Kids & YA Newsletter: May 2026
PICTURE BOOK
Winston the koala LOVES the park! It’s one of his favorite places, even though the grass is ticklish, tree sap makes a sticky mess, and ants infest his picnic. Poor Winston can’t even get a drink at the water fountain—the water just sprays his eyes! So why exactly does Winston love going to the park? Well… ticklish grass makes him laugh. Sticky sap tastes delicious slathered on a slice of toast. And sharing food with his new ant friends is better than eating alone. So, no matter what unexpected curveballs life throws his way, Winston STILL loves the park! Featuring lighthearted, whimsically child-friendly illustrations, WINSTON LOVES THE PARK makes for a thoroughly charming picture book debut from author/illustrator Grant Kolton. With a background in traditional animation, Kolton's award-winning short films have screened at festivals around the world, and with Winston he creates a character whose good nature and cockeyed optimism will inspire readers of all ages to get outside and enjoy the park! (Please note, John Rudolph is the agent on this project.)
Molly thinks that bringing her blanket to school is a very bad idea—because her blanket is really a LION! Together, they brave the stormy seas in a leaky tub and beat the Closet Monsters in the tae kwan do championship. But school will be Molly’s first adventure on her own, and even though she’s ready for it, Blanket Lion is NOT. So, Molly decides to sneak Blanket Lion into school with her, but when the teacher asks whose blanket it is, Molly is too shy to admit Blanket Lion is hers, and Blanket Lion spends the night in the Lost and Found. Molly feels terrible, so the next day she rescues Blanket Lion for Show and Tell. And when a certain pet dragon gets loose in school—well, it’s Blanket Lion to the rescue! With her brightly colorful and zany illustrations, Julia Karlinsky’s BLANKET LION is a playful picture book romp that taps into real-world childhood anxieties and will especially appeal to any kid with first day-of-school jitters. (Please note, John Rudolph is the agent on this project.)
Inspired by real classroom moments and her viral video featured on The Today Show, author-illustrator Naava Katz’s debut picture book I MADE THIS FOR YOU reveals how children express their love for their grownups through their art. The book grew out of an observation from Naava’s work as a preschool art teacher: children talk about their families while they create, speaking with pride and affection as they make intentional choices that reflect the people who matter most to them. Their dialogue runs alongside the uniquely expressive, uninhibited way they approach art at this age. In this book, those moments come to life through a series of vignettes as children work on handmade projects for the people they love. While children will recognize themselves in the creative process, captured through expressive movement and detailed illustrations of the art room, the emotional center of the book speaks directly to caregivers. It offers a reassuring glimpse into a child’s inner world, reminding adults how present they are in their children’s hearts, even when they are apart. With strong gift appeal and a universal theme of love and attachment, I MADE THIS FOR YOU will resonate with children, parents, educators, and caregivers. It sits alongside books like The Dot and Maybe, offering a fresh, contemporary perspective on creativity, connection, and the love kids have for their grownups. (Please note, Stacey Glick is the agent on this project.)
NONFICTION PICTURE BOOK
Michael Waters’s Lambda Literary Award Winner and LA Times Book Prize Finalist The Other Olympians told the story of trans athletes in the 1930s, revealing that attitudes at the time were, in some ways, even more accepting than they are today. One of the athletes he discovered in his research was Zdenek Koubek, a Czech athlete who became one of the fastest women in the world, winning at the 1934 Women’s World Games. But Koubek’s excitement of the winning was short-lived. He’d won, but being called one of the world’s fastest women didn’t sit right—he knew he was a man. So he began living his truth, and word spread. But Koubek wasn’t shunned, he became a star. His story was told in magazines and newspapers, and he traveled to the US to perform for adoring crowds. More importantly, he received letters from around the world from others who felt like he did. He was an inspiration. Waters brings Zoubek’s powerful story to life in his debut picture book biography, BETTER THAN GOLD: THE ZDENEK KOUBEK STORY. (Please note, Michael Bourret is the agent on this project.)
When Mary Beth was a child in 1965, she cried when she saw the images of Vietnamese children running from their burning homes. Her parents had taught her to love everyone, even her so-called enemies, and that the war in Vietnam was wrong. But what could she do? She was just thirteen years old, and her hometown of Des Moines was not exactly a hotbed of antiwar activism. So, she and some friends decided to wear black armbands to school to protest the war—little did she know that her actions would take her all the way to the Supreme Court (Tinker v. Des Moines) and inspire a generation of kids to stand up and speak out for what they believe. With LET ME SPEAK: MARY BETH TINKER AND THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH, iconic free speech activist Mary Beth Tinker teams up with National Book Award nominee Michael G. Long (More Than a Dream; Rebellious) to tell her story for the first time for young readers. With an informative afterword, this timely nonfiction picture book promises to educate and inspire a whole new generation of students who want to stand up and speak out. (Please note, John Rudolph is the agent on this project.)
YOUNG ADULT
Climate change has obliterated the global food supply, and the collapse of society is in full swing. Far from the chaos, sixteen-year-old Sierra Cartwright and her parents guard a seed vault, a facility deep in a frozen mountain containing a priceless collection of seeds. But when their supply deliveries stop, Sierra’s parents set out to investigate, leaving Sierra and her dog, Roo, alone at the vault. Her parents don’t return. As winter steals the light, strangers discover Sierra’s mountain. Nomad Jon Denver and his seventeen-year-old son, Tommy, claim they want to build a homestead. The father is talkative, quick to smile and share stories of the road. The son is stoic, harder to read. Their company tempts Sierra from her isolated hideaway—but she can’t let them find out about the seeds. When more outsiders approach their remote haven, new threats are on the horizon, andSierra must decide how far to trust Jon and Tommy. The seed vault, her parents’ lives, and the future of humanity could depend on her choice. But the Denvers are keeping secrets too. SNOWFALL AT THE END OF THE WORLD is an extraordinary, all-too-believable dystopian thriller from author Jordan Rivet. Blending the grounded catastrophe of Barry Lyga’s After the Red Rain and the blistering intensity of Mindy McGinnis’s Be Not Far from Me, this is a story of survival at any cost. (Please note, Jim McCarthy is the agent on this project.)
After learning that her industrialist, millionaire father has been killed, heiress Ivy Lewis asks her best friend to fly her home immediately in her biplane. As they prepare to land, the young women are attacked by sudden gunfire that sends them hurtling to the enchanted woods below. Hooded, robed men are destroying the sacred grove there, which her family has protected for as long as anyone can remember. Worse, they have her uncle tied up, ready to be sacrificed. Enlisting the help of the local nature spirits to try and stop them, Ivy soon learns that she is too late: the men have cut down the ring of ancient holy trees surrounding the site. The trees' secret, long lost, is revealed: those weren’t trees at all—they were transfigured priestesses whose presence has long protected the entire world. All are dead but one. Now Ivy must work with this final survivor to find out what those men wanted, why they murdered her father, and whether there is any way to stop the destruction that they have set in motion. Lisa Tirreno’s THE LAST PRIESTESS is a propulsive, heart-pounding sapphic fantasy mystery for fan of Allison Saft and Rebecca Ross’s Divine Rivals. (Please note, Jim McCarthy is the agent on this project.)
One night. Two old friends. A tent. A forest. That’s all it’s supposed to be. The forest isn’t supposed to trick you, or trap you, or twist your mind until you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. When Miri’s ex-best friend Ethan invites her to come camping in an abandoned state park, she says yes only because she never learned how to say no. She’s never bothered to forgive Ethan for abandoning her for the popular crowd years ago, because it’s not as if she cares anyway. And she suspects, correctly, that he’s only asking her on this trip because his parents made him. After the world’s most awkward hike and a night rolled into a corner as far as she can get from Ethan while sharing a not-very-big tent, Miri wakes up to find the tent unzipped and footprints in the snow surrounding them. But that’s not the worst part. The two of them can’t find their way out of the woods now that the overgrown trail is covered in snow. Strange occurrences start piling up as day rolls into night and day again. There’s no food, no way out, and no hope of rescue. As much as Miri and Ethan want to shut each other out, they have to work together just to make it through these cold, empty woods, especially because it’s turning out they aren’t so empty. Something’s hunting them. Five Survive meets The Blair Witch Project in THE CREEPING, a queer YA survival thriller by New York Times bestseller and Amnesty CILIP Honoree Robin Talley. (Please note, Jim McCarthy is the agent on this project.)