Every year the youth media award announcements feel like The Oscars of children’s literature. I get to root for my favorite books, but I also get to discover new (to me) voices. I was thrilled to see JOSEPHINE and NEIGHBORHOOD SHARKS win Sibert honors. They are both books that play at the edge of scandalous and scary, which I think is a pretty interesting place in picture books. For the next few months I’ll be hunting the shelves for scary, scandalous, odd, and interesting nonfiction. Today I’m bringing you sharks:

Next month I’ll bring you an interview with Greg Pizzoli on his new book, TRICKY VIC. It’s about a mysterious conman who invented over forty-five different aliases, sold the Eiffel tower, and even tricked the notorious mobster Al Capone! What will come after that? Even I don’t know. But I’m excited to find a new book that’s thrilling, impeccably designed, and uniquely illustrated and I bet kid readers will be too!