Summer Reading 2026
Plant a Seed, Read
Children’s and YA Literature
Wellfleet Public Library
All selections and reviews by WPL Librarian Anna L. Nielsen
Picture Books
Every Monday Mabel
Awan, Jashar. Every Monday Mabel. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. Every Monday Mabel waits for the very, very best thing. She races through breakfast and watering the plants and saying hello to sister and Mom and Dad and zips right through the house to the yard to wait for the very, very best thing. Mondays are the best. Awan’s simple structured text moves Mabel and her story forward, working in conjunction with his digital illustrations to purely express Mabel’s rush and anticipatory excitement – readers can’t help but flip the pages faster to discover what, exactly, is the very, very best thing. Ages: 3+.
The Richest Cow in the World
WBarroux. The Richest Cow in the World. Toronto, ON: Kids Can Press, 2025. A perfect parable of the perils of wealth rapaciousness and capitalism, rather appropriate for our times of massive wealth gaps and our seemingly boundless devotion to acquisition. A cow has an apple tree. A pig gets excited. The ink outlines with watercolor filling and the Lunchbox text keep the story seeming more simplistic than resoundingly, fundamentally simple until the pop of veracity of the final spread. Such a clever parable. Ages: 3+.
Paloma Flies Away
WGuarda, Maria J.; trans. Spanish (Chile) Melanie Cordova. Paloma Flies Away. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2026. Paloma comes from a country with a tyrant, a tyrant who takes over, and forces all who value agency and freedom to flee, to fly away. She misses her old home even if she doesn’t quite remember it; she knows her parents are different, other. The watercolor and ink illustrations are somber, deep in tone, with dark colors on tan rather than bright white paper. But her glasses are big and show wide-open eyes and her cheeks are filled with color. Paloma flies away and flies back again. Home is where you make it. Ages: 6+.
Ritu in the Sun
WHossain, Moniza; illus. Merce Lopez. Ritu in the Sun. NY: Crown Books for Young Readers, Random House Children’s Books, 2026. Singaporean author Hossain teams with Spanish illustrator to tell the story of Ritu and her grandmother, working through generations of colorism and identity and learning to claim themselves for the love they share and not the inaccurate auspices of passing. Each page builds their affectionate relationship, and each spread of acrylic paint and graphite lines show the comfort and fondness between Ritu and Nani, especially through their eyes, glancing sideways and directly, tracking each other in every moment of their shared day. And the smiles; oh, the smiles. Ages: 3+.
Everybelly
Lam, Thao. Everybelly. Toronto/Berkeley : Groundwood Books, House of Anansi Press, 2025. Lam’s collage work is gorgeous and precise, expertly cut colored and textured papers across the pages, perfectly placed to match her frank and sly, funny narrative. “Mr. Popov lives below us. He loves it when I tap dance. He always keeps time with his broom.” The narrator is waving at poor Mr. Popov, who rides the escalator past her, slumped with a frown and his hat hung low. The narrator is completely without guile; adult and children will giggle as they read. Ages: 3+.
Marcelo Martello Marshmallow
Rocha, Ruth; illus. Ana Matsuasaki ; trans. Portuguese (Brazil) Tal Goldfajn. Marcelo Martello Marshmallow. Huntington, NY: Tapioca Stories, 2024. A classic of Brazilian children’s literature, newly illustrated and translated. First published in the 1960’s, it has been reissued over 55 times and is used in primary schools across the country. Marcelo is a boy who is obsessed with questions. “Why?’ he asks. “Why?” He puzzles over the names of things, and invents nouns to better match what things are and what they do – milk becomes cow juice. His curiosity is unbounding and teaches us all to think. Fun! Ages: 4+.
A Tree is Nice
Udry, Janice May; illus. Marc Simont. A Tree is Nice. NY: Harper & Row, 1956. Winner of the 1957 Caldecott Award, this straightforward story pragmatically and calmy lists all the reasons trees are nice: they have leaves you can play in, they fill up the sky, they have branches birds can make nests in. The world is so nice, and trees are even nicer. The watercolor illustrations switch from black and white to full color – still a novelty in 1957 – and all show the glory of trees. A sweet and simple pleasure not to be missed. Ages: 3+.
Tiny Garden
WUnderwood, Deborah; illus. Jax Chow. Tiny Garden. NY: A Cameron Kids Book, Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2026. Little Andrew loves plants and planting, but gardens can be overwhelming: big gardens, showy gardens, even bigger gardens filled with purpose and planning. Andrew starts small, tiny even, with a tiny, tiny rectangle of soil and tiny, tiny seeds. He waters and waits, and a world is born. Underwood is such a solid and experienced writer the story pads forward purposefully, no plodding, and Chow’s illustrations of gouache, watercolor, and colored pencil add depth and distinction gentle and riotous. An ideal introduction to gardening and reading. Ages: 3+.
Older Picture Books
The Great Bear
Gleeson, Libby; illus. Armin Greder. The Great Bear. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2011. A bear is trapped, imprisoned, forced to dance, to perform in a circus. The life is so binding, so cruel, so conniving, so full of human inhuman faces taunting and striking, she has no choice but to roar and break free. On the one hand, the origin story of Ursa Major in the Northern Hemisphere. On another, the story of what should be universal rights to dignity and respect and the freedom to live free. To live. The illustrations are slashes and gashes, rough curves filled with hard-pressed coloration until finally, the sky. Winner of the 2000 Bologna Ragazzi Award. Ages: 9+.
Astro
Marsol, Mauel; trans. Spanish (Spain) Lizzie Davis. Astro. Berkeley, CA: Transit Children’s Editions, 2024. Grief, loss, exploration, acceptance. The illustrations are busy and squiggly and fantastical, the questions real. “Why is there something instead of nothing? What’s the point of being alive?” Award-winning artist and writer Marsol took ten years to query and draw. Maybe someday, one of us will figure out the answers and share them half as well. Ages: 9+.
Firefly
McFarlane, Robert, illus. Luke Adam Hawker. Firefly. NY: Magic Hat Publishing, 2025. The illustrations seem upon first glance to be shades of grey and black sketched; they are, each one, a handcrafted copper plate etching, comprising a journey of fireflies to becoming. Beautiful. Ages: 7+.
Old as Stone, Hard as Rock: of humans and war
Sanna, Alessandro; trans. Italian (Italy) Ammiel Alcalay. Old as Stone, Hard as Rock: Of Humans and War. Brooklyn, NY: Unruly, Enchanted Lion Books, 2025. The epigraph is Cormac McCarthy and tells us all we’re about to know. “It makes no difference what men think of war. As well ask men what they think of stone.” The rest of the book is entirely visual – the story of war from sticks and stones breaking all our bones to the bombs and cages that really hurt us. Sanna is a moralist artist and a philosopher one – he wants to know, to use his hands to know, what it is about humanity that insists on destruction. Compelling and gorgeous. Absolutely recommend. Ages: 14+.
Early and Middle Fiction
Taming Papa
Goupil, Mylene; trans. French Shelley Tanaka. Taming Papa. Toronto: Groundwood Books, House of Anansi Press, 2024. Melie has never met her father. He’s a political prisoner in another country. And now he’s here, with her and her mom, in her country, not speaking. He knows the language of the country of his prison, she knows the language of the country where they live. Her mother translates between, and Melie worries that her words are too hard, that there aren’t enough words to say everything she needs to tell her father, and also, why won’t he get off the couch? “He’s come out of prison, but the prison has not come out of him.” Patience and love, love and patience. Having a family is worth it. Ages: 8+.
The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest
WHartman, Aubrey. The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest. NY: Little, Brown Co., 2025. The world is filled with those living in the living world and those dead and living in the dead world. Clare is a fox, corroding and in the dark but sweet and kind, who leads the living to being dead. Gingersnipes is a ghost of a badger who won’t move on. Because moving on is hard, and sometimes it hurts, so why would anyone? A solid animal adventure with a classic feel. Ages: 8+.
The Second Life of Snap
Kelly, Erin Entrada. The Second Life of Snap. NY: Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2026. Even when corporations take over, love finds a way. There are so many kinds of connection, so many kinds of lives. And sometimes, we have more than one life, more than one name. Even if we’re designated by class, forced to wear our status of “lower” on nametags; even if the planet is destroyed by climate change and those with less are forced to scrabble for enough, not with those who have plenty, but with those who don’t have enough either; even if you’re twelve-years old and your best friend is a re-programmed robot named SNAP (Secure Network Android Processor). Especially then. Ages: 8+.
The Teacher of Nomad Land
Nayeri, Daniel. The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story. Montclair, NJ: Levine Querido, 2025. “There is no earthly argument for orphans to get their way. If there was, they wouldn’t be orphans.” And with war stealing everything, there’s even less. What are Babuk and his little sister Sana to do? Stick together? With who?! Babuk is too young to be so tired, so desperate, so sure that words can be inconsolable, and that so can the hands that scratch the letters line by line. He’s tired, his sister is scared, and not all adults are too ashamed to steal from children. Babuk “gets the feeling that this is the whole world, no one able to hear anyone else. Everyone with a different map for the same spot of ground.” But he knows the difference between what’s fair and what’s right. His father taught him. The great and horrible misunderstanding of war will not get him, or his sister. Nayeri gives us another book infinitely worth reading. Ages: 8+.
The Lion’s Run
Pennypacker, Sara; illus. Jon Klassen. The Lions’ Run. NY: Balzer & Bray, Macmillan Publishing Group, 2026. Such a complicated thing, courage. We imagine we will be that person, that hero who stands; or we think we will, at least. But how will we know until we know? Lucas Dubois is an orphan boy the others name after a pastry. A small pastry. He does not want to be small. He wants to be huge, towering – a monument to courage in the middle of occupied France. He will start with kittens. Ages: 8+.
Planting Sunshine
Poulin, Andree; illus. Enzo; trans. French Andree Poulin. Planting Sunshine. Toronto / Berkeley, Groundwood Books, House of Anansi Press, 2026. “But why?” Theo asks. “But why? He asks, again and again. The adults sigh or pontificate, none really having an answer. It could be money, it could be greed, it could that “history is full of cruel and violent people who do cruel and violent things.” There are so many types of bombs Theo can’t even believe it. “Humans are so creative in their cruelty.” Adults don’t seem to care. Or do they? Do they find a way to manage? Mrs. Lena shares seeds and Theo smushes them into soil and listens, really listens, and for a brief moment there is a spark of something like joy. Keep planting. Ages: 8+.
Styx and Stones
WSchmidt, Gary D. and Ron Koertge. Styx and Stones. NY: Clarion Books, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2026. A twist on Greek mythology. Simon may be stuck in Hade’s world with no hope of pomegranates, but he still refuses to drink from the river of forgetfulness. He will remember. He will make it out. Escaping to a middle school bathroom in St. Paul, MN isn’t exactly what he had planned, but hey. We all do what we can. And when we meet a friend worth fighting for, a love worth fighting for, well. Then we can do anything. And no amount of grief is worth forgetting, because what is loss but the luck of something worth grieving? Ages: 8+.
A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic or Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm a Story Out of Order
WStead, Philip. A Potion, A Powder, A Little Bit of Magic or Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm a Story Out of Order. NY: Holiday House Publishing, 2026. Goats! Goats out of order named Lancelot and Steve and Martha and Nancy, plus twenty more! Stead, of award-winning picture book fame, tried his hand at middle-grade fiction, playing with narrative and time along the way. He doesn’t start at the beginning, because the beginning is not always the right place to begin. Sometimes the middle is. Or even the end. So each chapter is out of order, and readers get to piece together the story themselves. Such a lovely treat to think outside a gray box constructed of straight lines and zeros and ones. Ages: 8+.
Poetry and Nonfiction
The Great Big Book of Museums
Bensard, Eva; illus. Benjamin Chaud; trans. French Karin Nelson. The Great Big Book of Museums. Brooklyn, NY: Red Comet Press, 2025. A world tour of museums from Algeria to Russia to Italy to Chaina and all around in between, all with Chaud’s charming and detailed illustrations. A fabulously fun exploration. Ages: 7+..
Origin
Cardozo, Nat; trans. Spanish (Spain) Ian Farnes and Layla Benitez-James. Origin. Brooklyn, NY: Red Comet Press, 2025. A stunningly illustrated compendium of Indigenous identity, looking at origin stories of twenty-two peoples across five continents, all with ways of life in which “the relationship with nature is based on respect, cohesion, and gratitude.” Worth saying again: stunning. Red Comet Press is doing things right. Ages: 7+.
I Am the Wind
Jacob, Lucinda and Sarah Webb, Eds.; illus. Ashwin Chacko. I Am the Wind: Irish Poems for Children Everywhere. Dublin, Ireland, 2023. A deep and varied collection of Irish poetry – from W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney to Eithne Hand and Rachael Hegarty. Bright and boisterous illustrations. Slip into summer and read a poem for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why not play? Ages: 5+.
Goldfinches
WOliver, Mary; illus. Melissa Sweet. Goldfinches. NY: Viking, Random House, 2026. Mary Oliver, our beloved Provincetown poet, has posthumously published children’s editions of her poetry and biographies. Caldecott Honor winner Melissa Sweet applies her signature mixed media collages and watercolors to Goldfinches, along with biographical information. Fr even more, try the biography Mary Oliver: Holding on to Wonder (Erin Frankel; illus. Jasu Hu, NY: Calkins Creek, Astra, 2025) and Woods & Words: The Story of Poet Mary Oliver (Sara Holly Ackerman; illus. Naoko Stoop, NY: Beach Lane Books, Simon & Schuster, 2025). Ages: 5+.
Atlas of Borders
Papin, Delphine and Bruno Tertrais; maps Xemartin Laborde; Trans. French (France) Bethany Wright. Atlas of Borders: Walls, Migrations, and Conflicts in 70 Maps. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 2025. A history of the machinations and mercies of man, through maps. It’s marvelous, and a great gateway to further learning. Ages: 14+
The Global Economy as You’ve Never Seen It
Ramge, Thomas and Jan Schwochow with Adrian Garcia-Landa. The Global Economy as You’ve Never Seen It. NYL The Experiment, LLC, 2018. Billed as “99 ingenious infographics that put it all together,” and the promotion isn’t wrong. From How We Work to the History of Money to the Export Game and the Value of Water, the book takes readers through an introductory explanation of how economics control us and they world we’re living (sort of) in. Sections like How Big is Big Data? and Banking Without Banks? Could be updated since 2018 publication, but the entire, giant text is still worth a serious surveyal. Learn and enjoy. Ages: 14+.
Young Adult
Change of Plans
WDessen, Sarah. Change of Plans. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2026. The latest from the original doyenne of strong girl teen romance. Dessen always gives her girls growth, compassion, strength, and a guaranteed HEA. Finley starts the book with the perfect boyfriend who swept her off her feet at the very beginning of high school. It’s graduation and she decided to blow off her first pick college for a lesser college to follow him. And, you guessed it, he dumps her. Now she’s got a summer to figure herself out. And meet Ben. Yummy Ben. Great summer beach read. Ages: 14+.
How to Survive the End of the World
WDoughty, Katy. How to Survive the End of the World: A Graphic Exploration of How to (Maybe) Avoid Extinction. Cambridge, MA: MITeen Press, 2026. Extniction, climate change, AI – all the facts of harrowing modern existence, in text and graphic format. Also a little bit of hope. Educational and entertaining. Ages: 14+.
Somadina
WEmezi, Akwaeke. Somadina. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025. One of the more creative writers in young adult literature, Emezi this time shares a tightly designed world of magic and control, fear and redemption. What do you do when your twin is stolen, and it turns out you have powers to destroy? What would you do? Who would you decide to be? Ages: 14+.
When Devils Sing
WKaur, Xan. When Devils Sing. NY: Holt & Co., 2025. Southern gothic horror for teens. When we talk about small towns, we like to think of happy bubble sunshine tropes, but what about a small town that’s evil, from the very ancient core? Cicadas rise and teens disappear, leaving bloody messes in their wake. This time, one teen is gone and four teens investigate. What is this sweet little town with death all around? Super creepy. Ages: 14+.
Sundown Girls
Stratton, L.S. Sundown Girls. NY: Nancy Paulsen Books, Penguin Random House LLC, 2026. Sundown towns are real - towns that didn’t allow Black and other non-white people after the sun went down. Not usually while the sun was up, either. With that horrifying history, Stratton weaves a creepy tale of hateful men and ghosts and missing girls, of truth finally being uncovered and justice served. Shivery. Ages: 14+.
I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This
Yelcin, Eugene. I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2025. Award-winning graphic memoir about growing up in the Soviet Union under an authoritarian regime. Filled with the realities and consequences of “friendly warnings” and less friendly ones, and what it means when the state network shows Swan Lake. Gripping, heartrending, massively relevant. Ages: 14+.
And the River Drags Her Down
Yun, Jihyun. And the River Drags Her Down. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025. When Soojin’s beloved older sister Mirae dies, Soojin desperately wants her back. So Soojin resurrects her, via forbidden magic. All should be well, but Mirae is different. Death changes a girl. Uh-oh. Ages: 14+.
