Enchanted Lion Books Publisher Preview (Fall 2025 & Winter 2026)

There are a slew of small independent publishers out there, but Enchanted Lion Books has a reputation of its own. Take a look at any of the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated lists of the last 10-20 years and you’re bound to notice the sheer number of Enchanted Lion Books making it onto that scant list of only ten books each and every year. The publishers has a particularly keen eye for not simply imports but homegrown authors and artists. For this preview they asked if I wanted to hear about some of their 2026 titles, as well as a book from their Unruly imprint (which is for adults) and I said, “Heck, yes!” so something to that effect.

As such, enjoy this motley crew of fairly amazing books:

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Don’t Eat Me! The Almost True Story of Belladonna by Kate Finney, ill. Esmé Shapiro

ISBN: 9781592704347

Publication Date: October 14, 2025

Our heroine? A beautiful belladonna plant who is part of a forest community. The problem? Well, because she smells so good she’s eaten up all day long. Plants need to be eaten a little bit so that they can spread their seeds, but belladonna is just too darn tasty (and part of the fun of the book for me was getting to enjoy the expressions on the various animals’ faces as they gnaw her tender stems). To solve her problem, the plant starts talking to other plants to learn how they protect themselves. As she does, she learns about interconnectivity, like the fact that the oak is part of a larger community. After much thought, belladonna realizes that she needs to adapt and change in order to survive. Mind you, this kind of change can’t be done instantaneously, and illustrator Esmé Shapiro had to show the passing of eons, during which this change occurs. Slowly, belladonna becomes poisonous. The good news? She realizes she has now made enough poison to survive. The bad news? She’s terrified that because she’s made so much poison, no one will eat her anymore. Happily there is a solution evident when a pheasant comes along, eats her, seems to be fine, and then poops out the seeds. Turns out, it has co-evolved in a symbiotic relationship. As you can see, this book has key nonfiction STEM themes, yet is told in a lyrical and narrative story/fable style. This is a textbook case of informational fiction. There’s even an introduction and author’s note for parents and teachers tying all of this into messages of evolutionary biology, not eating poison, what a belladonna plant is, etc.

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Before She Was My Grandmother by Giselle Potter

ISBN: 9781592704316

Publication Date: August 12, 2025

Giselle Potter has plied her trade in picture books for a number of years, yet this latest title is her most personal book yet. The story focuses on a girl named Alice and her relationship with her grandma. One day she discovers a treasure box full of momentos, which grants her access to her grandmother’s memories of the life that she led. Once we hear about the grandma’s past, it becomes clear that the book is about an artist coming into her own. It is also about what it means to understand other people complexities and how one can pass on a family history to the next generation. The art of the book itself is fresh and imaginative with bright colors. Grandma, through her memories, becomes more than just one identity to her granddaughter, since she has many stories folded into who she is and that can be passed on. And really, isn’t that what storytelling really is? The abiding lesson given by the grandmother is that every life is more than you can see. The hope, then, is that this book will spark a lot of conversations between readers and their grandparents about family history and heirlooms.

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The Adventures of Cipollino by Gianni Rodari, ill. Dasha Tolstikova, translated by Antony Shugaar

ISBN: 9781592704163

Publication Date: September 23, 2025

Enchanted Lion sort of specializes in the works of Gianni Rodari, and this book is no exception. Illustrator Dasha Tolstikova, however, is Russian. She came to the United States when she was 11, but being Russian she grew up with Rodari because he was a superstar in the Soviet Union (you can see my recent piece on Rodari, his publisher, and his translator here if you’d like to know why). Every Russian kid was deeply into the man’s books, and Cipollino was one of Dasha’s favorites. The whole cast of characters in this story consists of fruits and vegetables. Our hero, Cipollino, is a little onion whose father is mistreated by the leader of their community. Before he’s taken away, though, Cipollino’s father tells him to go out into the world and study tyrants. The little onion does so and as he goes he meets many friends and enemies. Because of what he learns in his travels, Cipollino begins to push back against the tyrannical system they’re all living under. At its heart, this is a book about changing the power structure of his world and is a metaphor for power and the fight for justice. A rather good topic for children in 2025, wouldn’t you say? As for its length, this is very much a novel intended for kids 10+, clocking in around 40 short chapters with accompanying full-color illustrations. Consider it ideal for a teacher readaloud.

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The Coziest Place on the Moon by Maria Popova, ill. Sarah Jacoby

ISBN: 9781592704378

Publication Date: November 4, 2025

Ah, this is a sweet one. You wouldn’t normally find a book this poetic in its language to be inspired by a New York Times article about the temperature of the moon, but here we are. You see, Maria Popova read an article that declared that there are nooks in the moon (old volcanic tubes of some sort) where the temperatures inside would be comfortable for humans). As such, in this story we meet a little blue hedgehoggy thing named Re who feels like the loneliest creature on Earth. The solution? Shoot off to the moon, of course! The book delves deep into the difference between solitude and aloneness and how solitude can nourish your spirit. In learning about those comfy moon temps, Maria initially came at this story from its science angle, then sublimated this feeling of wanting to go there into her characters. The idea is that solitude is when you’re still with yourself but with a feeling of connection that can staves off loneliness. And yes, there is great backmatter on the moon, temperatures, all that stuff. Think of it as a book that will help kids to think about space in a different way.

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The Other Side of the Rocks by Nahid Kazemi

ISBN: 9781592704583

Publication Date: August 26, 2025

I was unaware of the work of Nahid Kazemi prior to encountering this book. Turns out, she’s a refugee from Iran and has built a life in and around Montreal. Our heroine in this story is a frog who is peaceably living within her community when one day she strikes up a conversation with an old red fish. In doing so, the fish gives the frog a sense that the world is greater than what she already knows and there is more out there to be discovered. At its heart, this is a tale about going out into the world to find yourself. Once the frog does travel beyond her usual borders she gets to think philosophical thoughts, hear birds in a different way, interact with them for the first time ever, and find new locales. Her world gets bigger, even as she feels the pull of home and brings back with her the inner riches and discoveries she found. She then shares new notes and new tempos in her own song with the other frogs. In looking this over, I was personally reminded of the picture book The Frog in the Well by Alvin Tresselt (a tale I think about often).

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The Snow Theater by Ryoji Arai, translated by David Boyd

ISBN: 9781592704606

Publication Date: October 21, 2025

Meet Ryoji Arai, an amazing artist from Japan. This book is a little younger and a little simpler than some of the titles we’ve looked at so far. It’s about interacting with the natural world and the beauty, magic, and wonder. In this story, a little boy is playing with his friends and accidentally rips his father’s favorite book about butterflies. Soon thereafter he goes off into the snow by himself and stumbles across a very small snow theater that grows. Dreamlike (as you can see by the art) the book is about the snow, nature, the power of imagination, and even some SEL themes of reconciliation. You can bet that at the end, father and son both go back to their cozy home together.

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Truman Toad and the Quest for the Perfect Hug by Oren Lavie, ill. Anke Kuhl

ISBN: 9781592704590

Publication Date: February 3, 2026

I have decided that for the rest of my life, all I want to do is upload Truman Toad photos onto my blog. I want to make it my life’s work. I want to wallpaper my world in all things Truman Toad. I mean, just look at that cover. Truman Toad, in case you’re curious, was first published in Germany where it was a huge hit. Interestingly, though, it was originally written in English. In the story, Truman is a very self-involved narcissistic character who one day has a dream of the perfect hug. Overcome by the thought that there might be a second half to his hug (which he felt in a dream) he desperately wants to find that bliss, that other half. The trouble is that he’s so self-involved that when he sets out to find the hug, nothing is right. They’re all too sharp or loose or soft. Truman soon gets very frustrated and has a dark night of his soul. I mean, what if it’s unfindable? Determined to track it down he puts an advert in the paper telling everyone to meet in the park for hugs. Everyone does show up, but nothing works for him. Worse still, everyone else is doing great! Truman takes to the podium to announce his failure, but he’s so overwhelmed that he falls into the arms of someone. And it works! Happiest hug achieved! Then you get an epilogue that he’s now become a specialist on hugging and written successful books and created hugging associations. I dunno, guys. I just love everything about this book SO much!

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What a Small Cat Needs by Natalia Shaloshvili

ISBN: 9781592704774

Publication Date: January 27, 2025

I suspect you’ve seen some of the books of Natalia before, even if you can’t immediately recall them. And she has indeed done some GREAT books. The title of this particular book is no misnomer. It truly is all about what a small cat needs. There are the basic needs (food, drink, shelter) but also about how cats need independence and play and the affection of others. The art is very soft and lovely and the text fun and playful. If you want to get a little more deep about it, these are the universal truths of what we need from one another. Written for the very younger readers, Natalia brings to the tale a kind of Eastern European wryness. It’s even a little existential at the beginning (you need a nose, paws, a body, etc.).

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The Forgotten Teachers: How Nature Wrote the Story of Life by Brian Islett, ill. Claudia Biçen

ISBN: 9781592704118

Publication Date: September 30, 2025

Are you familiar with the Unrule imprint of Enchanted Lion? Unruly titles are typically published with adults in mind. And this little beauty is by a neuroscientist. The book is all about combining the arts and the sciences together in an effort to rework our connections to the natural world. To make this clear it goes through the six different “teachers” that taught life how to begin and continue. These teachers include, for example, the oceans. The art, I was told, is inspired by scientific diagrams as well as illuminated manuscripts, but when I looked at them it seemed massively clear that artist Claudia Biçen was, on some level, inspired by the Voynich Manuscript. You see it, right? The text is very clear and engaging and it was fun to learn that Brian and Claudia are long time collaborators and friends. In fact, the did a Kickstarter to initially get this project off the ground. The driving idea behind it was that as an evolutionary biologist and neuroscientist they wanted to share concrete information on how we’re all interconnected. Not in some woo-woo science way, but literally, on the level of DNA and our world’s symbiosis. We are biologically connected. There’s a lot of mystery still to what that interconnection can mean, but this book is a space of shared consciousness where you know the science behind it. Might be a good choice for teens too who are into philosophical trends.

Many thanks to Claudia Zoe Bedrick and Emilie Wong for taking the time to show us all these neat titles. Look for each and every one in the coming year!

Filed under: Publisher Previews