September 2026 – Jenny Arch

It would be hard to beat the vacation reading of July 2025 (which included The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano, A Sorceress Comes to Call, and Memorial Days), but inventive Australian time travel novel Time Travel for Beginners (by the author of the middle grade Kingdoms & Empires books) and a new volume of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion are a good start. This month, I also enjoyed sharing picture books The Skeleton and the Cat with my Pajama Storytime group, and Wide Load on the Road with my morning storytime group; it’s the first picture book I’ve ever seen about how wind turbines are delivered! I read a knockout heist novel set in Victorian London (An Artful Dodge), and an absolutely killer fantasy novel in the new Maggie the Undying…series? trilogy? duology? Infuriatingly, the first book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and the next book isn’t due out until the second half of 2027.

In the meantime, fortunately, there are new books to look forward to by John Green (Hollywood, Ending) and Emily St. John Mandel (Exit Party). For kids (and those of us who enjoy kids’ books), there’s a new volume in the Witches of Brooklyn graphic novel series and a new “Celie” book (Holidays at the Castle), plus a new Swifts book by Beth Lincoln (Garden of Vipers), which we’ve already read but will read again when it’s released in its physical form. (Speaking of which, Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger is coming soon too.)