New Release Spotlight: December 9, 2025

Since December is never a great month for new book releases, I focused this week’s Spotlight on 2025 titles I missed when they were first released. There are many reasons I might have skipped these titles when they released, but they definitely deserve their time in the Spotlight!

I will send the December Canva presentation link via email on Tuesday morning, December 9, 2025. If you did not receive them, or you are here a bit early, you can get the links sent to your inbox here.

Next week’s Spotlight will be my 2026 Caldecott predictions!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Welcome to the Thrashers, the elite friend group at New Helvetia High.

They’re everything everyone wants to be.

Jodi Dillon was never meant to be one of them. Julian, Lucy, Paige, and the infamous Zack Thrasher are rich, sophisticated, and love attention. Jodi feels out of place, but Zack’s her childhood best friend, so she’s in.

Then Emily Mills, who desperately wanted to be a Thrasher, dies—and the whispers about the Thrashers begin. As Emily’s journal surfaces, detectives close in, and Jodi faces an impossible choice: betray her friends or protect herself.

But as eerie messages and strange occurrences escalate, it becomes clear—Emily isn’t done with them yet.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

“The invisible D in my name is my mother’s second most lasting contribution to my life.”

‘Wayne Le—known as “Invisible-D ‘Wayne” at school—has been invited to participate in a seemingly ordinary, innocuous adolescent health study by a prestigious university.

The study has a few nice perks, but most important to ‘Wayne, is the opportunity to give his immigrant father an accomplishment to be proud of—something that’s been in short supply since ‘Wayne’s mother left.

But the study quickly proves to be anything but ordinary and innocuous, and ‘Wayne, his best friend Kermit, and a fellow study participant named Jane (a girl who shall not be manic-pixied) find themselves sucked into an M. C. Escheresque maze of conspiracies that might be entirely in their heads or might truly be a sinister government plot.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

In a colonized land where tigers are being hunted to extinction and ancient magic stirs, two star-crossed teens—Lee Seung, a servant yearning for freedom, and Choi Eunji, a noble girl defying tradition—join forces to try and reshape their respective fates.

But their relationship evolves from begrudging accomplices to bitter adversaries as they soon find themselves on opposite sides of a battle over the last tiger, a symbol of their people’s lost freedom and key to the liberation of their country. As the ties between Seung and Eunji are complicated by their conflicting loyalties, tensions rise—especially when a charming princeling of the empire begins to rival for Eunji’s affection.

In this friends-to-enemies-to-lovers story of forbidden romance, antagonists turned allies, oppression and liberation, neither Seung nor Eunji can abandon their mission—or each other. And as they embark on separate quests to find the elusive creature, each must also find the power within themselves to make their own destiny.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Gwen doesn’t want to admit that everything has been different since her mom died. There’s no time for all these feelings now that she has her younger brother and twin sisters to look after. Especially not after the move into their late grandmother’s creaky old house on a tiny, damp island where someone—or something—is waiting for them.

Esme Laverne. Gwen isn’t fooled by the beautiful babysitter with the hungry eyes and too-sharp teeth, even though everyone else is. How does no one notice the sinister threats beneath her sickly sweet words? It quickly becomes clear that if Gwen wants Esme gone, she’ll have to handle it herself.

In order to protect her family, Gwen will have to fight off terrifying creatures and literal nightmares come to life.

But as rot begins to eat away at the house’s walls and Esme’s power grows, Gwen must face everything she’s been running from and embrace what she’s truly scared of before she can defeat the monster in her home…for good.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Everly “Benny” Benedict and her mom have always managed to get by, though they’re broke most of the time. But all that could change. Benny’s just learned she’s the sole heir to the vast fortune of Evelyn Terry, a mysterious ancestor from the 1800s!

There’s a catch, though. First Benny needs to play―and win―a game: following clues that are more than a century old, she must find her way to the tiny island Evelyn wrote about in her diary. It was somewhere off the shoreline of Evelyn’s home town, but according to legend, it vanished long ago and hasn’t appeared on maps for hundreds of years. Yet Benny has only a couple weeks to locate it.

If she’s successful, she’ll collect the inheritance. But what if there’s more than a fortune at stake in this game? What if Benny has to break an ancient curse to win?

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

One wintry morning, the snow begins and so does…a snowball fight!

In her signature verse, Beth Ferry recounts a day spent behind snowbanks and on sleds, while Tom Lichtenheld’s cinematic art delights readers with sly and snowy twists. 

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Every Monday, Mabel wakes up early and peeks out her window to make sure she didn’t miss the one thing she’s been looking forward to the whole week. She drags her chair down the hallway, past her big sister and Mom and Dad, out the door, and waits.

What is Mabel waiting for every Monday? According to Mabel, it’s the best thing in the world. But no one else in her family seems to understand…until they see what’s honking down the street!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Lena lives in a chicken coop, and she looks a lot like a chicken. But deep down, she’s convinced that she’s a…DINOSAUR! She can feel it in her bones. Lena just doesn’t understand the scaredy chickens in her family, and they don’t understand her either, with her ferociousness and big ideas. The people on the farm are also baffled…except for little Madeline, who thinks Lena has PERSONALITY.

And then, when a dastardly weasel turns up and threatens the coop, Lena’s fearful family chickens out AGAIN. It’s up to Lena to unleash her inner dinosaur like never before — to save the coop and show this silly bunch of chickens how to stand up for themselves.

And when Madeline’s science fair project shows that chickens are the closest living relatives in the world to dinosaurs, Lena’s family finally starts to see that — holy hen house! — they are all dinosaurs too!

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY

Amos McGee, the friendly zookeeper, loves spending time with his good friends no matter the season.

When snow in the forecast never arrives, he decides to head home and hope it comes another day. But when overnight a surprise snowfall blankets the town in fluffy white, what shall his lovable squad of animals do? Visit Amos and play in the snow, of course!