Lucy and James Catchpole share heartfelt stories that reflect their experiences as disabled parents. In ‘Mama Car’, the child narrator shares family moments, offering insight into life with a wheelchair-bound parent. This sweet story fosters understanding, showing both everyday adventures and the comfort of a loving family.

Onjali Q. Raúf's debut picture book is a heartwarming story about welcoming a new child who has fled her homeland. With Pippa Curnick's stunning illustrations, it beautifully captures the emotions of fear, sadness, and friendship. Perfect for ages 3+, this story encourages empathy and offers tips on making refugee children feel welcome. A must-have for every school and library.

This book deserves a place on everyone’s bookshelf, especially in schools. This book is a fantastic resource for parents, carers, and teachers to read with children throughout primary school. It’s a great tool to help teach kids about online behaviour, especially the concept of ‘trolls.’

Excitedly it’s Shakespeare’s The Tempest that gets a Louie Stowell-style makeover for the second in this picture book series, and it is beautifully illustrated by Isobel Lundie with a really cosy autumnal seasonal feel. Great story for emotional development AND learning about our British bard at the same time!!

Matou learns not to judge others by appearances after trying on shoes outside a mosque, especially when her mum has to stay late at work and misses their movie afternoon. A beautifully illustrated tale about empathy and understanding, perfect for sparking classroom discussions.

Both these creators, Rachel Ip and Natelle Quek, have individually become mainstays of the Children’s picture book world, particularly for books which sensitively and masterfully focus on specific themes in a combination: divorce, dementia, or saving the planet. ‘One Day at a Time’ is about siblings, Poppy and Robin, deliriously happy in their family life, who find out their parents are separating and learn how to find a happy new normal.

This is a superb fairy tale story for all children to enjoy, reducing the shame and stigma associated with bed wetting, or even little accidents during the day. I hope to see more picture books, and hopefully some poetry from this wonderful Children's creator, Effua Gleed, and her fun and joyful imagination.

I’ve been waiting for Rachel to whisk my imagination away on another one of her sweet magical adventures. I adored ‘The Wishkeeper’s Apprentice’ (Walker Books, 2023). 10 year old Callie struggles with a far away house move and grief after losing her mum. A magical mishap brings some much-needed sparkle into her life again in more ways than one.

Having followed Xin Li for some time on social media, as soon as she started dropping hints of this book, I was hot on the case, and wow, does it take your breath away - it’s absolutely STUNNING! Xin Li cites many influences on her website including: Shaun Tan, Maurice Sendak, Jackie Morris, The Fan Brothers and many more greats… I love this empathy story about Emma, who finds the busy, loud side of kid life hard to cope with.

Following the success of ‘Nen and the Lonely Fisherman’, Owlet Press have collaborated with the award-winning children’s television writer, Barbara Slade (credits include Angelina Ballerina, Winnie the Pooh, Rugrats) and illustrator Lucia Soto to create a fairy tale love story, this time between two girls, Cinder and Ella.

‘Rory’s Room of Rectangles’, breathtakingly illustrated by Jessica Knight, published exactly 1 month before Father’s Day, and for a very good reason. Taking art as a metaphor for life and art as a form or expression for emotions within the story, the author and illustrator are symbiotic in communicating Rory’s journey to readers. As the subtitle on the front cover reveals, this is “a story of blended families and big feelings”, and it delivers.

An hilarious seaside caper for the sunshine season that will be enjoyed by both confident and reluctant readers. Wonderful 'guide' for empathy, and I'll try thinking of gerbils in egg cups next time I need a zen moment! Probably in 5 minutes...

Meet Charlie and his dads!! They're about to adopt a little sister for Charlie, but Charlie's not sure he's going to be the best big bro!! He had no idea how brave and awesome a kid he was until he met magical fox, Cadno, and had to go on adventure to save him from some rather otherworldly baddies!! Exciting adventure set in Wales.

I thought I'd had all the variants of 'The Three Little Pigs' and 'Little Red Riding Hood' I could take... I was so wrong! Discovering Lucy Rowland and Ben Mantle's brilliant rhyming 'fractured fairy tales' picture book series a couple of years ago was an absolute Godsend. Not only have I used them in my local primary school book clubs and bookshop storytimes, but they're read and re-read at home too whether I'm reading them to my children.

A giggle of a story... Frank, the fox, and Bert, the bear, are two really good friends. However, Frank moans to the reader about how simply awful his friend Bert is at playing hide-and-seek. Bert hides with all the expertise of a toddler! As you can imagine the game is over fairly quickly and Frank wins every time. Until one day...