My Favorite Books for Kids of 2025 (so far)

Plus 4 favorite grown-up reads

Happy weekend, readers!

Greetings from Deep Summer.

For this Teacher-Librarian, July is the best month of the year. It’s the only month that school doesn’t touch (we get out in June and go back in August). The weather is glorious, and we’ve sunk deep into our do-nothing days of sleeping in and backyard volleyball and back floats (and we don’t have to things like get middle schoolers out of bed before 6am). Bliss.

Summer has also allowed me to devote regular creative time to a picture book project I’ve been mulling over for years. I’m thrilled to report that my manuscript is ready to submit, and I’m putting final touches on an initial round of query letters. If you work in the industry and have an agent you think could be a great fit for my POV (devotion to good books for bad children, etc), I’d love to hear from you via private message.

July also means we’ve passed the midway mark on the calendar year, and the bookish internet is buzzing with “best of the year so far” lists. I enjoy putting together my own loose list, with lots of room for possibility in the back half of the year.

Today, I’m sharing 4 picture books, 1 short chapter, 4 graphic novels, 1 middle grade, and 4 grown-up reads, alphabetically within category.