2025 Newbery Medal Winner
2024 National Book Award Finalist
2024 New York Times Bestseller
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A list of notable children's and young adult science fiction titles for 2025

A new Newbery Medal winner from Erin Entrada Kelly
“I just hope that readers of this book will feel less lonely.
That's always my goal.”

What if one day a time traveler from the distant future came to us bearing a book summarizing future events? We'd be desperate to read it, no matter what. But if we read it, knowing what's to come, wouldn't we stop feeling anxious?

"Today Will Bring Tomorrow" is the third Newbery Medal from Erin Entrada Kelly, who has already won two Newbery Medals with "Hello, Space" and "We Dream of Space."
While awards alone don't tell the whole story, readers will undoubtedly agree that this book is worthy of the Newbery Medal, often called the "Nobel Prize for Children's Literature."

Erin Entrada Kelly has delicately portrayed the hearts of shy and lonely children like herself in many of her works.
And this book also features Michael, a sensitive and lonely boy who secretly harbors overwhelming anxiety, guilt, and confusion.
At first, Michael tries to avoid the eyes of those around him and the reader, but as the story progresses, he gradually turns around and tries to face everyone squarely. Readers will deeply feel this and root for him.

If the previous work, "We Dream of Space," was set against the historical backdrop of the "1986 Challenger launch and unfortunate accident," the story of "Today Will Bring Tomorrow" unfolds at the end of the century, when the "Y2K fear" that the world could be destroyed by a computer system's recognition error was spreading around the world.
However, it is a story that even readers who did not experience that period directly can fully empathize with, and rather, it can be a comfort to today's younger generation who are feeling even greater anxiety, alienation, and frustration in a polarized society and a hopeless future.

On August 17, 1999, Michael, who was celebrating his twelfth birthday, was approached by a strange boy named Lizzie who said he was from the year 2199.
Michael was timid and worried, but on the outside he seemed to be quite calm.
But did Lizzie, who suddenly showed up, somehow press the detonation button on Michael? The anxiety and confusion he'd been hiding so well burst out of Michael's body when he met Lizzie.
Experiencing both a sudden encounter and a profound separation that he could not have prepared for through petty theft, Michael painfully but courageously faces reality.

“Right here, right now, at this moment.
“This is the best place in our lives.”
Between 99 and 99, the boy who crossed the time line taught us the 'first moment of existence.'

The original title of this book is 'The First State of Being'.
A direct translation would be something like ‘the initial state of existence,’ but in the text it is translated as ‘the first moment of existence.’
First State is the spatial setting of the story and refers to Delaware, the so-called 'first state in the United States', while also containing multiple meanings.
In the piece, Lizzie describes her "first moment of existence," saying it was something her mother, Dr. Maria Seibio, told her.

“My mother is referring to the ‘present.’
At this very moment.
The past is gone and the future has not yet arrived.
But right here? This is the first moment, the most important moment, the moment when everything makes sense.”

This moment, not the past or the future.
It can be seen as the first time I exist as myself, the first moment when I become aware of who I am, and ultimately, an attitude of focusing on the present and accepting the uncertainty of the future.
For Lizzie, the confusion and realization she feels after beginning her time travel, for Michael, the painful growth he experiences as he faces the present, and even the experience of two very different people reflecting each other like mirrors, can all be called the 'first moment of existence.'


Michael, living in 1999 and anxious about what will happen on January 1, 2000, meets Lizzie, a time traveler from 2199, who constantly asks him about Y2K.
Let's say Lizzie can never tell, so this time we're thinking about how we can get our hands on the 'summary' Lizzie has.
The confidence and maturity that Michael lacked, Gibby's different treatment of Michael and Lizzie, and the summary, which Michael felt was the most important target... These were the conditions surrounding Lizzie that initially caught Michael's attention.
However, Michael gradually comes to understand Lizzie's weak and childish side, and the sadness and loneliness she feels as a stranger, and he opens up to her honestly.
And for the first time, instead of worrying about a vague future, I start thinking about 'me here and now.'

“Everyone makes mistakes.
“There’s no rule that says you have to be unhappy because you made a mistake.”
A word of comfort to today's young readers, who are gripped by anxiety and fear.

Michael, under the pretext of preparing for Y2K, steals necessities like canned food one by one and hides them under the bed without anyone knowing.
Because that way, we can alleviate the vague anxiety about the future.
But behind the anxiety Michael feels, there is guilt.
My mother, who worked as a middle manager at a large supermarket, was fired after missing work to care for herself with the flu.
From then on, Mom worked three jobs, working late into the night, for low wages, and Gibi, who lived in the same apartment building, volunteered to look after Michael.


Guilt breeds more guilt.
Michael feels guilty about liking Gibby, the daughter of the store manager who cut his mother's throat, and being happy to receive expensive Jordans as a birthday present from his mother, who can't even afford to pay the bills. All the natural and expected emotions he feels are just feelings he feels.
Unfortunately, Michael was always like, 'I'm a bad kid.
So it seems like I'm punishing myself by being caught up in the thought, 'I shouldn't be happy and joyful.'
Isn't it true that continuing to steal without knowing when you'll get caught isn't because you're anxious, but rather a struggle to remember that you're a "bad kid"?

After meeting Lizzie, Michael begins to let out all the emotions he had been suppressing.
On the day Lizzie first attempts to return, Michael impulsively confesses his wrongdoing.
At that time, Lizzie simply tells Michael this without any further questioning.

“Everyone makes mistakes.
“There’s no rule that says you have to be unhappy because you made a mistake.”

One day, a strange time traveler suddenly appeared before Michael and told him what he had probably been waiting for for a long time.

However, Lizzie, who seemed to be the complete opposite of Michael in every way, also shows a similarly negative and weak side to Michael after failing in her first return.
Lizzie, who caught a cold without any immunity, is completely devastated by the guilt that she might ruin her mother's long-time research on the space teleportation module (time travel device) and the anxiety that she might be separated from her family forever.
But then Michael says to Lizzie.


“Everyone makes mistakes.
“There’s no rule that says you have to be unhappy because you made a mistake.”

Many readers will probably get goosebumps from this scene where Michael repeats what he heard from Lizzie.
And you will find deep comfort in realizing that this is what the author wants to say not only to Michael and Lizzie, but to young readers today who struggle with their own anxieties and guilt, big and small.


“We are all dust, Michael.
… …But still, we are all part of history.”
A book containing the clear truth that the daily lives of ordinary people make up history.

After Lizzie's first failed return, things get even more difficult for Michael.
Mr. Mosley, the apartment manager who had shown more affection to Michael than his real father, who had left the family when Michael was young, passed away suddenly.
Mr. Mosley was a lonely man like Michael, and he was the one who took care of Michael's feelings by having lunch with him while his mother was out at work.
After suddenly sending off Mr. Mosley, Michael feels pain as if “every muscle in his body has been pulled and a nail has been driven into the center of his chest.”
And then I feel guilty again about the last lunch we couldn't have together.
Michael asks Lizzie if she knew Mr. Mosley would die.
Was it in the summary?
Lizzie responds to Michael that not everyone is in the summary.

"So that's the end of it? He's dead, and there's no record of him, and he's just forgotten? He won't go into history?"
“History remembers the bad guys and forgets the good guys.
Anyway, you and I remember here now.
Kibbido, and your mom too.
“Just because his life isn’t written in books doesn’t mean it was trivial.”

Gloria, who was fired after taking care of her sick son alone and was working low-paying jobs; Mosley, who worked as an apartment manager alone without a family; Gibby, a high school student who grew up early because of her worldly father and her delinquent older brother; ordinary, honest, nameless people who were lost behind the names of earthquakes and hurricanes… Michael can’t help but feel that the people who were precious to him or who were precious to someone are like mere dust.


But Lizzie tells Michael one important story.
It is true that we are all made of dust, but it is the dust that gathers together to make history.
A 'summary' would be like a 'history book' from Lizzy's perspective.
So, what Michael really wants to know might not be known even by looking at the summary.
Because that is the 'future'.
Mr. Mosley passed on the affection he received from his mother as a child to Michael, who was not related to him by blood.
The tight warp and weft that make up history are woven together by the warm solidarity of these people.
And what Mr. Mosley's mother told young Mr. Mosley finally brings Michael face to face with reality.
“Ask yourself before you go to bed at night:
"Was I a good person today? If the answer is no, I can do better tomorrow."

“Look at this, Michael.
“Isn’t it so beautiful? … … There are tigers on Earth now.”
A story that still addresses relevant concerns like the environment and non-blood-related families, while also containing a compelling sci-fi twist.

The beginning of "Today Will Bring Tomorrow" includes a dedication titled "To the Man Who Laughs."
This 'Laughing Man' appears to be a reference to the suspicious homeless man who plays a major role in Rebecca Stead's 'What Happened to Miranda One Day'.
Erin Entrada Kelly says she began writing "Today Will Bring Tomorrow" as a response to the work of Rebecca Stead, whom she cherishes and loves.
The twists and turns that reveal the book's important secrets, such as the "paper with Lizzie's name on it," seem to be homages to Rebecca Stead's work, and reading the two books together will make for even more enjoyable reading.
It is very interesting and attractive that the book faithfully follows the SF theme of 'time travel' and includes humorous side notes here and there in the middle of the text, and that the author's answer to the question 'Can the past change the future' and the records from 2199 are revealed in a pleasant twist in the latter half.

Another great thing about this work is that it naturally incorporates issues that are still relevant even long after Y2K into the story.
The parts dealing with environmental issues, especially in the shopping mall scenes, are impressive.
Michael's constant references to Isaac Asimov's book on the climate crisis, "The Angry Earth," and the inclusion of a future report on bee extinction after a scene where Lizzie cries over a girl being stung by a bee are sure to make readers who are engrossed in the fun story cringe.

Also, in the way people who are, to put it bluntly, just strangers like Michael and Gibby, Michael and Mr. Mosley, and Michael and Lizzie, share their hearts and bond with each other beyond their blood relatives, we can discover the author's positive and hopeful message about the "non-blood family," which is increasingly emerging as an important agenda.
I believe many readers will be moved by the fact that a science fiction fairy tale about time travel can naturally convey such diverse messages, and that it can beautifully achieve many of the things that literature can do as literature.
As the author said before getting into the technical details, he hopes that “children will feel cared for and have made friends just by reading this one book.”