Welcome to the October 2023 Picture Books New Release Spotlight! October is typically a GREAT month for new book releases, and this first week doesn’t disappoint!
You can find the October 2023 Middle Grade and YA Spotlight at the top and bottom of this post.
TIPS FOR USING THE OCTOBER 2023 PICTURE BOOKS SPOTLIGHT IN YOUR LIBRARY
This post has four parts. I’ve linked each below for easy reference, but they are also linked in the body of this post.
Remember that this is an ongoing post. I will add to it throughout October 2023.
PART I: GOOGLE SLIDES PRESENTATION
The first part of the New Release Spotlight is the Google Slides presentation. This is downloadable, editable, and FREE!
A few reminders and items I had questions about last month:
- The Google Slides presentation includes each book’s publisher’s summary, genre, setting, grade levels, themes, protagonist description, and any notes I might need to add. This is the same special book information that was previously included in the Spotlight; it’s just in a different place now.
- You can download this presentation anytime, but keep in mind that I am adding new books to the presentation every week in October. If you download the presentation before October 31, 2023, you will need to re-download it to get the new books each week.
- The new books I add are not automatically added to any copies of the presentation you add to your Google Drive. You will have to redownload them to get the most recent update.
This presentation is great to play on a loop in the library! Students and teachers will inevitably ask you to order some of the books – a fun way to develop a student-centered library collection.
Click here to download the presentation. Click “Use Template” in the
top-right corner to make an editable copy for your own Google Drive.
PART II – PRINTABLE LIST OF October 2023 PICTURE BOOKS
You can download a one-page printable list from this Google page.
You can download the list anytime, but you might want to wait until the end of October to download it. I will continually add new titles for October through the end of October, so any downloads before that date will only be part of the list.
The final list will be complete on Tuesday morning, October 31, 2023.
I will post an update in this post once the list is complete.
The list is sorted by genre and topic. Includes book title and author’s last name. The list is fully-editable, so you can add or remove whatever you need to suit the needs of your library.
Books that fall into more than one genre are listed under each genre (so some titles are on the list more than once).
The October 2023 picture books are all on Slide 3.
PART III – THE GINORMOUS BOOK LIST
Since October 2019, I have added the New Release Spotlight books to The Ginormous Booklist. This is a huge Google spreadsheet that currently has 3600 titles for K-12! Use Google’s Find function (CTRL+F or CMD+F) to search for specific genres, authors, topics, etc.
I will continue to add information from the October Spotlight titles to The Ginormous as normal. Scroll to the bottom for the newest titles. The October 2023 Spotlight titles begin with #3601 on The Ginormous Booklist.
PART IV – BOOK COVERS AND AMAZON LINKS – OCTOBER 2023 PICTURE BOOKS
The last part of the October 2023 Picture Books Spotlight is a sorting area by genre and topic.
The cover images below are clickable Amazon Affiliate links. If you use them to make a purchase, I will get a small commission from your purchase. I don’t make much from Amazon each month. I don’t include the Amazon links to make money on this post.
I include the links below so you can see the book covers without scrolling through the whole presentation and to help you locate the right books. If you just need the ISBN or basic information about the book, you can get it from the Amazon link.
As with the above parts of the October 2023 Spotlight, I will add to this section throughout the month. The last titles will be added on or before October 31, 2023. I will post an update here when the list is complete.
Because some books fall into multiple genre or topic categories, you will find some books listed more than once below.
INFORMATIONAL / NONFICTION PICTURE BOOKS
MENTAL HEALTH / SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING
HOLIDAYS, SEASONAL, AND CELEBRATIONS
CULTURAL/ INTERNATIONAL
HUMOR
WORDLESS PICTURE BOOKS
BEDTIME STORIES
POETRY
OTHER PICTURE BOOKS
MORE OCTOBER 2023 NEW BOOK RELEASES
ABOUT THE NEW RELEASE SPOTLIGHT
The New Release Spotlight began in May 2016 as a way to help librarians keep up with the many new children’s and YA books that are released each week.
Each week, school librarian Leigh Collazo compiles the New Release Spotlight using a combination of Follett’s Titlewave, Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble. Recommended grade levels represent the range of grade levels recommended by professional book reviewers. See the full selection criteria here.