New Release Spotlight: October 28, 2025

Welcome to the last Spotlight of October 2025! Picture books look best to me this week!

My top picks for October 28th:

• Pushing Hope by Raymond Santana (YA illustrated memoir)
• Sole Survivor by Norman Ollestad and Brendan Kiely (MG survival memoir)
• Night Chef by Mika Song (early graphic fiction)

On the last Spotlight of the month, I like to summarize the month’s new releases. For October 2025, I started with a list of 240 titles that met my Spotlight criteria. I do not count adult titles unless they work as “adult for young adults” (there were none of those on this list).

Of the 240 titles that met my Spotlight criteria…

• 21 YA titles
• 19 middle grades
• 18 picture books
• 3 graphic novel adaptations
• 42 sequels
• I picked three potential Caldecott 2026 contenders and 1 Sibert 2026 contender.

The Canva presentations for October are also ready! I have three presentations, for picture books, middle grades, and YA titles. Scroll them on a screen in the library or hallway to get students excited about new book releases. When funds are limited (as they so often are), the Canva presentations are a great way to see which new titles most interest your students and teachers.

I will send the Canva links out via email the morning of October 28.

Not on my email list or need the Canva links sent again? Enter your email here, and I will send them to you FREE!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

When recent high school graduate Hazel Lejeune gets the lead role in a slasher film, it feels like a dream come true. This is her chance to break into the industry, build her reel, and prove to her mom that this “gap year” can turn into a career. So what if it’s set in the nothing town of Pine Springs, Louisiana–the same place her father, the Pine Springs Slasher, was convicted of a series of murders fifteen years ago?

But when Haze arrives on set, she gets much more than she bargained for. The shoot is plagued by suspicious “accidents.” Mentions of her dad dot the entire script. And then, a gruesome murder shocks everyone to the core. Now, it’s clear there’s a real killer on set―one who’s determined to finish the film at all costs. But is this merely a copycat, or is the wrong Slasher behind bars?

As the body count rises and reality blurs with fiction, Haze must unmask the killer before she becomes a real-life final girl…or before the killer flips the script and makes her the next victim.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Evander has lived like a ghost in the forgotten corners of the Hazelthorn estate ever since he was taken in by his reclusive billionaire guardian, Byron Lennox-Hall, when he was a child. For his safety, Evander has been given three ironclad rules to follow:

He can never leave the estate. He can never go into the gardens. And most importantly, he can never again be left alone with Byron’s charming, underachieving grandson, Laurie.

That last rule has been in place ever since Laurie tried to kill Evander seven years ago, and yet somehow Evander is still obsessed with him.

When Byron suddenly dies, Evander inherits Hazelthorn’s immense gothic mansion and acres of sprawling grounds, along with the entirety of the Lennox-Hall family’s vast wealth. But Evander’s sure his guardian was murdered, and Laurie may be the only one who can help him find the killer before they come for Evander next.

Perhaps even more concerning is how the overgrown garden is refusing to stay behind its walls, slipping its vines and spores deeper into the house with each passing day. As the family’s dark secrets unravel alongside the growing horror of their terribly alive, bloodthirsty garden, Evander needs to find out what he’s really inheriting before the garden demands to be fed once more.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

When Raymond Santana was just 14, he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. The 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park was pinned on Santana and four other young teens, a tragedy that would change their lives forever.

In this powerful illustrated memoir, Raymond Santana takes readers on a journey from his move to Harlem, to his arrest and trial, and from his time in prison to his ongoing fight for justice.

Exonerated in 2002, Santana has made it his mission to fight wrongful convictions and injustice. What has sustained him and given him the strength for that fight, is his creativity—art and fashion have always been a refuge and a source of hope.

Teaming up with celebrated artist Keith Henry Brown, Raymond Santana shows in vivid color how one can survive by pushing a message of hope.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Delaney Carmichael’s final year of boarding school at Ivernia is not off to a great start. Losing her father has left her feeling completely unmoored—both emotionally and in terms of what she wants to do with her future.

So when Delaney discovers that Ivernia—the one stable place in her life—is on the brink of shuttering its doors, it feels like the last straw. If life is measured in what she has to lose, then does anything matter?

Desperate for a solution, Delaney makes a wish—for a way to save Ivernia. The universe’s response? Enter Lord William Cromwell of Dunbry, a tall, handsome, and woefully out-of-place-boy from nineteenth-century London. At first, Delaney thinks this charming English heartthrob might somehow be the answer to her problems, but when disastrous consequences begin to unfold at an alarming rate, she realizes that if she can’t return William to where and when he belongs, the present could unravel completely.

Much to Delaney’s dismay, the only person capable of helping her is her brother’s infuriating best friend, Sumner, a boy who seems dead-set on getting under her skin. With time quickly running out, can the two set things straight before the past begins messing with the present in irreversible ways?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Step right up for a tour of one incredible factory—a fascinating system inside your body!

The human body is all kinds of amazing. Inside you, systems are working hard to make sure your heart doesn’t beat too fast or too slow, you aren’t too hot or too cold, and you don’t fall asleep on your desk at school (most of the time, anyways). No matter what you do, your body tends to exist in a state of balance. In fact, a happy, healthy life depends on that balance. And that balance depends on glands.

In The Gland Factory, you’ll get an up-close look at your endocrine and exocrine systems, where glands are feverishly swelling, shrinking, oozing, healing, digesting, and maintaining balance. Extensive backmatter includes a suggested further reading list, a “Gland Factory Survey” and a detailed glossary of all the wonderfully gross glands explored.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Thirteen-year-old Ella lives a lonely life near a remote lake where the horses that make up her family’s business are also her only friends. Ever since her father went missing years before, the family household has been made up entirely of women, something that’s viewed with suspicion by their neighbors, who sometimes call them witches.

Ella doesn’t believe in magic, but she does know words have power. She really should have known better than to utter a wish and a joking “curse” on the same day—a wish for a true friend and a curse on the boy bullying her little sister. Before long, the bully goes missing the same strange way her father did, and a strange boy and a beautiful black horse seemingly appear in his place. At first, the new boy seems to be the friend Ella wished for, but he’s pushy, quick to anger, and knows more than he should about her family.

As Ella digs deeper into the mysterious occurrences, she discovers her family is living in the shadow of a vengeful kelpie, and she must break its curse to save not just her family but her entire community.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Eleven-year-old Norman Ollestad is no stranger to extreme situations. Whether it’s surfing big swells off Topanga Beach or skiing in a blizzard, he has braved one adrenaline-rush adventure after another, pushed by his thrill-seeking father to realize that “anything’s possible.” And with Dad by his side, sometimes Norman believes him.

That motto is put to the ultimate test when the small plane Norman and his dad are aboard is engulfed by a snowstorm and crashes in the San Gabriel Mountains―with deadly consequences. Struggling in and out of lucidity, haunted by the voices and memories from difficult moments in his past, Norman must decide what to do while trapped eight thousand feet above sea level, facing dangers unlike any he has encountered before.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Where I live, seasons change. I know because my fingers and toes, my ears, my mouth and nose, all tell me so.

Neveah is blind, but that doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy each of the four wondrous seasons of the year.

She knows it’s winter when her boots go scruuunch in the snow and cold flakes land softly on her tongue.

She knows spring has come by the smell of hyacinths, the bzzzz of a bee in her ear.

Summer is a trip to the beach, where she can hear the crash of ocean waves and the keowww of seagulls overhead.

And when Neveah’s rake goes scritch scratch over fallen leaves and the air turns brisk, she knows it’s autumn. Soon the cycle of seasons will begin anew.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

The Night Chef has never had a family—only a dream.

She’s spent years living inside the walls of a human restaurant, honing her cooking skills. She knows she can fry an omelette with the best of them– but she also knows that humans will never accept her. And so she keeps to herself, hidden and alone.

Then, one evening, when Night Chef cracks an egg open for her dinner, a baby crow named Ichi falls out! Despite being reluctant to leave her home, Night Chef steps into the wilds in order to reunite Ichi with his family. And along the journey, she might just find a family to call her own, too.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Lap Cat is on a quest to find the warmest, softest, most comfortable lap around Mellsville.

They search high and low, in parks and diners, leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

With everyone in town mad at their actions, will Lap Cat be able to see past their own desires and make up for the messes they’ve made?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Long ago, the young Earth crashed into a smaller body called Theia. Matter blasted through space, and the carbon atom was trapped deep inside Earth until a volcano erupted, thrusting tons of ash and gases—including the carbon atom—high into the sky.

Over millions of years, the carbon atom has been part of all kinds of things, including plants and dinosaurs, eggshells and seashells, a lump of coal, and even a sheet of toilet paper!

Not long ago, it became part of a towering maple tree and then a drop of maple syrup. Just imagine that the syrup ended up on YOUR pancakes and then inside your body. And when you let out a deep breath, the carbon left your lungs, met up with a blast of gas from your stomach, and . . . BURP!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Ella Fitzgerald loved to dance. When little Ella heard jazz music, the music notes moved her legs as she twirled around New York City.

Way down south, Louis Armstrong loved to sing. When jazz music played, young Louis’s voice rumbled like a steam train in New Orleans.

While Ella dreamed of dancing on stage and Louis of being a famous singer, it wasn’t until they switched things up that they became famous, Ella for singing and Louis playing the trumpet.

The two jazz musicians had heard of each other, but never had a chance to meet. Until one magical night when they took the stage together, the music started to swing, and a lifelong musical friendship was born.

This true story about world-renowned jazz artists Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s musical partnership is a testament to the power of dreams, music, and friendship to help us all keep playing on.