Publisher Preview: Enchanted Lion (Fall 2026)

And the hits just keep on coming!

Enchanted Lion is our resident small New York publisher, and a classier set of books you’ll rarely find on your shelves. Publisher Claudia Zoe Bedrick has an eye for the good stuff. Today, you’ll find a mix of home grown books and imports. See if you can tell which is which….

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Ocean of Stars by Azita Ardakani, ill. Rebecca Rebouché

ISBN: 978-1592704910

Publication Date: September 29, 2026

Look, I’m not going to go easy on you. Right off the bat we’re going to do a deep dive into a picture book meant for young children that is written by a scientist and delves into a wholly new area of consciousness interconnection studies. Essentially, this is what we know about how everything came into existence, but turned into a poetic picture book. Put another way, it’s about the universe coming to know itself. You begin with this image:

And as you can see, it’s massive. The painting itself clocks in at 90″ x 55.6″ (set to the golden ratio, naturally) and here it stands in Rebouché’s studio:

From this picture, every two pages of the book is a close-up of a section of the painting, like so:

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The Dreamcrafter by Zolboo Orgil, translated from Mongolian by Bujinlkham Erdenebaatar

ISBN: 9781592704989

Publication Date: November 3, 2026

From the universe itself we pivot now to Mongolia. This particular book originated with a series of picture book making workshops in that country that Claudia Zoe Bedrick got to attend in 2023. The purpose of the workshops was to foster an opportunity for people interested in creating homegrown Mongolian picture books for kids. Of course what happened is that Claudia went to the workshops…. and then ended up acquiring FOUR books as a result. According to her, the work was so refreshing and expansive, the storytelling coming from an oral tradition with folk and fairytales roots. The fact that they have a really strong intergenerational society as well meant that she was seeing a different sort of storytelling. Now Enchanted Lion can say that they are publishing the first Mongolian picture book ever released in the United States (fiction title, anyway). To create the art of The Dreamcatcher, the book is entirely hand-painted. Artists wax the canvas, and as a result it sort of repulses and creates these panted textures. The canvases were then taken off their frames and sent to their Chinese printer for scanning. The story itself focuses on a dreamcrafter who wakes in her studio one day to discover that in the night all her dreams have floated away. Now she must go outside and find the dreams so that she can gather them together again.

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The Weather Keeper by Nelly Buchet, ill. Elizabeth Haidle

ISBN: 9781592704958

Publication Date: September 8, 2026

What is the definition of a picture book author with range? Nelly Buchet could probably be that idea’s spokesperson. After all, the same person who wrote this narrative poem ballad about Iceland is the same person who wrote the highly amusing (and excellent readaloud) Dog Vs. Strawberry! This story came to Nelly during COVID when she read an article about a “weather keeper” in Iceland. Never heard of that job? Neither had she. Apparently, this profession exists because the winters are so cold in Iceland that weather machines simply cease working. So how do you measure the temperature? That’s a human job. Nelly thought the article was deeply fascinating, to say nothing of the life choice that goes into taking on that job, and next thing you know she’d created a text told by the daughter of a weather keeper. The daughter, you realize at the end of the story, goes out into the world and then returns home to become a weather keeper herself. The illustrator actually went to Iceland to do the research (making her the fifth children’s book creator I’ve encountered this year that’s recently taken an Iceland trip). Please note that the gatefolds are part of what’s so glorious about this book. Considering this year’s Caldecott winner, who doesn’t love a good gatefold?

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Wandermelon by Jacob Kramer, ill. Yara Bamieh

ISBN: 9781592704972

Publication Date: October 27, 2026

Watermelons are also a hot theme this year (or have you not yet seen Watermelon Pool?). You may recall Mr. Kramer from the work he did on the picture book Noodlephant. For this book he is paired alongside debut Palestinian artist Yara Bamieh. This title was originally signed in 2020, and it’s a bit of a coincidence that the colors of the watermelon (green, pink, and black) have since become political symbol. Bamieh is a botanical artist by training, and part of what she liked about this text was that it focused on the natural world, earth, and roots. At its core, the story is about the relationship humans have to the natural world and whether we own it, whether nature owns itself, whether we treat it just as a resource, etc. In this tale, a wandermelon appears in a small town and this huge vine starts to spread. It spreads across all the people’s properties, touching all their lives, and soon everyone begins to think that THEY alone own the wandermelon. You can see the folktale vibe going on. What’s that? You want another book with a gatefold? Well aren’t you just a lucky duck today. This book truly does have yet another gatefold to enjoy.

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Rainbows, Stars & Apples by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, ill. Mirlande Jean Gilles

ISBN: 9781592704965

Publication Date: October 13, 2026

With this titles we’re introduced to first time picture book illustrator Mirlande Jean Gilles who, prior to this book, has tended to produce works in large format public spaces. This book was signed in 2019 but Gilles illustrator had a hard time during COVID and ended up with little housing security over a number of years. Her experiences during that time give the book both a surreal and a minimalist feel. The story itself is about a working mother who is left to alone for a number of days while her husband is away. You know when you’re taking care of your small child at bedtime and they’re not tired at all but you’re fading fast? This book taps into that experience. Midway through the book the mom knows she’s about to crash out so she sings a song full of images of life that are very nourishing to her. Then they both fall asleep. With its cool mix of photographs and cut paper this title comes off as a kind of outsider art picture book. Or, as Claudia put it, “weird in a way that pleases you”. It does NOT look like a lot of the other books out there and all the backgrounds are hand painted.

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Three Lights by Maria Ramos, translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schiel

ISBN: 9781592704996

Publication Date: September 15, 2026

Some children’s books creators are free and easy with their blurbs, tossing them at every other book they see. Other creators blurb rarely, if at all, but when they do you sit up and take notice. Jon Klassen? He doesn’t blurb much, but he blurbed this book. It’s an early reader in the Spanish mode consisting of four little chapters. Anyone else notice how good the Europeans are so good at books of this particular length? Our heroes of the tale are a mole and his earthworm friends who notice when these illuminated things appear in the forest one night. Turns out, these creatures are stars that have fallen to earth. Their presence in the forest unites the creatures there and introduces Mole to Owl, prey and predator, as they work together to get the lights back into the sky.

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The Shadow Stream by Kirk Lombard, ill. Parker Thornton

ISBN: 9781592704941

Publication Date: October 20, 2026

This book is an interesting oddity. I get pitched a lot of books by authors, illustrators, publicity people, and even the occasional editor. I almost never get pitched book by agents, but the agent of The Shadow Stream really believes in this title. I’d heard of it even before Claudia’s preview. The thing is, this is the kind of book that doesn’t slot neatly into a category. It exists in that nebulous place that exists between adult and children’s books. Think Watership Down. Also different? Usually, Enchanted Lion doesn’t do fiction. But the book’s agent (again!) was so persistent that finally Claudia sat down and read it through. All at once, Claudia fell in love with the book as well, all 500 pages of it. It has talking animals, juvenile delinquents, two storylines, and a lot more. Oh. And fishing. One of those books that has to be seen and read to be believed.

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Bookstores Around the World by Maria Ivashkina, translated from Russian by Lena Traer

ISBN: 9781592704385

Publication Date: November 10, 2026

Our final title is more for adults, and focuses on unusual bookstores around the world. Kind of like a DK Informational book for grown-ups. Naturally I took one look at it and instantly thought of Jane Mount’s Bibliophile as a natural companion. One of the allures of the book is that it truly is international, with only two American bookstore inclusions: City Lights and Wild Rumpus. A little collection of book love rather ideal for the book lovers in your life.

Thanks again to Claudia for presenting these titles to me!

Filed under: Publisher Previews