Fireworks

WINNER OF THE 2026 CALDECOTT MEDAL! Fireworks is a sparkling picture book from the award-winning team of Matthew Burgess and Cátia Chien, highlighting the simple delights of a steamy July day in the city as two siblings eagerly anticipate a spectacular fireworks display. Two siblings spend a sizzling Fourth of July roaming the city—there’s breakfast in Chinatown, a burst hydrant on a steamy block, and a jazz musician in the park whose brassy blasts make everyone dance. All the while, anticipation builds for the night's grand display: FIREWORKS! Fireworks is a joyful, sensory-rich picture book that captures the ordinary magic of a long summer day, the kind where screens are forgotten and every moment feels alive. With neon-bright illustrations and poetry that pops off the page, Matthew Burgess and Cátia Chien—the award-winning team behind The Bear and the Moon—deliver a sparkling double gatefold finale as spectacular as the real thing.

Matthew Burgess is a poet and educator and the author of a number of picture books, including Fireworks, Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring, and The Bear and the Moon. Matthew's books have received many accolades, including starred reviews, a Eureka Gold Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and inclusion on numerous best-of lists from the NYPL, the Chicago Public Library, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, ALA Booklist, Amazon, and others. A full-time professor at Brooklyn College, Matthew also has been a poet-in-residence in New York City public schools.