What if everyone helped clean up the world a little bit? What if you showed up for a birthday party a day late? What if you could save a horse that was headed to the slaughterhouse? What if your slam poem went viral? What if cities were designed for people instead of cars? What if you thought the other person tied up the houseboat and now you’re at sea? What if you really just don’t want to put on shoes today?

What if, what if, what if…a better world was possible?

Here are some of the books I enjoyed most during the month of April:

Picture Books

• More Than A Tree by Sarah Kurpiel (really captures the sadness and loss when a beloved tree has to come down)
• Because of a Shoe by Julie Fogliano and Marla Frazee (why haven’t these two done something together until now? Brilliant pairing. Big feelings.)
• Ripples by Katie Yamasaki (more muralists illustrating picture books, please!)
• While We’re Here by Anne Wynter and Micha Archer (I actually gasped out loud in the middle of this book. Read it yourself and guess where. And oh I love Micha’s collage so much)
• Robin and the Stick by E.B. Goodale (for every kid who loves to collect sticks)
• A Book of Maps for You by Lourdes Heuer and Maxwell Eaton III (an inventive, heartfelt, kid’s-eye-view book about moving)

Middle Grade

• Phoenix by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (as a Horse Girl, I would have loved this as a kid…but I love it now too)
• Froggy: A Pond Full of Pals by Paige Walsh (SO funny. Reminded me a bit of Batcat, which is so snarky and silly and genuine)
• Benny on the Case by Wesley King (read this with the homeschool book group at the library, and it’s an MCBA book for 2026-2027! Not a ton of books set in Newfoundland – this is a great one!)
• Greenwild: The City Beyond the Sea by Pari Thompson (an excellent second book in the trilogy)

Young Adult

• A Better World Is Possible: Global Youth Confront the Climate Crisis by Meena Subramanian and Danica Novgorodoff
• Truth Is by Hannah V. Sawyerr (see also: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo)

Adult

• Swept Away by Beth O’Leary (what happens when your one night stand turns into two weeks because you didn’t tie up the houseboat?)
• The Keeper by Tana French (When I get a new Tana French book in my hands, please don’t talk to me until I am finished. I’ll be with you shortly.)
• Frog: And Other Essays by Anne Fadiman
• Life After Cars by Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon, and Aaron Naparstek (the sentence from this that has stuck with me: “cities aren’t loud, cars are loud.” And the idea that we could/should design cities to accommodate humans, not cars.)
• Bug Hollow by Michelle Huneven (multiple narrators with big jumps in time between them; reminded me a little of Ann Patchett’s The Patron Saint of Liars)
• How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay by Jenny Lawson
• Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell