Jashar Awan‘s 2025 picture book Every Monday Mabel was a Caldecott Honor book, meaning it has been hailed as one of the year’s best picture books.
I was curious, and so picked it up, and there’s a lot to like here.
The art is large, filling pages with images of Mabel (and her world). It is stylized, and simplified, yet manages to communicate motion, action, and emotion. I’m personally fond of the two-page spread on pages 3 and 4, of Mabel dragging her chair and the larger accompanying image of her shadow doing the same.
This imagery focuses on a single and very worthy task: evoking the pure desires of childhood. The entire book focuses on Mabel and what she does on Monday, which is to get to the perfect place to watch “the best thing in the world,” which is the garbage truck making its rounds.
The book’s final pages show many images of the others–kids and adults–who wait for this wonderful weekly sight, indicating that Mabel isn’t alone, and showing how common this is. But really, the book’s value is honoring (and illustrating) that purity of childhood.
Reading this, I don’t doubt Mabel’s desire, and I don’t question it. I just enjoy it–and get out of her way.
