2026 Newbery/Caldecott Fall Prediction Edition

Oh, goody goody goody goody goody.

It’s getting closer, isn’t it? The day of the announcement. The day when we will finally know for certain which books will be honored for their bold striking choices (or, depending on the committees, their safe let’s-not-rock-the-boat styles). And to add to the delight and excitement, we finally know WHERE the announcement will take place. Online, certainly, of course, but historically (or at least in recent memory) the ALA Youth Media Awards are announced at the American Library Association’s Mid-Winter Conference (briefly renamed LibLearnX, which always sounded like something out of a Mountain Dew ad to me). Of course now that Mid-Winter/LibLearnX have officially been canceled, folks wondered what would happen to the announcements. Would they be entirely online now, like they were in 2021? Would they take place at the ALSC Institute (a suggestion that made a fair amount of sense).

Well, my darlings. You may have missed it but less than a week ago it was declared that the 2026 Youth Media Awards will take place in a little town near and dear to my heart called… Chicago!!

Now Chicago has been taking some major blows lately from the federal government (read: The President) and they’ve been doing a stand-up stellar job resisting. So I am pleased and proud for the announcement on Monday, January 26 (beginning at 10 a.m. CT) to take place at the Hilton Chicago hotel (720 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605). You do have to make a reservation (which you can start doing in December) but you won’t have to pay.

What has two thumbs and is going to sit in the front row seat with big foam fingers and maybe a vuvuzela? That’s right. This guy.

But while we wait for that incredible day, let’s partake in the third of our four-part prediction series. Fall is here (ish) and I’ve thoughts on how the year is falling out. BIG thoughts! Wild thoughts! Thoughts on what I’m noticing getting a lot of attention (and what seems to be falling by the wayside).

Here are my predictions:

---

Caldecott 2026 Predictions

Broken by X. Fang

So a Caldecott committee is not really allowed to take into account an artist’s oeuvre. When they consider a book, they consider just that book. It has to stand entirely on its own, outside of any other context. They can’t say, “Oh, this person’s due to win” or “They should win because they lost before” or any of that. The book in front of you is the book in front of you, end of story.

But we, oh best beloved, are not on the committee. As such, when I make predictions, I factor in human nature. Yes, I know what the committee members are not supposed to think. But I also know that some of them undoubtedly saw X. Fang’s incredible We Are Definitely Human at some point in the past. This would, inevitably, give them a bit of a soft spot for her. Now let’s look closely at this title. Look at how Fang lays out the images on the pages. How it’s almost cinematic at times (particularly with its close-ups). It’s funny, yes, and a striking real moment in a child’s life (something that paid off well for last year’s Caldecott winner). The art is undeniably sophisticated but also kid-friendly. Now for the clincher: The winning Caldecott book has to have artistic merit AND heart (usually). This book has a raw, emotional honesty to it (confessing to lying) that so many books lack. Best of all, it comes by those emotions without being cloying or saccharine. Yeah. This hits the notes just right.

---

Every Monday Mabel by Jashar Awan

While we’re on the topic of what makes a good Caldecott winner, let’s put those thoughts into practice with Jashar Awan. Here’s a fellow who’s a slow burn. And when he won a Geisel for Towed by Toad, it was as if he’d suddenly nabbed the spotlight. With Mabel, however, this is one of those books where the gist of the Caldecott’s discussion is going to be around the dreaded word “distinguished”. No one is arguing that Awan’s storytelling is on point, but is the art in this book “distinguished” in any way? To argue yes (and I do) is to point out that the success of any picture book lies in the choices it makes. Look at how Awan lays out the pages. How he milks just as much drama out of this story as the aforementioned Broken. Now look at how the text and images play off of one another. Just because a book is simple, that doesn’t mean it isn’t Caldecott-worthy. Just keep an eye on the design of the pages as well as everything else.

---

Fireworks by Matthew Burgess, ill. Catia Chien

Meet the frontrunner. Clearly. I’m not the only one saying it either. I won’t say it’s a slam dunk (I’ve been burned before) but I would be greatly surprised if Chien doesn’t at least Honor for her work on this title. Not too long ago my sister and I discussed the Eric Carle book Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me. Like this book, that one knew the power of a well-timed gatefold. Of course, Carle’s book never won a Caldecott anything. Likely that was because of committee members who consider tricks like gatefolds to be a cheap method of eliciting an emotional response in a reader. Over the decades, I think that stance has softened. Consider, for example, the recent win of Vashti Harrison’s Big. That was a book unafraid to let the gatefold do some of the talking (likewise Flora and the Flamingo). So unless you’ve a real stickler on the Caldecott committee, they’re not going to dock points for the gatefold in this book. Heck, they may even concede that it gives the book a legitimate sense of awe. And awe is rather ideal in Caldecott Award winners, wouldn’t you say?

---

The History of We by Nikkolas Smith

I’m not quite ready to give up on this one yet. The public response to it has been a bit more tepid than I’ve liked, but I continue to hold out hope that it will find its audience. Caldecott winners and honors do not exist in a vacuum. There have been times when the winning books have made bold political statements for the times. Consider We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom or The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, for example. Smith’s topic comes in the face of widespread initiatives on the part of the Trump administration to wipe away any history that wasn’t already widely acknowledged in the 1950s. Similarly, books deemed “DEI” are being removed from library shelves nationwide. You can BET they’d count this. Smith’s title zeroes in on humanity’s origins in Africa, giving the people of that time lives of their own. So if we have a committee that is feeling particularly angry right now, and are equally able to comment on how well Smith does his job here, this book’s time will have come.

---

How to Say Goodbye In Cuban by Daniel Miyares

This one caught me by surprise. When I interviewed Miyares and revealed an excerpt from the book, I didn’t expect to be as enamored of this graphic novel as I was. Graphic novels, I will remind you, can win Caldecotts but they actually do so far less often than they win Newberys. There was, of course, the infamous case of This One Summer‘s Honor, but it’s a BIG outlier. Nevertheless, I think it’s impossible not to be swept up in the watercolors that Miyares has employed when creating this story. There is a great deal of beauty on each page, and as with any picture book, the art propels the storytelling. We haven’t seen a comic win a Caldecott in a decade. Wouldn’t you agree it’s about time that changed?

---

Let’s Be Bees by Shawn Harris

One of my favorite Substacks to follow is The Chatner written by Daniel Lavery. In one of his recent posts Three Parents Talk About Children’s Books he offers this wild encapsulation of Shawn Harris’s previous Caldecott Honor winner Have You Ever Seen a Flower?, calling it, “a book about the saturation of image. I mean, there are words in it, but it’s mostly about blood turning into flowers, and flowers turning into blood.” Few people can make me run out to reread a book faster than Daniel Lavery. There’s nothing particularly saturated about Harris’s latest picture book, quite the opposite, in fact. Here he’s playing a lot more with white space and bold colors. In a 2021 interview on the site What To Read To Your Kids, Harris said this:

“Often, I like using art supplies that the kids reading my books might already have access to. It’s fun to do school visits and share my techniques with kids. I probably learn as much from watching them make art as they do from me. I know that stylistically, I’m drawn to big shapes and bold colors, but beyond that, my style shifts to meet the author’s tone, and experimenting with different mediums is one way that I keep pushing myself to build new and different worlds in each book.”

In my experience, Caldecott committees have a tendency to reward artists that try new and different things with their books. If you use the same technique with all your titles, they’re less inclined to give you a shiny medal (which would explain why some of our greatest artists remained Caldecott-less). And Shawn Harris is an experimenter. This book is just his latest creation, but it’s an almost perfect amalgamation of text and image for a younger age range. Worth considering.

---

Our Lake by Angie Kang

I was happy to see Travis Jonker comment in his recent post Newbery/Caldecott 2026 Fall Check-In (which is well worth reading) that after considering the Goodreads 2026 Mock Newbery and Caldecott lists up right now, he agreed with the inclusion of Our Lake (as high as #2!). I admit that I’m a little surprised that it’s gotten that much traction. This subtle Angie Kang debut received a modest release from Kokila. I didn’t see a lot of press surrounding it when it first came out. Odder still, it’s only received three starred reviews. This strikes me as an egregiously low number, but perhaps its subtlety is its undoing here. Certainly I was sure I’d cast it aside when I sat down to read it the first time, only to discover that it’s an incredible book. Somehow Kang has managed to pack huge emotional resonance, legitimately beautiful imagery, and a fun topic that a kid would want to read multiple times into a single package. I wouldn’t call it a sure shot, but it’s nice to see a subtle buzz surrounding it.

---

Popo the Xolo by Paloma Angelina Lopez, ill. Abraham Matias 

Having forgotten that I included this book on my previous summer prediction post, I was all set to try to tell you everything about this moving and incredible book. Kirkus called it “gently magnificent” and they’re not wrong. It comes out the same year as another Xolo, that one by Newbery winning author Donna Barba Higuera. Clearly there is something in the air that’s bringing out the doggie/Aztec vibes. Now remember how everyone was so surprised last year when Chooch Helped won a Caldecott? You don’t want to be caught in that position again, right? Well, maybe you should have a couple copies of this book on hand, just in case. It checks a lot of the boxes of a surprise winner, after all. An illustrator who is enormously talented, looks like no one else, and has never won before, doing a book on an emotionally resonant topic. This has grief AND dogs in it. I mean, come on! Who can resist that?

---

Where the Deer Slip Through by Katey Howes, ill. Beth Krommes

Every Caldecott committee has a different personality from the one that came before and the one that comes after. I don’t know enough members on this year’s committee to even begin to suspect what kinds of books they’ll incline towards, though. If they’re an experimental committee (the kind that would award a YA graphic novel like the aforementioned This One Summer) then they probably won’t look quite as closely at this book. After all, Krommes has won before and her style hasn’t changed significantly since (remember what I said about committees liking it when you change up your style?). If, on the other hand, they’re a more traditional committee, this is the more traditional choice. Gorgeous? Oh, naturally. Honestly, there’s no one else out there that can do it like Krommes. But the book is a bit of a throwback and while there’s a comfort to that, I’ll be curious to see if the committee rewards that feeling.

---

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

Pay attention, if you can, to what books illustrators like. This is a risky thing to do when trying to predict Caldecott winners, since there is no stipulation stating that any of the members of that committee needs have any personal artistic experience (critical or otherwise). Nonetheless, illustrators have a way of honing in on the special titles. And no other book have I see this year that has gathered more love from other artists in the field than this Burgess/Salati combo. And yes. This is the second Matthew Burgess book to appear on my prediction list today. The man sure knows how to write ’em. What’s peculiar about this selection isn’t the fact that the book relies on die-cuts for some of its more emotional reveals (though that is notable). Rather, it’s the fact that this is a collection of poetry. A LONG collection of poetry. And the Caldecott, for all intents and purposes, is supposed to go to picture books, right? Well, that’s where we start to get into definitions. If Hugo Cabret can be a picture book, why can’t a book like Words with Wings and Magic Things? After all, the pictures deeply inform the reading experience. It’ll be up to the committee to determine if the art in this book is integral to the storytelling and, additionally, if that makes this book a “picture book”.

---

Wild Card (it would be lovely if it won, but it won’t):

Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa by Sara Andrea Fajardo, ill. Juana Martinez-Neal

Because we could always use a little Nonfiction on the Caldecott list. Martinez-Neal has won Caldecott Honors before, but she’s the kind of artist who appears to get better and better over the years. The story of Alberto Salas is told with such expert whimsy and delight that it’s hard not to get excited about this book as a possibility. Of course, if the committee would rather give the award to the OTHER Martinez-Neal nonfiction title out in 2025, A Gift of Dust, I’d hardly be in a position to object.

---

Newbery 2026 Predictions

The greatest difficulty facing this year’s Newbery committee is the same quandry facing the Caldecott: Too many good books.

---

How to Say Goodbye In Cuban by Daniel Miyares

Let the record show that Miyares is eligible for all the Pura Belpres awards too, so we may as well just hand them over now to save time. I truly believe this has Caldecott potential, what with all those luscious watercolors all painted by hand, but if I’m being honest it was the writing in this book that stood out for me in particular. We’ve seen Cuban narratives for kids before, but explaining who Castro was and what he did is something that many authors prefer to either eschew or simplify to the point of confusion. Not Miyares. He’s unafraid to deal with complexity, and this book is uniquely capable of handling this material. As with any truly great Newbery winner, it has humor and heart. It’s also filled with moments that would be fascinating to any kid (I mean, what if your dad really DID win the lottery?). This book? It’s extraordinary.

---

The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri

If you’d like to have some fun, you should check out the post I conducted back in January that showed all the rejected covers for this book that were under consideration. Now the sad fact of the matter is that I have yet to see a copy of this book myself. And though I don’t do this very often, I’m still going to include the book on this list. Why? Because at my library every year we conduct a 101 Great Books for Kids list, wherein the librarians determine the books of the year. This year my fellow committee members were able to get an early copy of this audiobook from Libro.fm (a useful resource for any librarian hoping to do a similar list) and according to them this book has the goods. They all declared it their favorite read of the year. One person said it had, “An immersive and rich setting created with the barest of narration. This book is gorgeous! Moving and profound while maintaining a sense of simplicity and ease.” It actually was just released yesterday so you’ve no excuse not to check it out too!

---

The Trouble with Heroes by Kate Messner

The frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. And its publisher knows it too. I swear, I haven’t seen a book with this much pre-publication buzz and blurbs as this in years. Now I get a little nervous when I feel inclined to say something like “This is [well-established author]’s year to finally get a Newbery!” because I’ve been burned before *looks mournfully at Not Quite a Ghost*. Still, this book seemingly has everyone in love with it. It’s snarky. It has a dog. It’s outdoorsy. If any book this year has a chance, it’s this one.

---

The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Audrey Hartman

Weird little fox books set in the woods have done very well in the past (see: Scary Stories for Young Foxes). Oddly, this novel is one of four or five books for kids this year about people or creatures shepherding souls to the other side. I really don’t know what to make of that particular trend. It’s more than a little charming, straddling the line between animal fiction and fiction with Big Ideas. More to the point, it makes you think. Hard. Both about what it’s doing and what it means. I can also attest that it has significant staying power. I read it near the beginning of this year and I can still remember almost every detail. Not every book has that ability.

---

Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Rhodes is having a rather good year, between this book coming out and the graphic novel adaptation of Ghost Boys. Remember when I said that some Caldecott books feel traditional? Well, the same can be said of Newbery titles as well. Rhodes seems to be tapping into classic adventure/Western vibes with this book and darned if she doesn’t get away with it. Some authors would feel hackneyed if they included everything from snake attacks to river crossings to high noon shootouts in a single book, but there’s something about the slick size of the book and the quality of the writing that makes it all work. Plus it’s fun. That should count for something right? Fun?

---

The Winter of the Dollhouse by Laura Amy Schlitz

There’s something infinitely calming about reading a Laura Amy Schlitz book. You just relax into it, knowing that she’s about to surround you with beautiful language and incredible storytelling. Remember that word “distinguished” that comes up when we discuss award winners? Few authors have Schlitz’s sheer writing chops. This book in particular is a marvel. Upon first glance it looks long, but then the pages just fly by as you read. Most incredibly, Schlitz is capable of making subject matter that one would consider uncool in 2025 cool again. A book about dolls hoping for an owner? It’s a classic set-up for a story placed in a book that’s fresh, cool, new, and thoroughly delightful. The committee, you can bet, will take notice.

---

Wild Card (it would be lovely if it won, but it won’t):

Scarlet Morning by N.D. Stevenson

I wasn’t prepared, when I picked up this ribald fantasy, to find the writing in it as incredible as it is. Stevenson has a way of coining a turn of phrase like few authors I’ve ever encountered. The names of the characters and places. The plot turns. The emotional resonance between characters. I fear the committee may discount this book due to Stevenson’s fame in the world of animation, movies, TV shows, and comics, but they need only read two or three chapters of this title to be hooked. Of course, the real reason it won’t win is that it’s the first in a series and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Newbery committees are a bit more fond of standalone novels. Still, if there is justice in this world, it’ll get some love.

---

2026 Batchelder Award Predictions

The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwabe, ill. Miho Satake, translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa

I’ve others in this category that I’d like to mention, but I’ve run out of time for the day, so we’ll end with this little charmer. The Batchelder Award, just to remind you, goes to a work of translation for kids. And of all the predictions I’ve made today, this is probably the sole slam dunk amongst them. Why? Well, Kashiwabe’s books tend to win Batchelders by the handful. This particular story apparently inspired Miyazaki when it was first published in Japan decades and decades ago. You can see a bit of him in it, but for the most part it’s its own creation. The story follows a girl who is sent to a magical village and has a series of small adventures. A perfect bedtime book, and a clear-cut Batchelder winner yet again.

---

What have I missed? What do you love? Tell me!

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2025, Newbery / Caldecott Predictions