{"id":7060775,"date":"2026-09-19T05:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/best-of-2025-the-childrens-bookroom\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T05:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:14:10","slug":"best-of-2025-the-childrens-bookroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7060775","title":{"rendered":"Best of 2025? \u2013 The Children’s Bookroom"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I wasn\u2019t going to do one of these. I\u2019ve tried and tried to get behind \u201cBest of\u201d lists\u2013 they may, I\u2019m told repeatedly, be entirely subjective, but they\u2019re useful to booksellers and librarians! Don\u2019t you like booksellers and librarians, Deborah? <\/p>\n

Yes. I adore them. I love librarians so much that when my very favourite librarian asked me if I was going to write up books I\u2019d loved this year, instead of saying, \u201cNo! I shall not! I fly in the face of convention! Best of lists are terrible things, because the only correct taste is mine, and I refuse to enter muddied waters. And, anyway, 2025 wasn\u2019t a great year for books, in my view\u2013 what do you think, Amy?\u201d I hesitated. And then she mentioned it again. And then we were emailing and she sent me her best books, which were interesting to read about and made me think\u2013 and then I went to the Boston Athenaeum and talked to the children\u2019s librarian there and casually asked her what books she\u2019d<\/em> liked\u2013 and suddenly I had a list. Except then the unthinkable happened: I got locked out of this account and was forced to fold laundry instead. <\/p>\n

So, finally, here goes. Buy local, or from a children\u2019s book shop (how about Turtle Books<\/a> or Woozles<\/a> or Mabel\u2019s Fables<\/a>?), or go to your library and chat with the children\u2019s librarian. Children\u2019s librarians are, quite simply, the best.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not being deliberately antagonistic or sassy when I say I think it wasn\u2019t a great year. I genuinely think that award committees should be feeling a pinch this year in the good books department. That said, the books that did<\/em> impress me this year were ones that I think would stand out in almost any year. So here goes, starting with a polar bear\u2026<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s hard to think back this far, but Bianca and the Butterfly<\/em> by Sergio Ruzzier was January 2025. It\u2019s been a repeat read, and it\u2019s the kind of book that challenges me to improve my reading of it. It\u2019s easy to read well, but by repeat experience I\u2019ve found that it has a lot more to say when read beautifully. It\u2019s been requested by name not just by my own little one but by my nieces visiting from Israel. \u201cI want Bianca again, please, Auntie Deb!\u201d The art is so stupendously good that I have two pieces framed and I catch visitors stopping and looking at them. This is what I mean when I say that the books that were<\/em> good this year had a lot going for them: text that grabs the reader, art that arrests the eye.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s Be Bees<\/em> by Shawn Harris was my early Caldecott pick because, frankly: a) it\u2019s that good, b) so many others I thought were worthy aren\u2019t eligible. And it\u2019s still my top pick. The art is brilliantly soft, careful, and deliberate. It is refined to the highest degree of alignment with the text, while never overlapping too much. The tone matches; the art amplifies. Thank God the publisher was on board with allowing good paper for this exceptional book. That cheap glossy paper would have utterly undercut the art, but the matte finish, in addition to being more durable and pleasant for the reader, gives the art the medium it deserves.<\/p>\n

Elisha Cooper\u2019s Here Is a Book<\/em> was a masterly achievement of sentiment without sentimentality. It conveyed the work and love of book making and book enjoyment with down to earth tenderness. I always love Elisha\u2019s art, and this is no exception (the blues, oh the blues), but the poetry of the text was top of mind for me in this book. I think the word count was likely higher for this book than many of his others, but without ever feeling one word too many. They have a firm ring to them, a textured loveliness, that is satisfying in the mouth and opens the heart. <\/p>\n

Brian Floca and Sydney Smith\u2019s Island Storm<\/em> was the book naturally closest to me of the whole year. It was from my mind, memory, and soul, and felt illustrated from my own hometown. It did not have the advantage of good paper, and I think that was next step to criminal. Sydney Smith\u2019s art was luminously reflective, both figuratively and literally; the gleam of light on window and water was a huge achievement in his art. To put that on glossy paper where electric lights inevitably conflict with the light in the art was a decision I can\u2019t get behind. That said, the brilliance of interplay between text and art, each embracing the other and adding more and more, gave it a crackling electricity of its own: human love in the grip of nature\u2019s massive and impersonal power. <\/p>\n

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But the surprise books for me this year weren\u2019t ones from people I knew or sources I see regularly. Is It Asleep?<\/em> by Olivier Tallec would have been unknown to me if it hadn\u2019t been for Yonatan at Adraba Books in Jerusalem, whom I was delighted to see for the first time in six years. He has the best taste of almost anyone I know, and sees the European books that don\u2019t often make it into the American circles. I would have been sad to miss this one. Olivier Tallec is a huge favourite of mine; he has the energy of line of Sergio Ruzzier, with a similarly mischievous logic. Tallec doesn\u2019t bother explaining death or telling you what to do or how to grieve. He simply shows it. And then it is. No platitudes, no moralizing. Let it be. <\/p>\n

The other book that was a revelation was King Winter\u2019s Birthday<\/em>, from Pushkin Press, which I found at the Boston Athenaeum. Based on a manuscript from Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, whose name should certainly have been on the cover, incidentally, it\u2019s a fable, a myth, a fairy tale. It\u2019s melancholy and beautiful and unresolvable. The story was found and then retold in its current form by Jonathan Freedland, and the art by Emily Sutton honours the roots and the entire atmosphere of the story. The pathos of the story\u2019s story could overwhelm the story itself; I\u2019ll let you search and find that story yourself. But for the lover of fable and myth, of fairy tale and folklore, the book stands on its own and says more about author than the author says about the book. <\/p>\n

Each of these books would be enough for a good year in books, and I\u2019m delighted to be able to tell you about a whole six that are of such high quality, so rooted in technique and skill, and so fresh in some form or other. <\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not doing another Best of list. At least not until the next person talks me into it. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wasn\u2019t going to do one of these. I\u2019ve tried and tried to get behind \u201cBest of\u201d lists\u2013 they may, I\u2019m told repeatedly, be entirely subjective, but they\u2019re useful to booksellers and librarians! Don\u2019t you like booksellers and librarians, Deborah? Yes. I adore them. 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