Our reviews
62 children's books books we've reviewed, each with who it's for, who should skip it and every source we used.
Every review is tagged with how the book feels to read.
62 reviews
Petite Dreamer
Best for: Curious children aged 7–11 who love collecting surprising facts to share, and parents or teachers looking for a low-stakes, high-variety way to spark science conversations at home or in the classroom.
Rick Riordan
Best for: Middle-grade readers aged 9 and up who are already invested in the Percy Jackson series and want a quest-driven adventure that deepens the mythology, expands the ensemble cast, and raises the emotional stakes in ways the earlier installments don't.
George R. R. Martin
Best for: Existing fans of A Song of Ice and Fire who have already collected the earlier illustrated editions in the Random House Worlds series and want a visually enriched, permanent hardcover of the fourth book on their shelves.
Tui T. Sutherland
Best for: Middle-grade readers aged 8–11 who are already invested in the Wings of Fire series and want to see Glory's identity and belonging arc take centre stage in a fully realised new corner of Pyrrhia.
Daniel Bulmez
Best for: Curious readers aged 11 and up — preteens, families looking for shared reading material, or casual adults who enjoy bite-sized facts for conversation — who are newcomers to trivia anthologies rather than veterans of the genre.
John Boyne
Best for: Best for upper-middle-grade classrooms and families seeking a short, non-graphic first Holocaust-fiction encounter that can be discussed alongside testimony or history.
Rosanne Parry
Best for: Middle-grade readers (ages 8–12) who loved animal-narrated stories like The One and Only Ivan or Pax, and families or educators seeking a substantial read-aloud that folds real Salish Sea ecology into a survival adventure.
Aesop
Best for: Families with children aged 4–8 who want a visually sumptuous, heirloom-quality hardcover introduction to Aesop's most beloved fables — particularly those buying it as a gift or a keepsake read-aloud edition.
Tui T. Sutherland
Best for: Middle-grade readers aged 8–11 who are already invested in the Wings of Fire saga and want to follow Tsunami's underwater royal adventure in visually immersive graphic novel form.
James Buckley Jr., Who HQ
Best for: Young soccer fans aged 7–9 who are encountering Cristiano Ronaldo's story for the first time and want a short, independently readable biography they can finish in one or two sittings.
Scay WiseHeart
Best for: Curious, science-reluctant readers aged 8–12 who need a low-pressure, visually engaging entry point into STEM — and the parents or educators supporting them at home.
Sally Hopgood
Best for: Caregivers, nursery educators, and gift-givers looking for a high-energy, rhyming read-aloud for preschoolers aged two to four who delight in animal characters, comic repetition, and participatory storytelling.
Tish Rabe
Best for: Parents, caregivers, and early-childhood educators looking for a festive, sing-along read-aloud to ease kindergarten-age children (roughly 4–8) into the idea of starting school, especially as a back-to-school gift or orientation companion.
R. J. Palacio
Best for: Devoted fans of Wonder who finished the original novel and want to spend more time in Auggie's world through the eyes of the people around him — particularly readers aged 9–11 and teachers looking for flexible, classroom-ready companion material.
Madeleine L'Engle
First published in 1962 and winner of the Newbery Medal, the Sequoyah Book Award, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle is a landmark science fantasy novel that follows awkward, brilliant Meg Murry and her companions on a journey across the universe to rescue her father from a cosmic evil — a book that has challenged, delighted, and divided readers across generations.
Gordon Korman
Best for: Middle-grade readers aged 10–12 — and their teachers or librarians — who want a character-driven story that tackles bullying and identity through multiple first-person perspectives, with enough emotional weight to fuel genuine classroom discussion.
Tui T. Sutherland
Best for: Middle-grade readers aged eight and up — especially those who love ensemble casts, elemental moral stakes, and a richly differentiated fantasy world — who are looking for a long-running series with a self-contained first arc and a found-family dynamic at its heart.
Chris Colfer
Best for: Middle-grade readers aged 8–12 (and parents reading alongside them) who love classic fairy tales and want a fresh, scavenger-hunt-driven adventure that revisits beloved characters with warmth, humour, and genuine emotional stakes.
Sharon McMahon
Best for: Parents, teachers, and librarians seeking a civics-minded picture book for preschool through grade-3 readers that models everyday courage through profiles of real, relatable ordinary Americans.
Katherine Applegate
Best for: Readers aged 8 and up — particularly those drawn to marine life, animal stories, or verse fiction — who want an ecologically grounded, emotionally honest coming-of-age story told from a wild animal's perspective.
Erin Entrada Kelly
Best for: Middle-grade readers aged ten and up — especially those who loved Hello, Universe — who want a high-concept time-travel story that puts friendship, found family, and emotional self-discovery front and centre.
Dr. Seuss
Best for: Young children aged 4–8 learning the fifty states for the first time, Seuss collectors drawn to a genuine manuscript discovery, and families looking for a read-aloud tied to America's 250th anniversary.
Jonathan Haidt, Catherine Price
Best for: Tweens in grades 4–7 who are already feeling uneasy about their screen habits, and families looking for a shared, research-grounded starting point for honest conversations about smartphones and social media.
Doodlebug Press
Best for: Parents, grandparents, or gift-givers looking for a single-volume Christmas activity workbook that keeps younger children occupied with a variety of formats — coloring, mazes, dot-to-dots, matching games, and color-and-cut projects — over the holiday season.
