The Shockingly Good Children’s Poetry of 2025

Happy Poetry Month!

Honestly, every month is Poetry Month when you do it right. Now back in January, I happened to notice something a bit odd. 2025? Chock full of some SHOCKINGLY strong poetry! I mean, we’re only a couple months in and already I’ve been seeing scores of books with excellent verse. It all got me to thinking that maybe I should give these books their very own post today.

So if you are looking for some of the best poetry of 2025, I haven’t seen everything out there yet, but I have been significantly wowed by the following:

Spectacular 2025 Poetry

Black Diamond Kings by Charles R. Smith Jr., ill. Adrian Brandon

Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, Smokey Williams, all the great players of the Negro leagues are on display with vibrant, bat-cracking poems and eye-popping visuals to match! Why Charles R. Smith Jr. isn’t better known as one of our top children’s poets right now, I dunno. Seems like the man is so consistently good at what he does that it astounds. By all rights this book should be boring. At least I have a tendency to get a little bored by collected biographies, even if they are done poetically. But Smith just knows how to make every single one of these guys stand out. My favorite, no question, is “Fast As What?” which is about James “Cool Papa” Bell and is told like a series of tall tales and brags. I love how Smith constantly shakes it up with the different kinds of poems Meanwhile, the art of Adrian Brandon is fascinating. The style seems to shift from man to man (the one I would want on a poster is definitely Smokey Joe Williams holding that flaming baseball in his hand). And, as I am perpetually on the search for sports books at all times, I cannot help but point out that little detail as well. Incredible stuff.

The Boy Who Lived in a Shell: Snippets for Wandering Minds by John Himmelman

Once there was a boy named Ivo who lived in a giant moon snail shell on a beach. Read the poems he writes on the wall of the shell, in this ribald, witty, and occasional touching collection. Okay, I don’t even know how to predict what John Himmelman is going to do next anymore. When I was first starting out as a children’s librarian he was known primarily for picture books like the incredible, fantastic, and never-to-be-forgotten Katie Loves the Kittens. Then he takes some time, pivots, and does that incredible, wackadoodle early chapter book series Albert Hopper. But then I go to his website and apparently the man is also prone to doing YA and middle grade and THEN he apparently noticed that there were a couple slots empty on his bingo card, so he’s come to us with a book of poetry. And not just any poetry either. GOOD poetry. Like, high quality this-is-better-than-90%-of-kids-poetry-out-there poetry. I’m not going to say that every single poem in here is equally good, but you couldn’t say that for Shel Silverstein’s poems, for crying out loud. You’ll note the blurb from Chris Harris (My Head Has a Bellyache) on the back. That’s deserved. THIS is the poetry book of 2025 you don’t want to miss. Some of these poems will have you laughing out loud. Some will cause you to sit and think for a while. And some, like “Toby and Pip” are sad enough to warrant such concluding sentences as, “Not all stories are happy ones.”

Five Little Friends: A Collection of Finger Rhymes by Sean Taylor, ill. Fiona Woodcock

Warm up your digits and prepare to encounter all new finger movements for 21st century toddlers and preschoolers. Enjoy rhymes that go far beyond “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”.  Meet my new favoritest book of all the favorite books out there. I’m sorry but I cannot say enough good things about this title. First and foremost, why has it never occurred to anyone before to create original finger rhymes? As I read through this, I thought I’d run into one new one here and there, couched around old standards. Nope! Taylor manages to create new rhyme after new rhyme and they. All. Work. How is that even possible? And then to show people how to do them, he and Fiona Woodcock don’t do that pedantic thing where you put written instructions for adults in the margins. The instructions are woven seamlessly into the art itself. And the art is fantastic! About the time I got to the rhyme about swiping on your phone I was hooked and hooked hard. This is a necessary title for every library everywhere. 

How Elegant the Elephant: Poems About Animals and Insects by Mary Ann Hoberman, ill. Marla Frazee

From the bandicoot to the trilobite, delve deep into a delightful array of animal poems and poetry. And the hits just keep on coming. And to be perfectly frank there is NO reason why this book is as good as it is. By definition books that are compendiums of previous poems by a single author are almost never great. They’re well-intentioned. They’re perfectly decent. But they usually lack that kind of cohesion you need for a really good collection. The genius (and I don’t use that term lightly) of this book is the overarching idea that these animals are all checking into the same hotel. Marla Frazee, at the top of her game, then manages to weave it all together into a single miraculous entity. But that’s not even acknowledging the fact that these may be some of the best poems Hoberman ever constructed! They’re playful, clever, and cover an array of different types of poetic styles. Shockingly good.

In the Desert by David Elliott, ill. Gordy Wright

Come to the Sahara! Meet the creatures that make this arid location their home. Clever poetry and eye-catching art combine to make clear the desert’s allure. You know, every year that David Elliott puts out one of these landscape-oriented works of poetry (be it In the Woods, At the Pond, On the Farm, In the Wild, In the Sea, or my personal favorite At the Poles) I try to tamp down my expectations. I tell myself that this new book isn’t going to be as good as the ones that came before… and then I’m proven wrong yet again! Mr. Elliott is just good at what he does. He creates poetry that is short, sweet, to the point, funny, and original. His is the BEST kind of poetry for kids unfamiliar with the form, honestly. Plenty of cool pictures (courtesy this time of one rather Scottish Gordy Wright) and loads of facts worked in there on the sly. There’s also always at least one fact that catches me by surprise. This time: The fact that dung beetles navigate by the stars. Hubba wha?

Words with Wings and Magic Things by Matthew Burgess, ill. Doug Salati

A clever, silly, smart, hilarious, touching, and ultimately magical collection of poems. Dive through the die-cut portals into all new worlds! There’s a lot to really love and admire in this Burgess/Salati collaboration. First up, we don’t see a ton of die-cuts outside of picture books and board books. Salati uses them here to a massively great effect. In fact, if I’m going to be honest about it, Salati is on fire with this book! It’s like he won that Caldecott and decided to just start swinging for the moon every chance he got. The die-cut page turns are consistently impressive, and he elevates Burgess’s already dang good poetry to another level with these incredible full-color two-page spreads. The poetry is at its best, to my mind, in the final “Whispers and Well Wishers” section, where it gets strange and sweet and introspective. Still, even the silly poems can be exceedingly clever (I’m particularly fond of the poem “Hair Care” which starts with shampoo and then discusses Shampizzy, Shampower, and Shampunk). A cut above the rest.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2025