Non-fiction

To help children understand and navigate the current state of the world, On the News: Our First Talk about Tragedy (Orca, Sept.) – by Jillian Roberts and Jane Heinrichs, ill. – helps explain natural disasters, terrorism, and other tragic events. • Editors at Pajama Press have enlisted 12 children’s illustrators, including Rebecca Bender and Suzanne Del Rizzo, for A World of Kindness (Oct.), which aims to show kids different ways to be kind. • Inspired by Barack Obama’s Of Thee I Sing, Wab Kinew has written a powerful picture book, Go Show the World (Tundra, Sept.), based on one of Kinew’s rap songs celebrating the stories of Indigenous people. • Black Women Who Dared (Second Story, Sept.), written and illustrated by Naomi M. Moyer, features biographies of 10 Black women and collectives, including anti-slavery activists, businesswomen, advocates, and educators. • Scholastic Canada’s new comic book–style biography series – written by Elizabeth MacLeod and illustrated by Mike Deas – starts with Meet Viola
Desmond (Aug.) and Meet Chris Hadfield (Aug.). • The history of the goalie mask gets the picture-book treatment in Andrée Poulin’s That’s Not Hockey! (Annick, Sept.), about Jacques Plante, the goaltender who saw the need for facial protection and – ignorning the naysayers – designed the equipment himself. • Caroline Woodward pens a poetic ode to the sights and wonders of the Pacific Northwest in A West Coast Summer, which Carol Evans gorgeously complements with photorealistic paintings. (Harbour Publishing, Sept.)

All about animals

• 5 Rhinos, Anne Innis Dagg (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Oct.)
• Canada Animals, Paul Covello (HarperTrophy, Sept.)
• My First Book of Canadian Birds, Andrea Miller and Angela K. Doak, ill. (Nimbus, Oct.)
• Animals Illustrated: Arctic Wolf, William Flaherty and Sean Bigham, ill. (Inhabit, Oct.)

For the series minded

This fall sees the return of plenty of familiar faces, from Judy Moody to Delilah Dirk.

August:

• The Frostblood Saga: Nightblood, Elly Blake (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers/Hachette Book Group)
• Delilah Dirk and the Pillars of Hercules, Tony Cliff (First Second/Raincoast)
• The Twisted Climb: Darkness Descends, J.C. Kavanagh (BWL Publishing)

September

• Weird Stories Gone Wrong: Blackwells and the Briny Deep, Philippa Dowding (Dundurn)
• The Blackthorn Key: Call of the Wraith, Kevin Sands (Aladdin/S&S Canada)
• The Nameless City: The Divided Earth, Faith Erin Hicks (First Second/Raincoast)
• Steve the Horse: Team Steve, Kelly Collier (Kids Can)
• Judy Moody and the Right Royal Tea Party, Megan McDonald and Peter H. Reynolds, ill. (Candlewick Press/PRHC)
• Children of the Bloodlands: The Realms of Ancient, Book 2, S.M. Beiko (ECW Press)

October

• Shadow of the Unicorn: The Revenge, Suzanne de Montigny (BWL)
• Connect the Scotts: The Dead Kid Detective Agency, Book #4, Evan Munday (ECW)
• Even Superheroes Make Mistakes, Shelly Becker and Eda Kaban, ill. (Sterling Children’s Books/Manda)
• Ira Crumb Feels the Feelings, Naseem Hrab and Josh Holinaty, ill. (Owlkids)
• Lumberjanes: The Good Egg, Mariko Tamaki and Brooklyn Allen, ill. (Amulet Books/Manda)
• Giraffe and Bird Together Again, Rebecca Bender (Pajama)
• Rescue in the Rockies, Rita Feutl (Coteau)

International

Two-time Newbery Medal winner Kate DiCamillo returns to her main character from the 2016 middle-grade novel Raymie Nightingale in Louisiana’s Way Home (Candlewick/PRHC, Oct.). • The Book Thief author Markus Zusak is back with Bridge of Clay, a YA saga about five brothers whose father has disappeared (Knopf Books For Young Readers/PRHC, Oct.). • Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park) introduces two short stories about teen love in Almost Midnight (Pan Macmillan/PGC, Nov.), illustrated by Simini Blocker. • David Levithan’s Someday (Knopf BFYR/PRHC, Oct.) is the sequel to his YA romance fantasy novel Every Day, a NYT bestseller and feature film. • Jerry Pinkney illustrates A Home in the Barn (HarperCollins, Sept.) from a previously unpublished manuscript by Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon. • The world’s youngest Nobel laureate, Malala Yousafzai, shares personal immigration stories from girls around the world in We Are Displaced (Little, Brown BFYR/HBC, Sept.). • Bestselling author Dave Eggers teams up again with artist Shawn Harris for What Can a Citizen Do? (Chronicle Books/Raincoast, Sept.), a guide to political activism for young people. • All About Anne educates middle-graders with words and pictures from the Anne Frank House and illustrations by Huck Scarry, son of the famed Richard and Patricia Scarry (Second Story, Sept.). • A teen struggles to reconcile his cultural identities in Adib Khorram’s Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Dial/PRHC, Aug.). • Tahereh Mafi joins Harper-Collins’s #ownvoices campaign in A Very Large Expanse of Sea, about a Muslim teen post-9/11 (Oct.).  –Becky Robertson