Best children's books - Best Books This Month

It’s easy to feel lost in the flood of so many new children’s books available. Each month, our Review Panel reads scores of new books and we highlight five of our recently published favourites.

This month, our panel of experienced teachers, librarians and children’s book experts has carefully selected five outstanding titles for you to read, with plenty of options to read on holiday! There’s something for all young readers in this list, including poetry, a picturebook and three chapter books.

Beautifully illustrated by Junli Song, Zaro Weils’s new poetry collection, I Hear the Trees, is sometimes serious, sometimes whimsical, with enchanting, nature-inspired poems which explore a range of emotions and themes. Our reviewer recommended this collection as “a springboard for… activities that engage children in literature and nature.”

For younger readers, Peter Brown’s bestselling The Wild Robot has been adapted into an accessible, colour picture book, The Wild Robot on the Island. With atmospheric illustrations which bring the island and its creatures vividly to life, our Review Panel highly recommended this book, describing it as “a rare find: an emotionally intelligent, wildly imaginative, and quietly powerful book that sparks both conversation and curiosity.”

There’s plenty of choice for KS2 and KS3 readers in this month’s list. Fans of intrigue and adventure will love Jasbinder Bilan’s gothic musical mystery, Naeli and the Secret Song, and Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick’s fast-paced fantasy, The Museum of Lost Umbrellas. Abena Eyeson’s story of athletics, family relationships and resilience, Running My Own Race, is recommended by our reviewer as “an engaging yet easy read from start to finish and will inspire young readers to stand up for what they want and to follow their dreams.”

Discover our Review Panel’s top new children’s books for you to read in August 2025.

Running My Own Race

Abena Eyeson

Chapter book

Kofi’s mum wants him to be ‘somebody’ – she has come to believe that because he’s black, he needs the best education to compete in the real world, and so she makes him do the exams to win a scholarship to a prestigious private school.

Kofi is successful and wins the scholarship, and his mum is overjoyed – in fact, the whole community is proud of him and keeps telling him so. Others keep telling him how fortunate he is, but the problem is he doesn’t feel very lucky – he didn’t want this, and now he just feels pressure from all around. The one good thing about his new school is the athletics club – the coach has spotted his potential, and he has a good chance of competing in the London Schools’ Championships. But Kofi’s mum doesn’t approve of him running (she wants him to focus on his studies), and the school bully will do anything to ruin his chances because he doesn’t want Kofi to outshine him. Kofi’s best friend says that he needs to start standing up for himself, but that’s easier said than done.

Running My Own Race is a book about learning to find your path and having the courage to speak up for what you want. With themes of sports, resilience and prejudice, the book is best suited to lower KS3 or mature KS2 readers. It is an engaging yet easy read from start to finish and will inspire young readers to stand up for what they want and to follow their dreams.

The Wild Robot on the Island

Peter Brown

Picturebook

The Wild Robot on the Island is a beautifully illustrated and emotionally rich picture book that introduces readers to Roz, a robot stranded on a wild island after the cargo ship transporting her sinks. This simplified, picturebook adaptation of Peter Brown’s bestselling novel The Wild Robot captures the heart of Roz’s story in an accessible colour format for younger readers, while retaining its thoughtful exploration of empathy, belonging, identity and resilience.

Accidentally activated by a curious otter, Roz must learn to survive in the wild with no instructions, no idea of her purpose. Roz is initially met with fear and suspicion by the island’s animal inhabitants until an unexpected twist leads her to adopt a newly hatched gosling named Brightbill. Through this act of care, Roz learns how to live in harmony with nature and form meaningful relationships.

The author made this version to depict Roz’s life on the island with full-colour, atmospheric illustrations to vividly bring the island and its creatures to life, acting as a small window into Roz’s bigger story and inviting discussion via a thought-provoking new visual dimension. The story also invites big questions: What does it mean to be alive? How do we care for others who are different from us?

A superb choice for guided reading and whole-class discussions, The Wild Robot is a rare find: an emotionally intelligent, wildly imaginative, and quietly powerful book that sparks both conversation and curiosity. It is highly recommended for any primary classroom or school library.

The Museum of Lost Umbrellas

Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick

Chapter book

From the moment orphaned Dilly arrives on Ollipest Island to live with her grand-Aunt Florence, whom she has never met before, she can sense that there is something unusual about the place, yet she feels strangely connected to it – the storybook cottage is comforting and her aunt is kind, although for some reason distant, and she immediately feels like somehow she belongs.

Dilly quickly starts to notice some very strange happenings on the island, and when she and her new friend Callum decide to go to the reopening of a local museum, things become even more bizarre, and the pair find themselves on a quest to uncover the mysteries of this strange island. What follows is a fast-paced, fantastical adventure where time is critical and the stakes are high.

With mystery, fantasy and adventure rolled into one, The Museum of Lost Umbrellas is an engaging read from start to finish, and it is sure to capture the imagination of KS2 readers. The use of rich, vivid and descriptive language creates a strong sensory experience, and readers will find themselves transported into the fantasy world. I cannot wait for the next book in series!

Naeli and the Secret Song

Jasbinder Bilan

Chapter book

Naeli lives in India and one day receives an anonymous ticket to England. She feels that she must go, despite not knowing who it is from, because that’s where she believes her father is. She takes her precious violin with her and boards a ship to England where she meets Jack, who is on his way to boarding school.

Once she arrives in England, things are not quite as she expected, and several people seem very interested in her violin. Naeli decides to enlist Jack’s help to find the place where her father was last seen, as none of the adults seem willing to help her.

I really enjoyed the mystery element to this story, and not knowing what was so special about the violin. All the adults the children met along the way seemed to know more about Naeli’s father than they were letting on, so Naeli had to get creative to find out information. I also enjoyed the contrast in setting between India at the start of the book and Victorian London.

Suitable for children Y4 and up, this would make a good read aloud in the classroom. Children who are fans of mysteries, historical fiction, or adventures will enjoy this.

I Hear The Trees

Junli Song & Zaro Weil

Poetry

The epigraph of this children’s poetry collection sets the aim of the poems for the reader: “when I walk/ wide-eyed/ through today/ yesterday is forgotten/ tomorrow faraway.” ‘I Hear the Trees’ is another wonderful collection of poems by Zaro Weil, which again immerses the reader in the splendours and mysteries of Mother Earth, presenting a wide range of poems, from the sensory joys of nature to the deepest emotions, expressed in a variety of poetic styles and forms, offering something for everyone.

Author Zaro Weil invites readers to exist in the moment and immerse themselves in these poems and nature. Her poems address the entire sensory experience of nature and touch on a variety of emotions, ranging from a moving poem that includes a mention of the death of a dog to a humorous alliterative poem about berries eaten by birds. There is subject matter for nearly every reader—these poems feature themes such as space, snakes, insects, dinosaurs, and even a poem highlighting the repulsiveness of rotting fruits and vegetables that provide a home for insects, some serious, others whimsical. All of them enchant and engage in different ways. There’s even a poem in play format, ‘A Little Kew Gardens Play’, to encourage some dramatic responses. No book of nature poetry would be complete without a discussion of conservation, and the author reminds readers that “hold on tight to your world, for your world is my world, your planet my planet”.

The format, with colourful illustrations beautifully created by Junli Song, makes them accessible to a younger pre-reader audience; however, the content and the vocabulary are perhaps aimed at older readers. Suggestions at the end of the book from the Centre on Literacy in Primary Education offer ways to further engage in some of the poems. Teachers, librarians, and parents will be able to use these as a springboard for their own activities that engage children in literature and nature.