New Release Spotlight: July 29, 2025

Last Spotlight of July 2025! I will release the three Canva presentations to my email list the morning of July 29th. If you are on my email list, check my email from July 29th for the links.

If you are not yet on my email list, you can sign up here and receive the July 2025 New Release Spotlight Canva links in your inbox today.

These are my top 5 favorite titles releasing this week! We’ve got two picture books, one middle grade title, and two YA titles. The Canva presentations feature a lot more new books, or you can see my Bookshop.org lists for July 2025.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

As the sun slowly rises, many things happen in a small window of time. The world comes alive with the actions of animals, plants, clouds, and sky. A deer drinks, an owl wakes, a dandelion shimmers in the light. A ladybug climbs, a fish jumps, birds call in a chorus. Geese fly away in formation. A flower blooms.

Beautifully illustrated with glowing imagery and written with a charming simplicity holding appeal for new readers, Marc Martin’s ode to the slow-blooming beauty of a sunrise and the life that unfolds in its radiance narrows the lens to show the wonder of time passing.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

From his earliest days as a child, Albert Einstein was fascinated with the relationship between light and gravity. He couldn’t stop thinking about the laws of the universe, and was determined to describe how motion and time, and energy and mass, all worked together.

Einstein imagined gravity as what happens when objects bend the space and time around them. But this theory couldn’t be perceived in the everyday world. To test his hypothesis, Einstein needed to see if the sun’s gravity bent the light from a nearby star. And the only way to do that was to photograph a total solar eclipse. 

This is the story of how scientist Arthur Eddington validated Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, permanently altering the world’s understanding of the universe and beyond. It’s a testament to the relationship between nature, science, and the pursuit of knowledge.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY:

The best Halloween costumes. The funniest pranks. An endless supply of chocolate fudge that looks exactly like dog poo. Most kids would love it if their parents owned a joke shop.

But twelve-year-old Manya isn’t like most kids. She’s an aspiring scientist. The cheap laughs at Pranks-A-Million don’t interest her – but the science behind the pranks does. After all, even edible snot and stink bombs rely on chemical reactions.

Manya and her best friend, Isaac, are thrilled when their parents agree to sign them up for Serious Science. The after-school class is everything they’ve ever dreamed of: the science is fascinating, their teacher is supersmart, and none of the experiments he gives them is designed to stink, explode, or embarrass anyone.

Things are looking up until one day Manya comes back from Serious Science to find two police officers in the store. A trick cigar bought at Pranks-A-Million burned off a customer’s eyebrows. Later, one of their Toe Jam Donuts makes someone sick. Just a couple of pranks gone wrong? Maybe. But when a whoopee cushion kills an innocent person, the joke is over. The cops swoop in and arrest Manya’s parents for murder.

It’s up to Manya now to prove their innocence. Suddenly, the science behind all those embarrassing pranks becomes very important indeed.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

When August’s brother disappears before his sophomore semester, everyone thinks the stress of college got to him. But August knows her brother would never have left her voluntarily, especially not after their mother so recently went missing.

The only clue he left behind was a note telling her to stay safe and protect their remaining family. And after August is attacked by a ten-foot-tall creature with fur and claws, she realizes that her brother might be in more danger than she could have imagined.

Unfortunately for her, the only person with a connection to the mysterious creature is the bookish Virgil Hawthorne…and he knows about them because he is one. If he doesn’t find a partner to help control his true nature, he’ll lose his humanity and become a mindless beast—exactly what the secret society he’s grown up in would love to put down.

Virgil makes a proposition: August will join his society and partner with him, and in return, he’ll help her find her brother. And so August is plunged into a deadly competition to win one of the few coveted candidate spots, all while trying to accept a frightening reality: that monsters are real, and she has to learn to master them if she’s to have any hope of saving her brother.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Two hundred years after World War III, the world is at peace, all thanks to the soul-identification system. Every eighteen-year-old must report to the government to learn about their past lives, a terrifying process known as kirling. Good souls leave the institute with their inheritance, a career path, and if they’re lucky, a soulmate. Bad souls leave in handcuffs.

It’s a nerve-wracking ordeal for Sivon, who, given her uncanny ability to win every chess match, already suspects her soul isn’t normal. Turns out, she was right to worry. Sivon’s results stun not only her, but the entire world, making her the object of public scrutiny and anonymous threats.

Saddled with an infuriating and off-limits bodyguard, Sivon is thrust into a high-stakes game where souls are pawns and rules don’t exist. As deaths mount, Sivon must decipher friend from foe while protecting her heart against impossible odds. One wrong move could destroy the future lives of everyone Sivon loves, and she can’t let that happen, even if they’ll never love her back.