My dad loved the fireworks here in Sydney every New Year. He would either want to head into the city or locally there was a small hill where people gathered. When I was a young child we walked through a harborside suburb to a vantage point opposite our iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge. I even remember walking in the dark with my cousins, and I remember the special clothes I was wearing!
In this story, Fireworks, it is a very hot summer day. The two kids cool off under a fire hydrant and then they head to the park where they enjoy huge watermelon slices.
Grandma cooks their dinner and then the kids climb to the top of their city building.
"On this summer night, we climb the ricket ladder to the silver tar rooftop still soft from the day's sun and we wait for the first pop!"
It's a fabulous fireworks display and one of the best pages comes at the end where we see the way the colourful images are still exploding in their minds and dreams.
Bookseller blurb: As a hot day sizzles into evening, everyone on stoops and sidewalks looks skyward on this special summer night—the Fourth of July! Words and art blossom into flowers of fire across the sky, making this a perfect read for firework enthusiasts in cities and suburbs everywhere.
Is this book about the 4th of July - probably - but that's okay. We have fabulous fireworks here in Australia on New Year's Eve and at other times so really this story does translate very easily across the world. I have put some of other picture books that include fireworks at the bottom of this post. Betsy Bird also talks about this book being a book about summer heat and my own favourite US book on that topic is Come on Rain by Karen Hesse. Fireworks is set in New York city but that's okay too - our kids know about that city and others like it with tall buildings and large parks.
Think about the wonderful words your library group or young reading companion will encounter in this book: greet; venture; steamy; bodega; sax (saxophone); onlookers; salsa; rickety; finale; charcoal sniff; extinguished; and lull.
Bodega - that's a word you may not know. It is a small Spanish speaking grocery store.
Fireworks contains a gatefold - Besty Bird explains this: Let’s say you’re a children’s book author or illustrator and you wanted to put a gatefold into your book. A gatefold is a spread of pages that physically open up outside of the confines of the book’s dimensions in some manner. Historically, librarians have not been huge fans of gatefolds because they have a tendency to rip over time. What makes the gatefold in “Fireworks” so extraordinary is that it’s vertical rather than horizontal. It also tucks so perfectly into the book that it might take an adult reader a couple seconds before they realize it’s even there. Only the thickness of the paper gives away its presence. Now here’s the kicker: Did you know that a gatefold can only appear in a book at just the right moment? Because of the physical nature of how books are made (the folding of the pages together) gatefolds can only come at certain moments. So part of what’s so amazing about this book is that its gatefold comes at precisely the right moment, both physically and from a literary perspective. It’s a marvel of simultaneous engineering and storytelling.
If you share this book with a group of older readers in grades 4-6 please take the time to talk about pace and word placement - the final page turn and final word of this book is sure to have been one of the many reasons Fireworks was selected for this enormously prestigious award.
Take a look at the book trailer on the author web page.
Read some reviews:
Betsy mentions that there should be more books about fireworks. My friend from Kinderbookswitheverything shared a few in her blog post. I remembered a book from my former library which was regularly requested by our art teacher but sadly I cannot find a cover image to share here. This book is from 1983 published by A and C Black - Firework Party by Peggy Blakeley.
Fireworks is the winner of the 2026 Caldecott Medal and yet here in Australia it is listed at over AUS$53 as the retail price - I have seen it also listed for AUS$38 but even that will be way beyond the budget of every school library her in Australia - why oh why? My friend and I have seen this issue with other Caldecott winners and honor titles - see the bottom of this post for some covers. It is true that some Caldecott titles are not really relevant for our Australian children, but Fireworks (and Watercress) most certainly are. I previously talked about past winners here.
Here two of the 2026 honor titles (there are four in total)
