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Posted by Betsy Bird

https://afuse8production.slj.com/2025/06/20/publisher-preview-eerdmans-books-for-young-readers-fall-2025/

https://afuse8production.slj.com/?p=53001

Woohoo! Here’s a new one! I am pleased to premiere one of my favorite small (and Michigan-based!) publishers here on the site. We’ve been having a lot of fun with your average Brooklyn-based small fry, but today let’s get a little more Midwestern. And Eerdmans is SUCH an interesting case. They first came to my attention way back in 2009 when A River of Words (by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet) won a Caldecott Honor. For a small pub, that can be the equivalent of winning the lottery (and, sadly, having to deal with backorders for the next few months because you don’t have enough books in stock to fulfill the immediate need). It was particularly interesting too because Eerdmans began its life as a Christian book publisher. Unlike other Christian book publishers, however, they’re adept at straddling the line, offering both Christian and secular books of high quality to their young readers.

Which is a pretty good way of describing the titles you’ll be hearing about today. Some have some God stuff. Others do not. But they’re all interesting in their own particular manner:

Consider the Birds by Jennifer Grant, ill. Julianna Swaney

ISBN: 9780802855626

Publication Date: August 5th

The parochial and private school librarians are already glomming onto this title, my friends. With three books planned for the series, this book kicks the series off. In it, we combine birds, nature, counting, and a bit of faith as well (Eerdmans explained to me that this season some of their books were getting back to their roots). Inspired by the writer’s affection for Matthew 6:26 (I had to look it up too, and you can find it here) the book counts up to five and then back down to one, at the close of the day. There is also a tiny mention of God at the end. So what will books two and three in this series include? “Consider the Lillies” is slated for #2 and Consider the Night Sky is #3. Books for the early childhood crowd.

Birds of Christmas by Olivia Armstrong, ill. Mira Miroslavova

ISBN: 9780802856470

Publication Date: August 12th

Inexplicably, and in spite of her accomplishments, in Olivia Armstrong we find a first time author. Now in her day-to-day life Olivia is a professional storryteller. The kind that has spoken at Westminster Abbey, the National Gallery, etc. This book is actually based on a folktale that she’s performed on the BBC and it’s its first time in a picture book form. Created with a kind of classic text and art, Eerdmans is advertising this towards fans of Tomie dePaola and Patricia Polacco. The gist of it? It’s an explanatory myth on how the robin got his red breast. Naturally, knowing the author’s origins I had to ask: American robin red breast or British robin? British, my friends. In this story different birds offer different gifts to the baby Jesus. The robin wants to bring a gift, but doesn’t know what to bring. However, once it sees that the baby is shivering the robin knows what to do and brings in twigs to feed the fire so that baby and mother can get warm again. One ember lasts on her chest and the color spreads, a bright badge of red courage.

Sound: Discovering the Vibrations We Hear by Olga Fadeeva, translated by Lena Traer

ISBN: 9780802856487

Publication Date: August 26th

With books on Water and Wind already under her belt, clearly it was time for Olga Fadeeva to tackle a whole new sensation: Sound. The Russian informational picture book creator was born in Siberia and now lives in San Francisco. Here she dives into the history, the science, and the everything about sound. Infographic appeal. The book opens with an evocative reflection on sound and all the different ways we interact with it in our lives. After all, we are born listening and that sense shapes our lives. Now the physics of sound can be so abstract and complicated, but this book makes it understandable. For example, there are little “Try It” sections throughout the book that allow you to do some experiments on your own. To make them, Eerdmans asked a high school teacher for their advice so as to make sure the activities not only teach science well but also that they’re easy for folks to do at home. Throughout the book there are animal sounds, sounds underwater, sounds throughout history, sounds in modern life, sounds in Neolithic times, orchestras, modern instruments, inventions that make sounds, etc.

Fly Like a Bird by Olga Ptashnik

ISBN: 9780802856456

Publication Date: September 2nd

Another book by an Olga! We seem to be just full of them these days. I like to think of this book as what you’d get if Muybridge had ever decided to creature picture books rather than, oh y’know, start the entire motion picture industry. So this particular book is for 4-9 year-olds but can trend a little younger as well. Illustrated by a self-taught artist, the book is for future ornithologists and bird watchers. And yes, it comes from a passion for birds, but Olga also has a Masters in Biophysics and was named a Best Scipop Illustrator by the Russian Academy of Science in 2019. This book contains gentle SEL messages of uniqueness, growth, and change. A small chickedee wants to fly, but before she makes the attempt she needs to be told how other birds fly. Olga spent hours of watching birds in flight and used that research to make the art. Why did I say that this reminded me of Muybridge? Well, just look at all the ways in which birds move on the page! Check out the shadowed echoes of where they were. Throughout, the chickedee is comparing itself to others. It’s a global of selection of creatures and at the end is some backmatter with facts about the birds you’ve met along the way. You which animal I was most excited to see? That’s right, it’s right on the cover: Peregrine falcons are included! Woohoo!

Journey of the Humpbacks by Juliana Munoz Toro, ill. Dipacho, translated by Lawrence Schimel

ISBN: 9780802856432

Publication Date: September 16th

Now let’s meet an informational book from Colombia (where it won awards, no less) created with a veritable team of researchers! This book falls squarely into the beautiful art/browsable nonfiction section of today’s post. The book follows two different paths. Inside, there’s a descriptive text that works in parallel to the information sections. This narrative part follows a group of humpback whales from south to north. Their story is interspersed with facts on what humpbacks eat and how they feed. The book then shows young readers how whales contribute to their ecosystems. And yes, in case you were wondering, it does include whale falls! The story starts in a specific place (Colombia) and follows from this one migratory route, but it also has global resonance and global appeal, and says something about the wider world. In the end, the book closes with the migratory routes of humpbacks around the world. And now for what might be my own personal favorite part. You see, the backmatter gives bios of the researchers who contributed to the book and it illustrates all of them in this incredible inimitable style. Check it out!

Late Today by Jungyoon Huh, ill. Myungae Lee, translated by Aerin Park

ISBN: 9780802856494

Publication Date: September 23rd

BOY, this book sounded familiar as Eerdmans described it to me. I mean, like, really really familiar. Then it struck me. On March 15, 2023, I wrote a post from the Bologna Book Fair called Titles I’d Love to See in America. And for this particular book I wrote, “Last year the picture books of South Korea were my absolute favorites I adored finding so many of them, though alas I have yet to see Battery Daddy or My Father’s Hands on any shelves here in the States yet (come on, people!!). This year, the book I liked the best was Late Today.” For Eerdmans, this is their first Korean translation. Why did I like this book so much when I first saw it? Quite frankly, even before I read the translation, its topics of compassion and sacrifice and busyness were already compelling. In the story a kitten is stuck in a traffic jam. How did it get there? Nobody knows. Will it get killed? Possibly. The kitten, for the record, is able to jump through the different panels. And while everyone wants to help, no one wants to get out of their car. Sound familiar? It’s a sort of rush hour book. Better still, the bridge featured is a real one and the author actually lives close to it (it’s in Seoul). On top of everything else, the book makes for great conversation fodder. You can use it to ask young readers, “What would you do? What would you say? What would the people around you say in this kind of a situation?” My favorite line in the whole thing is actually the line at the end. “We all were late. But it’s okay. Today was a good day to be late.” Now kids KNOW all about being late, after all, but the point of this book is that being late is less important than being kind. So get your priorities straight, people.

The Tree That Was a World by Yorick Goldewijk, ill. Jeska Verstegen, translated by Laura Watkinson

ISBN: 9780802856500

Publication Date: October 14th

Anyone else noticing how it has been a shocking good year for novellas in 2025? I’ve been noticing a whole slew of shorter fiction books out there and I am ON BOARD with this trend! And in the case of this particular book I was thinking (as I was read portions) how perfectly it complements another import. If someone were to put this book next to My Presentation Today Is About the Anaconda and do a booktalk on the two of them together, you’d be firing on all cylinders, my friend. Now this particular book was translated from Dutch by a translator who has won, I kid you not, THREE Batchelders! This book in particular is an unusual little beastie, both funny and surreal, an exploration of nature and behavior. Here’s the cool part: In the Netherlands it won the prize It won the prize for the best children’s philosophical book (we don’t have that one in American do we?). The book is about the animals that live in and around a particular tree. Through short stories we learn more about each one. The sloth goes for midnight runs when he thinks no one is watching. Two pikes live in a pond, where one is utterly disgusted with its companion and the other pike is just hopelessly in love with the first. Other stories include one about the moon moth caterpillar who watches everyone become moths and decides to stay as she is. And then there’s the most deliciously disturbing one about an aphid named Annie with a bit of a penchant for cannibalism. It has lines like, “Annie was hungry too, but not for leaves,” and, “Those fat, glistening bodies…” The folks at Eerdmans read me this entire passage and I now have NOTHING but respect for them. It reminded me of an old Daniel Lavery piece on The Toast based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar called “The Hunger of the Caterpillar” which, sadly, is lost to the sands of time. Suffice to say, this book doesn’t shy away from the darker parts of nature.

And that’s all we have for you today! Special thanks to Amy Storey and the team at Eerdmans for taking the time to talk to me about their books.

https://afuse8production.slj.com/2025/06/20/publisher-preview-eerdmans-books-for-young-readers-fall-2025/

https://afuse8production.slj.com/?p=53001