Must Read Kids Books for August 2025

Antonia Pesenti ― award-winning creator of the much-loved Rhyme Cordial and Rhyme Hungry ― is back with the third instalment in her Rhyme series: welcome to Party Rhyme!

It’s PARTY RHYME! Put on your PARTY BAT, enjoy the LIZZIE DRINKS, but don’t eat too much HAIRY BREAD!

Flip the flaps to reveal clever puns, witty rhymes, and playful language. Perfect for children’s love of birthday parties, Party Rhyme combines bold illustrations and kid-friendly jokes that will appeal to both younger and older children.

A high-contrast and tactile concertina board book, perfect for babies and tummy time.

A baby’s world is a blur when they’re first born and they start to see black and white before they see colour. Books featuring high-contrast images will help develop their eyesight and focus, and keep their attention.

Discover the joy of play and learning with this engaging black-and-white sensory book, designed to help babies discover the joy of play and learning. Your child will enjoy looking at their reflection, peeking through holes, tracing trails and uncovering opposites. This beautiful fold-out board book is the perfect first board book for babies.

• HIGH-CONTRAST: A high-contrast black and white book with splashes of primary colors perfect for a baby’s developing vision.
• TUMMY TIME: The fold-out, accordion format allows the book to stand upright on a playmat, making it perfect for tummy time.
• PERFECT GIFT: The bold artwork captures a baby’s attention, and the highly tactile and raised surfaces provide plenty of interactivity.
• SLIPCASE: Packaged in a handy slipcase to carry with you or pack away.

Dan has a dog. Jake has a cat.

Meg has a rabbit. Ruby’s got rats.

My pet is secret – nobody’s guessed,

He may be an insect but he’s not a pest…

Come on a nature adventure, in over 50 poems about all kinds of animals, from the albatross to the wombat!

Find a coiling cobra, crosseros rhinoceros, the chimpantease and sharky-lurky. Watch lazy lion lounging in the long grass and discover endangered creatures like the baby polar bear and the song thrush. Then guess the names of the mystery bird and the secret pet….Are you ready for your nature adventure?

This is a wonderful, wide-ranging debut collection for animal-lovers everywhere.

Find joy in the everyday with this glorious and light-hearted picture book which asks even more questions than children do! From Kes Gray, author of the multi-million copy selling Oi Frog and Friends series.

The Quiet Bench in the playground is the perfect place to sit and watch the world go by. It’s a place to listen, think, and ask yourself questions such as . . .

What are thoughts made of?
Where does the air stop being invisible and turn into blue sky?
Can the wind blow in two different directions at once?

So next time you see someone sitting quietly, why not join them? Because there’s always room for one more friend on the Quiet Bench.

This mindful picture book from award-winning duo, Kes Gray and Nila Aye (People Need People) is the perfect book to encourage children – and adults – to slow down and start noticing the world around them.

‘There was once ONE Happy Lion who lived in the zoo of a little French town. Then there were TWO Happy Lions, and that’s better than one, because two is company. Then…one day…there were THREE Happy Lions…’

The proud parents are delighted with their new cub. But what profession could he have? How can they help launch him into the world?

Coming Soon!

Daffodil Patterson is a small girl with BIG plans – it’s really not her fault that they always seem to go wrong! A brilliantly funny new series for young readers, from the author and illustrator of The Worst Class in the World.

Daffodil is eight years old. She’s the youngest in her family but is full of BOBBY DAZZLERS, which means brilliant ideas.

Daff’s latest Bobby Dazzler involves entering the Chipping Grimley Village Talent Show and winning £25 and getting her picture in the local paper so she can become WORLD FAMOUS. But first she needs to practise the trombone so she can win the competition. And before that she needs to get a trombone … And to start off with, she’ll need to raise £25 to buy a trombone from the charity shop…

Luckily, her trusty (and only slightly misbehaving) greyhound Colin is by her side for support, as is reliable best friend and fellow genius-ideas-generator Nirmal. What could possibly go wrong?

‘Oh WillMaster,’ said the wolf. ‘Yesyes! You always know what to do. You know your Whisker – don’t you?’

What if you could understand what your dog was thinking?

One day, Will and his dog, Whisker, are wondrously summoned to an enchanted world . . . where Whisker becomes a WOLF. And, he and Will can speak to each other!

Incredible adventures abound, in this mystical, moonlit land where excitement is everywhere and danger could be just around the corner . . .

When Bunny, Monkey and friends discover that all of existence is a virtual reality simulation, life gets a little bit crazy! Bunny declares himself The Woods’ Magical Protector, Pig becomes a superspy, Weenie grows some serious muscles . . . but just what nefarious scheme is Skunky planning . . .?

Have YOU ever had a bad week? The hilarious new series taking the world by storm.

Just when Justin thought nothing could top the diabolical disasters and harrowing humiliations of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (Zombie Apocalypse, anyone?!) along comes … Sunday! It’s categorically the worst! There’s a catastrophic alien invasion and the fate of the entire planet rests solely on Justin’s shoulders. (And he can’t even do one push up!) Brace yourself for the cataclysmic conclusion to the global hit series.

From award-winning and bestselling author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Grace Lin comes a gorgeously full-color illustrated story about a lion cub and a girl who must open a portal for the spirits, based on Chinese folklore.

Jin is a Stone Lion-one of the guardians of the Old City Gate who is charged to watch over humans and protect the Sacred Sphere. But to Jin, those boring duties feel like a waste of time.

What isn’t a waste of time? Perfecting his zuqiu kick, scoring a Golden Goal, and becoming the most legendary player of all the spirit world.

But when Jin’s perfect kick accidentally knocks the Sacred Sphere out through the gate, he has no choice but to run after it, tumbling out of the realm he calls home and into the human world as the gate closes behind him.

Stuck outside the gate, Jin must find help from unlikely allies, including a girl who can hear a mysterious voice and a worm who claims he is a dragon. Together, they must find the sphere and return it to the world beyond the gate…or risk losing everything.

Award-winning and bestselling author Grace Lin returns with another gorgeously illustrated adventure story about duty, love, and balance-expertly written in the vein of the Newbery Honor winner and modern classic Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Based on Chinese Folklore, this beautiful novel features ten full-page pieces of stunning full-color art, as well as intricate chapter header illustrations.

War has come to the supernatural world, and Amari’s two worst enemies are leading the charge.

Elaine Harlowe has manipulated her way into becoming prime minister, using her mind control ability to force the Bureau to take up her vicious grudge against magiciankind. Meanwhile, Dylan Van Helsing, the newly crowned leader of the League of Magicians―and Amari’s former partner―is after a destructive new power that would not only ensure the magicians’ victory … it would make him invincible.

With neither the Bureau nor the League safe for Amari, and her newly returned brother, Quinton, determined to keep her out of the fray, she and her friends decide to find a way to end the war on their own.

So when they learn that the only way to stop Dylan is to find powerful magical inventions known as Wonders, they go after them. But wielding these items comes at a terrible cost, and Amari will have to decide just how much she’s willing to sacrifice … because the Despicable Wonders will demand everything.

Inspired by faery myth and folklore, the haunting, heart wrenching tale of a girl called Nettle in a dark, foreboding faery kingdom, for fans of Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air series and Twin Crowns.

Welcome to a world of glittering courts, dangerous bargains and dazzling trickery.

A wild misfit in the human world, Nettle is enthralled by the glamour of the faery realm, with its two moons and scarlet stars. She grows close to Conor, a human stolen centuries before, and she also falls under the spell of mysterious Ellion, a Shadow Faery. To try to help her beloved grandmother who is fading in her world, Nettle makes a pact with the faery king. He’ll heal her grandmother in exchange for Nettle completing three tasks. She agrees, not realising that deception lurks in this enchanted place, and that she has been tricked.

In this dangerous fantasy kingdom Nettle discovers, too late, her part in an age-old love story and the price she will pay.

It’s been thirty-seven years since the Republic was destroyed. Now, the five clans and the Kingsland fight for control.

Isadora, daughter of the clans’ leader, risks her life on the battlefield to help injured clan soldiers. But when she stops an attack from Tristan, a Kingsland assassin, his soldiers shoot her with a poisoned arrow. As Isadora lies dying, Tristan does the unimaginable: he offers to save her life using a rare magic.

Yet, in choosing to live, Isadora is unknowingly bound to the mysterious Tristan through a magical connection that could allow him access to her emotions, her deepest memories and the very information he needs to destroy the clans …

Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual―but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason.

When Isa’s abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back from art school just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea: their friends were murdered by an evil that haunts the town, and he needs Isa to help stop it―before it takes anyone else.

When Isa begins to hear strange songs on the wind, and eerie artwork fills her sketchbook that she can’t recall drawing, she’s forced to stop running and confront her past. Because something is waiting in the shadows of Slater’s valleys, something that feeds on the pain and heartbreak of its children. Whatever it is, it knows Isa’s back . . . and it won’t let her escape again.

Wen-yi Lee’s young adult debut is an intimate and gripping exploration of trauma, healing, and the lasting power of friendship, as a runaway teen must finally face the sinister forces that defined her childhood, and in doing so, demand her right to survive.