Publisher Preview: Enchanted Lion (Spring 2025)

What’s better than a publisher preview where you get to see all their books early? A publisher preview from a publishing company never before featured on this site, that’s what! Yes, I am here to announce proudly that this is the very first Enchanted Lion Publisher Preview to grace A Fuse #8 Production, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Thanks to the efforts of Claudia Zoe Bedrick, today I am going to show you a full range of their Spring 2025 season. Everything you could hope for, to perk up this gloomy 2025:
On All Fours by Gaëtan Dorémus, translated by Emilie Robert Wong
ISBN: 9781592703883
Publication Date: January 21, 2025

Claudia explained to me that when it comes to author/artist Gaëtan Dorémus, Enchanted Lion Books orked with him before on such books as Bear Despair and Coyote Run. Bear won a 2012 NYT Best Illustrated Award, by the way. Not too shabby. The bear in this book is a bit different, though. There’s no despair (not for very long, anyway). Just a cute little bear exploring the world. The simple text also contains lots of fun onomatopoeia words, making it ideal for a storytime. And it shows off some good bear fun, like going through the garden, or getting to play in the mud. Eventually, the little bear’s exploring takes him a bit too far and he has a moment of panic. Not to fear. It all ends with a nice hug with papa bear. Be sure to check out these beautiful bright colors. Ideal for someday being converted into a board book, wouldn’t you say?
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I’m Like a Tree and a Tree’s Like Me by Sylvaine Jaoui, ill. Anne Crahay, translated from the French by Claudia Zoe Bedrick
ISBN: 9781592704248
Publication Date: April 15, 2025

We’re all molecules and we all participate together in the same fabric of reality. That’s how Claudia introduced me to this next book. Much like Bear, this is another simple book with a limited text. What sets this artistry apart, however, are the die cuts. Put simply, this book is all about establishing the parallels between a growing child and a growing seed/plant. And once you know that, you can see how the die cuts are so key to this (but don’t show up well in my examples of the art, below). The whole book has this peek-through element to it, which makes it a great way to show those parallels between plants and people. I’m particularly fond of how the last spread goes in a more global direction with kids hugging different trees around the world. Consider this particularly good for children who are going to have a new sibling and need someone to introduce the concept to them. Ideally, it would also be interesting to use this book in the context of any science unit about growing trees.




On the Move: Things in Motion On Earth and Beyond by Romana Romanyshyn & Andriy Lesiv, Translated from the Ukrainian by Oksana Lushchevska
ISBN: 9781592704149
Publication Date: May 20, 2025

You may vaguely remember the young Ukrainian couple that created the picture book How War Changed Rondo a couple years ago (before the current war, certainly). When war did break out there, suddenly that book felt very relevant. This next title is altogether different. Essentially, it is all about motion and movement in all its forms. Consider it a delightful hodgepodge that has a little bit of everything. For example, how was the shoe invented? Now the art contains these glorious two-page spreads that don’t show up very well when I put them below. Nonetheless, I think you can see how they touch on topics like tourism, travel, migration movements in human history, space exploration, and space time relation and relativity. The enormously eye-catching art engages and informs with all these different concepts. There are sections on navigation, maps, compasses, etc. Heck, there’s even a section at the end on animal migration and wind and water movements. Good for whetting young appetites, highlighting different areas where kids can pursue and look more deeply in.




The Boy Who Became a Parrot: A Foolish Biography of Edward Lear Who Invented Nonsense by Wolverton Hill, ill. Laura Carlin
ISBN: 9781592704132
Publication Date: April 8, 2025

Very well researched and highly factual, this is the kind of informational fiction picture book biography that makes creativity the name of the game. In this book, the author has played with the character of Edward Lear, making him appear as fun and dynamic and weird and wonderful as he was in real life. There is some genuine whimsy in this work. So why use some fictional elements? Well, the explanation I received was that the guiding idea for this approach is this: What’s the best approach to World War II – Catch 22 or straight up nonfiction? We’re told that it is really very fortunate that artist Laura Carlin fell in love with this manuscript. She doesn’t make many books and she does absolutely incredible work. In the end, the book became a kind of passion project for both author and artist, bringing Lear to life. I was particularly intrigued by the mini-comic in the middle of the book. Author Hill uses these sections to talk about Lear when he’s at Nosely Hall, pinpointing when he invented nonsense. Of course, the thing I never knew about Lear was what an accomplished painter he was. Honestly, his paintings were not dissimilar to Audubon’s. Indeed, Lear was considered to be a naturalist in his day. Did you know that he was the first artist attached to the National Museum in London. Turns out his funny side came out at Nosely Hall when he was asked to document the Lord of the Hall’s specimens. And yes, he did illustrate his own works too!







The Wanting Monster by Martine Murray, ill. Anna Read
ISBN: 9781592704194
Publication Date: April 29, 2025

Here’s the pitch: Martine Murray? She’s Australia’s Kate DiCamillo. Now interestingly, this is a debut for the artist Anna Read. And since the story has a very folktale feel to it, Read decided that folkloric art was the way to go with the illustrations. Essentially, this is a fable about greed told through this monster who comes to a town and whispers into people’s ears to make them discontent and envious of what others have. The greed takes over to the point where they’re taking the very stars out of the sky. Finally at the end they hear this big racket and pay attention to this energy and noise that has come into the town. The writing is very poetic and deep. There’s a section at the end once the villagers realize what has happened where they weep and it’s this moment of lamentations. On Being talked about how as a culture we cannot do lamentations. Here, however, it’s a cathartic process. “What had been withheld was released…” They rebuild the town, and put the stars back. They’re not unscarred but they’re rebuilding. The ideas afoot in this book are great.





Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto by Gianni Rodari, ill. Roman Muradov, translated by Antony Shugaar
ISBN: 9781592704156
Publication Date: March 18, 2025

Shugaar with Rodari again! You remember Gianni Rodari, right? He did that lovely The Book of Whys, which was released just last year. Rodari, I should say, is the father of modern Italian children’s literature. What really stunned me about this book, though, was that it’s a novel containing just a single story. You see, Baron Lamberto lives on an island and one day he comes back from his travels to Egypt with his butler and moves six people into his house. They repeat his name constantly. Suddenly he becomes younger and younger. And that’s not the weirdest thing about this story! Add in as well a group of bandits coming along to kidnap Baron Lamberto for ransom. Lamberto also has a scheming nephew with a lot of lottery debts who tries to get his fortune. So essentially the book is both fanciful and grounded in reality. Just lots of themes with Rodari using humor to skewer the upper class. No doublt it’ll be enjoyed by kids and adults alike. As with all of Rodari’s books he’s coming at this as a socialist humanist.



Sato the Rabbit: Morning Light by Yuki Aninoya, translated from the Japanese by Michael Blaskowsky
ISBN: 9781592704392
Publication Date: July 15, 2025

Have you encountered Sato the Rabbit before? If not, you’re in for a treat. Each book in this series is a series of vignettes. In this particular story it starts out in the normal world and goes into the extraordinary. Sato goes on two adventures in this book with light. First he sees the morning light through the curtains and grabs a bar of light from the curtains. From there he is transported to the natural world. In the second adventure he is transported into a lighthouse. When he creates a beacon, animal friends come to give him tasty treats. These books are originally published in Japan and are perfect if you seek something with very low stakes. It’s about the enchantment and the whimsy in a cozy and harmonious setting. And the art is lovely. Consider this a real appreciation of how thin the line is between fantasy and reality. That barrier in these books is just so thin. It’s a beautiful sense of childhood as this deep moment of life when you are categorically different from being an adult.







Unruly

Old as Stone, Hard as Rock: Of Humans and War by Alessandro Sanna
ISBN: 9781592704217
Publication Date: February 4, 2025

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The Unruly part of Enchanted Lion Books, exists to create children’s books with an adult audience in mind. What does that mean? Well, we certainly hope you enjoy one example here called Old As Stone, Hard As Rock. Do you happen to remember that wordless title from a number of years ago called, The River? While Unruly was still getting its act together, The River was marketed as a children’s book. Later, Enchanted Lion would signed for this book in 2019. It’s a book in which the artist spent years thinking as an artist. His impulse was to understand the relationship between creation and destruction through his life as an artist and the making of things with his hands. His hands are no different from his brain and can even understand things that his brain can’t in the same way. In this book, the story tracks both creative and destructive impulses over the course of human history and the lens of getting to the point of war. And not everything is all black or white. Fire is creative and destructive. So are our hands. It’s a wordless account of these speculations taking us up to 9/11. Another way to look at this is to say that it’s a catalog of technological changes and how it changes our world. Finally, the intro is by Intro by Ammiel Alcalay, a writer and poet who has written a lot over the years to the Muslim world, though he himself is Jewish. His intro is not about his moment in time, but about Sanna’s broader themes of destruction and war.







Tales from Dreamland by Ed Valfre
ISBN: 9781592703777
Publication Date: May 6, 2025

As of this spring, Claudia assured me that this is their only Unruly book from an American. And look! It’s my favorite medium! Photography!! Think of it as street photography aiding and abetting a range of flash fiction stories. So why did they make it? the inspiration was to just awake wonder and openness to the everyday. They initially made the book for older people because the micro fiction has a lot more evolved ideas. There’s a kind of wryness to them. A sardonic sensibility better suited to teens and adults. Bonus for the blurb from Teller from Penn & Teller too!



The Grammar of Fantasy by Gianni Rodari, ill. Matthew Forsythe, translated from Italian by Jack Zipes
ISBN: 9781592703050
Publication Date: May 13, 2025

Rodari again, but very different. And lookie! Look! Though the book is translated from the Italian and sports new art from none other than Matthew Forsythe. We haven’t seen a Forsythe in years! In terms of the book itself, this is Rodari’s big pedagogical work. Back in the day Claudia read it in the 90s in a poorly edited version, but the ideas were so stimulating and incredible that she never forgot about it. In these essays, Rodari talks about ways to open up the imagination and imaginational (totally a word) faculty in ways that are incredibly exciting. He talks about his own work in the classroom, his own research, and how to create a liberating feel in classrooms that know how to not render children less imaginative. Rodari talks about the fantastic binomial – putting two incongruous things in relationship. It unleashes all kinds of wild imaginations. It’s great for teachers and the classroom but also any artist or people who are looking to be more creative. Honestly, it would even be great in the self-help category on how to unleash your own voice. It’s an adult book but with a real popular appeal.





Once again, I’d like to thank Claudia and the team at Enchanted Lion Books for taking the time to share these incredible upcoming books. Be sure to look for them all in the upcoming year!
Filed under: Publisher Previews

About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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