to fear for her safety when a girl goes missing during one of Clara’s bacchanalian parties. An unputdownable novel.
Science
Didier Cornille ( 10), Charis Ainslie (trans) The Cities of the Future Post Wave Children’s Books, 5th, £16.99, HB, 9781836270201
8 Fiction 9-12
Peter Burns ( 8) Shadow Thieves Farshore, 5th, £7.99, PB, 9780008667818
9 Teenage & YA
Rory Power ( 9) Kill Creatures Scholastic, 5th, £8.99, PB, 9780702340277 The identity of the killer is usually only revealed at the end of a novel but Power twists this idea on its head, revealing early on that Nan is the murderer of three missing girls. So what will Nan do when one of them turns up alive, as the community is gathering at an event to remember them? Told partially in flashback, this fast-paced thriller is about jealousy, idolisation and one-sided friendship, and the narrative builds to an exciting finale, with plenty of twists and turns.
Farshore’s biggest middle-grade debut launch of 2025 is this magical adventure story about 13-year- old Tom, who is offered the chance to train at an elite international boarding school for thieves. Tom learns about deception and trickery, and how the clan of thieves helps uphold society, so when he finds out there are dark forces at work he must do all he can to try and save his new community. Fun, exciting and deliciously inventive, this is book one in a trilogy.
In this picture book for older readers, Cornille takes readers on a journey to cities including Berlin and Curitiba to show how they are becoming greener and more people-friendly, while continuing to grow in population. He profiles the architects, residents and leaders involved in these changes and encourages children to know that they too can help make their cities nice places to live. Cool in design and elegant in text, this is a hopeful book about how we can change our urban environments for the better.
10 13
SARAH DEANE
Books Children’s Previews
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
