Born in Mendeland, known today as Sierra Leone, 9-year-old Margu enjoys the lush green of her homeland until drought causes her to be pawned for rice and later forced into slavery. Monica Edinger’s illustrated tale of historical fiction, told in a longer picture book format, follows the girl’s fears as she makes the seven-week voyage across the Atlantic aboard the Spanish slave ship, the Amistad. Although most children’s literature about the Middle Passage focuses on the hopelessness of entering a life of slavery, this narration describes Margu’s unusual situation.

While aboard the Amistad, a slave named Cinque picks the chain locks and leads a mutiny that results in the murder of most of the ship’s crew. When the ship is finally captured and the slaves are taken to New Haven, Connecticut, Margu and three other children live with the jailer’s family as the trial against Cinque and his fellow slaves goes all the way to the Supreme Court and drags out over several years. Accompanied by archival reproductions, news accounts of the time period and Byrd’s colorful and detailed artwork, Margu’s story relates her curiosity about the strange smells, sounds, clothing, animals and buildings she encounters, as well as her unyielding dream to return to Africa.

When the Supreme Court deems Margu and the Amistad passengers free, her dream becomes a reality and her return trip, with a pleasant cabin, plenty of food and walks along deck, is completely different than her initial voyage. For readers wondering about the real Margu, Edinger offers more information in a concluding author’s note. Finding beauty amid tragedy, Africa Is My Home offers middle grade readers a remarkable glimpse of this overlooked yet significant moment in American history.

We’ve all found things under our couch cushions—coins, toys, the television remote, crumbs. Oh, the crumbs. But what if you found something important, something that could even save the world? That’s definitely not what River, Freak and Fiona thought they had found. In Henry Clark’s endearingly wacky debut novel, What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World, the three friends dig through the cushions of a strange couch at their bus stop and find nothing more than a crayon. A zucchini-colored crayon, to be exact. And it’s this crayon that sets them on their path to saving the world—with a little help from some unusual sources.

It turns out that zucchini-colored crayons are quite rare. So rare, in fact, that when the three friends put the crayon up for sale on the Internet, people start offering them thousands of dollars! However, they are soon contacted by the mysterious person who owns the home next to their bus stop, asking them not to sell the crayon because it belongs to him, and it could be the key to saving their town, and the world. River, Freak and Fiona agree to talk to Alf, and they soon find themselves in the middle of a scheme to capture an invader who wants to enslave the entire town, and eventually, the entire world. All they need is a little help from a talking painting, a teleporting sofa, an artificially-intelligent domino and a cat named Mucus.

What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World is fast-paced, witty and full of surprises. Clark creates three very likable characters, each with his or her own strengths and weaknesses, who all need each other to succeed. There is action, adventure, mystery and lots of humor—a mix that makes the book difficult to put down. The reader begins to hope, toward the end of the book, that River, Freak and Fiona save the world, but maybe only temporarily. You know, so we can read about them saving it from danger once again in another new adventure!

Historical fiction and mysteries hold high appeal for middle grade readers. The Great Trouble combines elements from both these genres in a story of one boy's efforts to stop the deadly 1854 Broad Street London cholera epidemic.

Ever since his parents' deaths, Eel's been making his own way with a combination of odd jobs, including cleaning animal cages for well-respected medical man Dr. John Snow.  When cholera strikes Eel's tenement-like neighborhood, most residents assume that poisonous air is to blame. But Dr. Snow believes the culprit is tainted water, and enlists Eel's help in proving his theory. Together with his friend Florrie, Eel must use the tools of scientific inquiry—including drawing maps, combing death records and interviewing residents—to demonstrate the accuracy of Dr. Snow's hypothesis and convince a local committee to close the Broad Street water pump before more victims sicken and die.

Even in the middle of this desperate race against time, Eel's personal troubles demand his attention too. Author (and BookPage reviewer) Deborah Hopkinson fills her tale with relatable characters, lots of suspense and plenty of details on the everyday life of an orphan living in Victorian London. Best of all, observant readers will notice that they have all the clues they need to find the solution . . . if, like Eel, they know the right questions to ask.

In a style that's increasingly becoming the gold standard for historical fiction for young readers, Hopkinson includes an extensive reader's guide at the back of The Great Trouble. In this guide, she outlines which parts of her tale are true and which are fictional, adding a timeline, three separate bibliographies, information about the book's characters and setting and finally a note about public health and the emerging field of epidemiology.

If you enjoy black humor, then you will adore the opening lines of The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield:

"A grave should be a sad thing, and the grave of a child the saddest thing of all.
The tombstone reads:
Here Lies Alexander Baddenfield,
Who Departed This Mortal Coil after a Dozen Years.
He was the Last of the Baddenfields?Thank God!"

Imagine, if you will, an Edward Gorey-like tale written for middle schoolers. This darkly hilarious novel is about a nasty boy from an unimaginably horrible family. Alexander is the last of his line, and because his family members tend to die young, he visits a mad scientist who implants him with the "novavium" of a cat, an organ that is said to give cats nine lives. Alexander's first life ends on the operating table, because successful implantation of the organ requires the death of the patient?but his second life immediately kicks in.

At this point, the book warns readers to stop, because "You are about to embark on a tale that recounts the sometimes gruesome deaths of a young boy, and his not always pleasant rebirths."

A story like this, of course, will not strike everyone's funnybone, but for many young readers, it offers an exciting, refreshing take on mortality. Imagine what risks a boy with nine lives might take: Alexander tries to fly like Icarus off the observation deck of the Empire State Building; he travels to Spain to fight bulls; he kayaks down a river, forgetting that he can't swim.

Alexander's daredevil antics come to an abrupt end, however, when he reaches his eighth life and suddenly begins to face mortality. At one point, a happy ending seems to be looming. Never fear: As readers are reminded early on, this is by no means "a Hollywood movie, or a fairy tale, or a run-of-the-mill chapter book."

Author John Bemelmans Marciano Bemelmans, the grandson of Madeline creator Ludwig Bemelmans, teams with illustrator Sophie Blackall for this delightfully dark romp—a wickedly good choice for Halloween reading.

Many people believe God is everywhere, and He/She certainly is in this captivating book of verse. In a series of 16 poems, Cynthia Rylant imagines God wondering what it’s like to be human. To find out, God pursues a variety of very human endeavors, such as becoming a beautician, making spaghetti on a lonely night, going to the doctor and watching cable TV.

Of course, an irreverent book like this won’t be for everyone, and may offend some. That said, I found it a lovely and thought-provoking look at what it means to be human, and what it means to be godlike. There are many wonderful moments of humor, such as when God goes to the doctor: “And the doctor said, ‘You don’t need me, you’re God.’ And God said, ‘Well, you’re pretty good at playing me, I figured you’d know what the problem was.’”

Such interplay between reverence and comedy forms the heart and soul of this unique little volume. When God gets a desk job, She resorts to eating Snickers bars (37!) to get through the day: “She thought that if She had to pick up that phone one more time, She’d just start the whole Armageddon thing people keep talking about.”

Only a supremely talented team could pull off a book like this (which includes 26 poems from a collection first published in 2003). Rylant is the Newbery Award-winning author of more than 100 children’s books, including the Henry and Mudge series. Marla Frazee’s illustrations capture the humanity of each poem, along with just the right amount of godlike wonder. This gem of a book is sure to spark spirited discussions.

If you’re lucky, you’ve met sleuth Precious Ramotswe in Alexander McCall Smith’s best-selling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency mysteries for adults. Now in The Mystery of Meerkat Hill, second in Smith’s series for children, young readers get a chance to follow her adventures.

Precious, a girl from Botswana, has a mystery on her hands. Her new friends, Teb and Pontsho, walk shoeless all the way home from school, burning their feet on the hot ground. When Precious learns they have never even tasted an apple, she concludes they must be very poor. Then, her friends’ most valuable possession, the family cow, goes missing. Has it been stolen? Precious is determined to find a way to help. This time she calls on their pet meerkat, Kosi, for assistance, and he nearly steals the show!

The mystery is peppered with family and friends’ tales about hiding from lions and tricking ostriches. All these stories will engage young readers, as will the author’s asides. For example, when Precious visits Teb and Pontsho’s modest home, she tells them it’s a nice house. “That was not a lie,” the author notes. “It is not a lie to say something nice to somebody.” In some stories, this might come across as moralizing, but here, McCall Smith’s light touch makes it palatable.

The action is set against the backdrop of Bot­swana, with endless skies where at night “the stars appear—great silver fields of them.” The book is written with the ease of a consummate storyteller, while Iain McInstosh’s woodcuts enliven the text and handsomely depict the terrain, people and animal life of Botswana.

How do Newbery Medalists follow their award-winning novels? If they’re Jack Gantos, they do it with more over-the-top humor and even crazier adventures. Picking up where Dead End in Norvelt left off, the war hysteria of the Cuban Missile Crisis becomes a big threat to a small town in From Norvelt to Nowhere. Although no longer grounded, young Jack Gantos (yes, still named after the author) remains Miss Volker’s assistant in writing obituaries.

Both mystery and history endure—and occasionally combine—when Miss Volker becomes the last original Norvelter. The town’s other original inhabitant was poisoned in the same fashion as in the first novel, and the town’s namesake, Eleanor Roosevelt, also passes away. When Jack accompanies Miss Volker to Eleanor’s gravesite to aid in writing a fitting obituary, their trip turns to hijinks. Soon the pair is on a course to Florida, hoping to catch Norvelt’s now infamous old-lady killer.

As Jack tries to avoid another one of his nose bleeds and keep Miss Volker from wielding her silver pistol, the latter continues to give the boy history lessons and creates plenty of red herrings along the way.

While the mystery drives the plot, the heart of the story is the intergenerational friendship between Jack and Miss Volker. Only Miss Volker would soak her hands in split-pea soup to restore their sensitivity, and only Jack would understand enough to help her. Hold on tight for another wild ride through the mind of Jack Gantos—both of them.

A death is never easy, especially not for the husband or children left behind. After Jean Johnston’s death, her husband becomes a distracted workaholic, while 12-year-old Grover and his 10-year-old sister Sudie spend much time on their own at their North Carolina home. For Grover, that means retreating to the quiet of his beloved bamboo grove, where he weaves his tapestries of twigs, vines and leaves. They’re magnificent pieces of art that give Grover solace and meaning, but his father considers them a waste of time.

As their father spends more time with his work at the floundering Thomas Wolfe Memorial site, he doesn’t have time to get close to his family—or acknowledge his grief. The kids become more involved with the mountain family that has moved in nearby, a relationship that brings its own share of problems and distractions. Throw in some local politics, prejudice, budding romances, family tugs-of-war and an odd man who seems to linger everywhere, and you have a penetrating and complex story of loss and, ultimately, the rebuilding of a family.

Tommy Hays’ first middle grade novel, What I Came to Tell You, is a thoughtful, tender look at a family devastated by grief. Through a turn of events not entirely predictable—involving the truth about his mother’s accident—Grover becomes an unexpected savior to his family.

The book’s title refers to an epiphany presented to Grover at the end of the story, one that leads him to realize that “sometimes things just happen.” Only then is he is able to change his point of view and come to terms with his family—now on the road to healing.

It’s been two years since the Civil War ended, but the “Damn Yankees” are “still beating up on Virginia,” at least according to 14-year-old Shadrach Weaver. While many children’s novels take place during the War Between the States, A.B. Westrick’s debut novel, Brotherhood, offers a revealing glimpse of life during the often overlooked Reconstruction era. Set in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, it opens as Shad’s older, good-for-nothing brother, Jeremiah, is arrested for the murder of a carpetbagger who moved south to open the city’s first "Colored Normal School."

The story then traces the events that led to the murder. After following Jeremiah on one of his evening escapades, Shad inadvertently becomes a member of the Ku Klux Klan. At first he relishes the seemingly playful camaraderie of the brotherhood and being part of a group that includes the city’s shop owners and sheriff.

The illiterate teen, who dreams of apprenticing in his grandfather’s tailoring business, begins teaching simple tailoring skills at a school in exchange for reading lessons. But if the Klan finds out this risky arrangement takes place in a Negro school, he and the students could all wind up dead.

Brotherhood is no Gone with the Wind as Westrick focuses on small-time farmers and tradesmen and their struggles during this time period. And as Shad grapples with the “familiar tone” of his black teacher and his surprising affinity for his black classmates, the author also doesn’t shy away from the truth about race relations during Reconstruction, making this a story for mature readers and ideal for parent and group discussion. The teen ultimately realizes that he’s growing up in a city and a nation reinventing itself. Shad’s spot-on dialogue and enlightening sentiments will be studied and savored for years to come.

It was just a quick trip down to the shop on the corner, to buy some milk for cereal. And tea. Definitely tea. Nothing out of the ordinary would happen on a trip like that, especially with two children waiting at home to eat their cereal, and their mom gone to a conference. In Fortunately, The Milk, by Newbery Award-winning author Neil Gaiman, the father thinks it should only take a few minutes to walk out of the house, down the street, into the store and back home again, with the milk. Unless . . .

It might take a little longer if he were to be abducted by aliens who intended to remodel the planet. But escaping from them through the space-time continuum shouldn’t take too long, and as long as he still has the milk everything should end happily. Unless he falls through the space-time continuum and ends up on an 18th-century Spanish pirate ship captained by the Queen of the Pirates. However, that adventure would end quickly as well, so long as he were rescued by Professor Steg’s Floaty-Ball-Person-Carrier, and still had the milk in his pocket. Unless Professor Steg was a giant Stegosaurus from the future who could only transport him home in his tempermental time-machine. Though really, as long as he has the milk, everything should work out just fine.

Fortunately, The Milk is a fast-paced, zany story, made even more entertaining by the expressive illustrations of Skottie Young. Gaiman crafts the kind of tale that any parent who has had to come up with a creative on-the-spot defense will recognize. Kids will be in on the joke from nearly the beginning, and will delight in watching the children gain the upper hand and expose their father’s story as nothing but an elaborate excuse. Unless, of course, it isn’t. . . .

Carly Bean Bitters has a serious problem. Pale and small for her age, the 11-year-old can’t sleep at night, finding rest only during the day. Leading a lonely life, she sits up in an old chair in the attic of her aunt’s house, orphaned and friendless, waiting for the sun to rise so she can sleep. Young readers will empathize with Carly as she longs for a life beyond the attic but would settle for a friend. The moon is her only companion until she meets Lewis, a fiddling rat, who appears on her roof and asks her to join his little band.

Lewis explains that the number of rat musicians is dwindling. The owls, no longer distracted by the rats’ music, have started hunting them. Soon an owl swoops in, grabbing Carly from her rooftop and dropping her in the Whistle Root woods, and the adventure begins. When Carly meets Breeza Meezy, Queen of the rats, and visits their wondrous village, she learns the rats are in trouble and need her help. Carly finds a cryptic note warning “the Moon Child is in danger,” and begins to wonder if the Moon Child is, in fact, her. More questions than answers arise when Carly is befriended by Green, a classmate who hides out beneath the library. Together they search the stories of Whistle Root for clues.

First-time author Christopher Pennell blends the natural world seamlessly with fantasy in this lively debut novel. Young readers will cheer as Carly struggles to untangle an elaborate mystery, outwit a flesh-eating Griddlebeast and take her proper place in the woods.

The Mysterious Woods of Whistle Root successfully bounces between run-ins at school, where Carly is teased and taunted for sleeping all day, and fantastical moments when she flies high above the woods as Lewis has taught her. Rebecca Bond’s whimsical pen-and-ink drawings make the book especially engaging to read aloud to younger children and ensures a captivating experience for middle graders. When the mystery comes to a satisfying resolution, readers will want to linger a little longer in Whistle Root.

Max Starling’s parents are actors who own a successful theater company in New City, a vague approximation of Victorian London. When an offer to sail to India aboard the Flower of Kashmir arrives, the family happily accepts. But when Max arrives at the dock at the appointed time, he finds that no such ship exists . . . and that his parents have vanished.

Fortunately for Max, his grandmother, a librarian who lives in an adjoining house, is willing to take him in until his parents return. But Max, almost 13, yearns for independence. Max and his grandmother soon strike a bargain, but the compromise involves Max earning some of his own keep. When he accidentally finds and returns a runaway child to the child’s grateful mother, Max knows he’s found the ideal job. Dressing in his parents’ theatrical costumes and taking on personas borrowed from their dramatic oeuvre, Max successfully locates a lost dog, discovers why magazines are disappearing from the library and finds a valuable object that’s been missing for years. Along the way, he tackles other seemingly intractable issues faced by his frustrated painting teacher, a destitute university student and a highly inquisitive girl. But what will Max call his new occupation? It’s not really detecting, finding or even problem solving. The word Max eventually coins to describe his work is the perfect choice.

Newbery Medal winner Cynthia Voigt’s latest middle grade offering is reminiscent of the quasi-Gothic, not-quite-realistic qualities of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Although each of Max’s odd jobs seems at first to be a different episode, the cases soon converge as elements from each are revealed to be part of a larger—and longstanding—mystery. Occasional full-page pen and ink illustrations by Iacopo Bruno break up the text and help establish the mood. And with the stage set in this first volume, look for two more books about Mister Max coming soon.

One day, a young couple named Marta and John find a boy asleep in an old chair on their front porch. His arrival is as mysterious as can be. They didn’t hear anyone come down the dirt road to their small farm, and the boy, who looks to be about 6, doesn’t speak. There’s just one clue. Tucked in his pocket is a scribbled note that reads:

“Plees taik kair of Jacob. . . . Wil be bak wen we can.”

And so they do. Marta accepts the boy’s presence immediately, while John comes slowly to his new role. “I don’t know about all this,” he admits to his wife the first day, not unlike any new father.

But as the days and weeks unfold, Marta and John discover that although he still doesn’t say a word, Jacob likes jelly beans, loves to drum on any available surface, and is happy to play with their dog, Beagle, and the family cow. Most of all, he is an amazingly eager and accomplished artist, creating whimsical and fantastical scenes, and also a landscape filled with blue trees and red paths and purple animals. Could it be a clue to where he came from?

Although the couple knows that the young boy can never be theirs, when the day comes for him to leave, Marta and John are left with an aching hole to fill. Readers of all ages will be eager to see what they choose to do next, and will wait, as they do, to see if the boy on the porch ever returns.

Sharon Creech’s lovely, lyrical story is accessible to young readers and at the same time will be treasured by adults who know that what our children give us is always far greater than what we provide in return.