I’ve spent the better part of 2025 spellbound by Jackie and Shadow, a pair of eagles in Southern California’s Big Bear Valley whose activities are livestreamed by webcam. I’ve watched as the couple maintained their nest, incubated their eggs through rain and snow, and reared their young. I’ve even found myself projecting human traits onto these birds of prey. Surely Jackie must have mourned when one of her hatchlings didn’t make it through a particularly frigid night? And did I detect a hint of patriarchal pride in Shadow’s eye as the surviving eaglets finally took flight?

Scientists have historically looked askance at such anthropomorphism; after all, we never truly know what animals are feeling. But that mindset has been evolving in recent years as zoologists have discovered how much we share with our wild brethren: empathy, altruism, the capacity for grief.

That shift has been reflected in the world of kid lit. While animal nonfiction was once dominated by straightforward, photo-heavy fare, over the last decade, I’ve noticed authors getting more creative. Several new picture books offer a captivating blend of fact and fancy, portraying the fauna we love as thoughtful, funny, and affectionate—in a word, deeply human.

An encounter with sperm whales was literally breathtaking for Fred Buyle and Kurt Amsler; while swimming with the majestic marine mammals in 2014 in the Azores, the freedivers made frequent trips to the surface for air—an experience chronicled in Michelle Cusolito’s In the World of Whales (Neal Porter/Holiday House, June 17), illustrated by Jessica Lanan. The book’s protagonist—a stand-in for Buyle—witnesses a pod welcoming a newborn into the fold. Graceful visuals and verse keep the tale rooted in fact while underscoring the whales’ tenderness toward their youngest. And as the animals notice the diver, something special occurs: a rare moment of communion between humans and whales.

In 2016, a Māori octopus named Inky escaped from the National Aquarium of New Zealand. “Nobody knows just how Inky chose the path that he traveled that night, or what went through his brain,” writes Thor Hanson in The Escape Artist: A True Story of Octopus Adventure (Greenwillow Books, July 22), but his portrait of a pensive cephalopod plotting his way to glorious freedom is utterly convincing. Galia Bernstein’s illustrations are anatomically correct yet ultra-expressive; though lacking a mouth or brow, Inky somehow chuckles, frowns, and gazes in contemplation. We’ve long known that octopuses are profoundly intelligent; after reading this tale, youngsters will surely add playful, soulful, and even philosophical to the list of adjectives describing these wondrous creatures.

“Caw-caaaaw! / We must sound like witches to you,” acknowledge the corvids who collectively narrate Leslie Barnard Booth’s I Am We: How Crows Come Together To Survive (Chronicle Books, September 9). Alexandra Finkeldey’s shadowy images of birds with piercing red eyes set an appropriately eerie tone, but readers also get a glimpse of these animals’ more vulnerable side. In a world rife with “dark-seeing, night-feeding, crow-eating creatures,” watching out for one another is imperative, and Barnard Booth’s bewitching verse speaks to these birds’ collaborative spirit and persistence in the face of near-constant peril.

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.