“Everyone knows that Alberto Santos-Dumont invented the airplane,” right? Even if you’ve never heard of Santos-Dumont, you’ll be delighted to meet this real-life historical figure in Victoria Griffith’s vivid debut picture book.

Alberto was a Brazilian in Paris who had a 35-foot dirigible of his own design as his personal mode of transportation. He’d fly his airship over the streets of Paris, landing to run errands, stopping at Maxim’s restaurant for coffee or dropping by the hat shop to replace the hat burned up by the airship’s hydrogen gas. Alberto told the shop owner, “I tell you, these machines will mean the end of all wars.” He felt that flying to different countries would open eyes and minds to how people all over the world have much in common. In fact, as Griffith writes in her fascinating author’s note, Alberto became distraught over the use of airplanes in warfare, so much so that, further saddened by his fall from favor, he took his own life in 1932.

But Alberto wanted to do more than fly his dirigible through the skies of Paris, though he is the only one known ever to do so. In 1906, he flew an airplane of his own design for 20 seconds, the first pilot to take off and land a self-propelled craft. The Wright brothers had flown in Kitty Hawk in 1903, but their plane required high winds and a rail system to propel the plane. Clearly, it’s a matter of debate as to what constitutes a true airplane, as the Wright brothers have gone down in history, and Alberto Santos-Dumont is largely unknown.

But now this fine picture book resurrects his story in lively prose and large-scale illustrations rendered in pastels, chalks, oil pastels and oil paint, perfectly capturing the drama of the events. The fuzzy lines lend a feeling of history to the illustrations, and gestures and humorous touches, such as a dog holding the dirigible’s tether or Alberto racing horse-drawn carriages, make Alberto Santos-Dumont and his times come alive.

The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont is a lovely work for young readers who will soon spread their wings, too.

Newbery Medal winner Avi has had a steady, prolific career. He is a master at bringing the people, places and perils of 19th-century society to life through his impeccably researched works of historical fiction, including the Newbery Honor-winning The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. His latest, City of Orphans, is another such success, particularly due to his incomparable ability to absorb the sights, sounds and smells of a distant time and place: this time, New York City in 1893.

The novel opens with 13-year-old newsboy Maks Geless struggling to hawk The World amid the sordid streets of the Lower East Side. It’s all he can do to make eight cents a day—a pittance desperately needed by his family of poor Danish immigrants. But to do so, he must successfully avoid the Plug Ugly Gang, led by the notorious Bruno, which regularly shakes down the “newsies” to pay off a blackmailing businessman.

With luck and happenstance, Maks meets stick-wielding Willa, a tough, homeless abandoned girl who comes to his rescue. The two form a familial bond and take on their next challenge: getting Maks’ sister, Emma, out of jail for a theft she didn’t commit. But time is running out all over—for Emma; for Maks’ other sister, Agnes (suffering from tuberculosis); and for his father (who is facing unemployment).

Maks and Willa turn amateur detectives to take on the world that has wronged them both. In the process, they both discover the strength of family ties amid a threatening, yet realistic, backdrop of crime, poverty and life on the streets. Avi taps into the jargon of the era and paints tenement life so vividly, readers will actually smell the wet smoke and see the cobblestones glisten with rain and light. The poverty of Maks’ family is palpable, yet so, too, is the love. And Greg Ruth’s black and white sketches are perfectly nuanced snapshots of the main characters’ personalities.

As Avi mentions in his historical notes, Maks and Willa are not unlike other children of the day. Their plights are their own, but the duo serve as realistic representatives of another day, far grittier than our own.

The 2008 Caldecott Committee made a bold decision in selecting Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret as its Medal winner. A 544-page novel as best picture book? It did have 158 illustrations central to the telling of the story, and the committee decided it was a new form of picture book.

Now, Selznick is back with Wonderstruck, an even bigger novel. As in Hugo Cabret, artwork tells much of the story, two independent threads of visual and prose narrative weaving in and out, eventually coming together as the protagonists meet and their stories join. Young Ben’s prose narrative begins in 1977, at Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, and young Rose’s visual narrative begins in 1927, in Hoboken, New Jersey. Both characters yearn for a better life, trying to find their places in the world. Ben’s mother has died, and his journey takes him to New York City in search of the father he never knew. Rose is deaf and her parents are protective, but she, too, is lured by the big city.

Selznick’s pencil drawings perfectly capture Rose’s heartbreak­ingly earnest expressions, and a full-page spread evokes in careful detail the “cabinets of wonders,” early museum displays of objects that evoke the wonders of the world. By the end of the novel, Ben wonders if we’re not all collectors of objects, moments and experiences, “making our own cabinet of wonders” during our lives. This becomes the novel’s theme: being open to the wonders of the world.

Not everyone is open to being wonderstruck, but Ben and Rose are; as they say (in a line borrowed from Oscar Wilde), “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Small-town life has never been funnier than in Jack Gantos’ Dead End in Norvelt. The 11-year-old main character, who suffers from profuse nosebleeds, also happens to be named Jack Gantos. Jack is enduring the summer in his hometown of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, a model community created during the Great Depression and renamed to honor Eleanor Roosevelt. While not strictly autobiographical, the story’s gothic humor is classic Gantos.

The summer of 1962 should be carefree for Jack, but when he accidentally fires his father’s WWII Japanese rifle and mows down his mother’s corn to make way for the backyard runway his father is planning, he is permanently grounded. His only reprieve is helping his neighbor, Miss Volker, with her unique obituaries of the last of the original Norvelters. Suffering from severe arthritis, which even “cooking” her hands in paraffin wax can’t cure, Miss Volker enlists Jack as her scribe. In the process, the boy learns the importance of history, especially now that his economically depressed town is dying like the ancient Lost Worlds he’s been reading about while cooped up in this bedroom.

When a string of Norvelter old ladies start dying, there’s no time for anything but obituaries (not even sneaking out to play baseball with Bunny, who knows a million dead-people jokes since her father owns the local funeral home). The story takes on an air of mystery when it appears that several townsfolk could be responsible for the deaths. Maybe Jack could figure things out better if he weren’t also afraid of a group of Hells Angels bent on revenge for the death of a buddy; if he didn’t have to dig a fake bomb shelter as a ruse for his father’s runway; and if his nose would ever stop bleeding.

Sure, this boy’s life is over the top, but readers would expect nothing less from Jack Gantos (either one of them).

Imagine the characteristics of a good thief: He would need to be a child (to fit in small spaces, and pick locks with small fingers); an orphan (so that no one would miss him); and blind (so that his senses of smell and touch far exceed those of anyone else). In Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, the exciting debut novel by Jonathan Auxier, Peter is all of these things, and much more. In fact, he is the greatest thief who has ever lived, and that is what changed his life forever.

Peter begins his thievery under the guidance of the despicable Mr. Seamus. Every night, Peter is sent out into the town to steal from its residents, and to bring everything he has taken to Mr. Seamus. This all changes when Peter decides to steal a beautiful box from the Haberdasher who has just arrived in town. In the box are three sets of fantastic eyes—eyes of gold, onyx and emerald—which transport Peter to a fantastic new world.

Auxier has written a stunning novel, one that transports not just Peter Nimble, but the reader as well, to the Troublesome Lake, where every ocean in the world eventually ends; to the Just Deserts, where troublemakers spend and end their lives with the King’s Ravens; to the Vanished Kingdom, where an evil king holds a nation hostage, and a brave Princess Peg waits for their hero to return.

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is, at first glance, a fast-paced, exciting adventure story. It is also much more. It is a story of friendship and loyalty between Peter and his companion Sir Tode, a knight who has been hexed into a regrettable cominbation of horse and cat. It is a story of strength, as Princess Peg cares for and leads the children she has rescued from the diabolical king. It is, finally, and most importantly, a story of destiny, as Peter comes to discover that what he is—a poor, dirty orphan—is not who he was meant to be.

READ MORE: In a Q&A author Jonathan Auxier explains why he considers Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes to be "a sort of anthem to delinquency."

In Hazelwood, Iowa, corn grows, people disappear, and magic happens. Jack’s parents are getting a divorce, and he is going to live with his aunt and uncle. He has so much to learn about living in this new place that his uncle gives him a book, “The Secret History of Hazelwood.” The book is full of weird stories that are mostly true—and that’s the scary part. But he has even more to learn about his family, and himself.

Jack has never had any friends; people just seemed to overlook him. When Hazelwood’s bully, Clayton Avery, gives him a knockout welcome, Jack meets Wendy—who is gutsy enough to stand up to Clayton when he’s bullying. Wendy, her brother Frankie, and their friend Anders quickly turn into Jack’s friends, and they all set out to unravel the weird tales about the town and why children have been disappearing. Some stories have a way of sucking you into them, and Jack is about to fill the lead role in this drama. Bad magic is happening, thanks to someone making a grave mistake and trying to fool the powers-that-be. The kids need to figure out how to fix, well, just about everything that matters.

With its ever-building suspense, unexplained vanishings and soul-stealing, The Mostly True Story of Jack is a wonderful page turner. Much is left to be divulged in the book’s final chapters as the mystery grows deeper (perhaps a bit too much for readers in the younger half of the suggested 8-12 age range). Will Jack and his friends be able to set things right and balance the forces of good and bad? Hazelwood, Iowa, is in for some strange happenings, and readers who settle in for the ride are rewarded with creepy thrills.

Middle school is hard. There are more students and more expectations of what is cool and what is not. For Elise, the prospect of starting sixth grade is less frightening since she will have her best friend Franklin there as well. However, when she discovers that Franklin is considered a “baby” by the toughest kids in school, she finds herself wanting to pull away from him. This leaves her feeling alone and unsure of herself.

At home, Elise’s aunt and uncle have provided her a loving family since the death of her parents. When she finds a key with her name on it, she realizes she may be able to open one of the eight locked doors in the barn. As she makes her way through each door, she learns something about her parents, her choices in life and herself.

This is a wonderful story about a girl growing up and learning that it is important to surround yourself with people who love you and support you—and not to let others choose those people for you. Elise handles a bully at school with clumsy grace, renews her friendship with Franklin and makes new friends. The gift of locked rooms from her father allows her to explore a corner of her heart a little at a time, and the reader is as drawn into the discoveries as she is. Eight Keys is just right for any student entering middle school and looking for his or her own way.

Vampires, ghosts, wizards, angels—they’re hard to escape in books these days. But every once in a while, a kid longs for an old-fashioned summer adventure story, which is exactly what Craig Moodie delivers in his exciting new novel, Into the Trap.

Eddie Atwell is the 12-year-old son of a lobster fisherman on Fog Island. The local lobstermen are being hit by a series of thefts: Nearly 10,000 pounds of lobster have disappeared from fishermen’s holding areas. Meanwhile, Eddie’s father is laid up with a shoulder injury. Eddie wants to help out by catching some striped bass, even though he’s not supposed to go out fishing alone.

That’s how Eddie finds himself on Greenhead Island early one August morning, staring with shock into a tidal pool full of stolen lobsters. Eddie manages to hide from the two thieves who come to check their cache, but he recognizes their voices. One is Jake Daggett, his sister’s boyfriend. What’s worse, Jake recognizes Eddie’s skiff, and he and the other thief, Marty, take it, leaving Eddie stranded.

Luckily for Eddie, an unlikely rescuer is at hand. Briggs Fairfield, a rich, nerdy New York kid who’s AWOL from a nearby sailing camp, is happy to have Eddie aboard. Eddie doesn’t think he and this rich kid have much in common—until he realizes that the camp counselor who has been tormenting Briggs is none other than Marty, one of the lobster thieves. Eddie and Briggs decide to join forces to rescue the lobsters and bring the thieves to justice.

Full of sailing lore and page-turning excitement, Into the Trap is the perfect book to stick into a duffel bag for a young camper—along with a flashlight for reading under the folds of a sleeping bag.

Grab a tall glass of lemonade and curl up for a wonderful journey through history with Kirby Larson's The Friendship Doll.

Meet Miss Kanagawa. Made by a master dollmaker, she has human hair, a silk kimono, a hand-painted face and skin made from crushed oyster shells. She was one of 58 "Friendship Dolls" that arrived in the United States in 1927, a gift from millions of Japanese schoolchildren who collected change to finance the dolls' creation and journey. That same year, America sent 12,739 dolls to Japan.

Today, these dolls have ended up in a variety of different places, such as the Smithsonian Institution. However, 12 of the 58 Friendship Dolls are unaccounted for, or missing, including Miss Kanagawa.

Larson saw a photograph of one of these magnificent 33-inch dolls while researching her Newbery Honor-winning novel, Hattie Big-Sky. She eventually felt these dolls "speak" to her, and in her novel, the author deftly allows Miss Kanagawa to occasionally "speak" (very quietly, practically imperceptibly) to certain people the doll encounters through the years.

Larson has created a series of stories, featuring four different girls, to trace Miss Kanagawa’s fictional path from 1927 through the Great Depression to the present day. Readers first meet young Bunny Harden, who belongs to a wealthy New York City family that helps welcome the dolls to America. Bunny learns an important lesson about compassion when she seethes over the fact that her classmate, Belle Roosevelt, has been chosen to give a welcoming speech for the dolls at City Hall, and not her.

The next chapter introduces Lois Brown, who is invited by her great-aunt to accompany her to the Chicago World’ Fair in 1933. Enamored with aviators like Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman, Lois can't wait to ride the amazing Sky Ride. Instead, she decides to use her money to buy a special souvenir for a friend whose family is experiencing hard times. All the while, readers take an exciting tour of the fair, where Miss Kanagawa is spotted on display.

Next is an extremely touching tale set in 1937 Kentucky, when young Willie Mae Marcum is sent to live in the house of a crotchety old woman for a month, reading aloud to keep her company. (This woman bought Miss Kanagawa at an auction, and Willie Mae spots the doll in her room.)

Finally, we meet Lucy Turner, whose mother has died, and who travels from Oklahoma to California with her father as he looks for work from 1939 to 1941. This is a fascinating look at "Okie" migration, as Lucy and her Dad end up living in a tent in a Farm Security Association (FSA) Camp in Oregon. It's also an intriguing glimpse of what happened after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when many of these Friendship Dolls suddenly became objects of derision.

In the present-day chapter, we see Lucy as an elderly, ailing grandmother who momentarily comes to life when her grandson unearths Miss Kanagawa from her attic.

Larson's intriguing tales are lively and readable, forming a cohesive saga, all the while imparting riveting historical details.

For more information about these dolls and their many stories, visit the Friendship Doll page.

Why would a serving girl ever have contact with a prince? In historical fantasy worlds such as the one in Diane Stanley’s The Silver Bowl, the separation of the classes follows that of medieval Europe, and no prince would ever have meaningful conversations with the servants. So it’s unusual that Stanley has derived a story that allows interaction between the classes, and realistically so.

Molly is from a large, poor family, which includes a “crazy” mother and an unloving father. As soon as possible, her father sends her to work in the castle, but Molly is glad to go and leave her unhappy home behind. Her life in the castle is conventional; she watches the royal family from afar and makes friends with other servants. When she is taught to clean the silver, however, she discovers that she can hear a voice in her head and see visions whenever she is set to work on a great silver bowl.

The voice tells her that the royal family is in danger. Molly cannot tell anyone in charge what she knows for fear of being thought crazy herself, so she enlists the help of her one good friend, Tobias. When they are able to rescue the youngest prince from an attempt on his life, Molly and Tobias quickly become embroiled in keeping him safe. The prince learns to trust Molly and relies on her to help him resolve his fate.

Stanley has created a delightful story that is both fantastical and completely believable at the same time. The plot contains several twists that are nicely unexpected, including a most unusual battle scene. While both boys and girls would enjoy this book, most fifth and sixth grade girls will love it.

Picture your own perfect day—no homework, lots of good food, video games for hours. Now envision getting to live that day over and over. Sounds great, right? But what if it wasn’t your perfect day that repeated, but your absolute worst? That’s just what happens to Artie Howard. In It’s the First Day of School . . . Forever!, Artie’s first day at a new school begins with a bang, as he falls out of bed and hits his head on the floor—hard. Unfortunately, it only gets worse from there.

Artie stumbles his way through the first day of school, getting sprayed with syrup and splashed by a bus, and even hitting the star football player in the head with a baseball. As the day goes on, things only get worse. Finally, when it seems like nothing else could go wrong, Artie wakes up in his own bed; it must have been only a dream! Then he falls out of bed and hits his head on the floor—hard. His worst first day of school has just begun again.

R.L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps series, brings his unique blend of storytelling, suspense, humor and horror to It’s the First Day of School . . . Forever! Things are never as they seem, and any attempt to change the outcome of the day is met with disastrous results—sometimes funny, sometimes scary, always bad. Artie is stuck with three separate puzzles to solve: Why does he have to keep reliving the first day of school? How can he stop destroying everything he touches, thinks about or even looks at? And when is he going to stop ending up in the creepy basement of the school? Stine’s many fans will not be disappointed in this book, and anyone who likes mysteries, humor or scary books will enjoy it as well.

In this bittersweet story based on actual events, Mexican-American Sylvia Mendez and Japanese-American Aki Munemitsu share a bedroom in Orange County, California, from 1942 to 1945. Well, sort of. After Aki’s father, who’s considered a threat to national security, is taken away and Aki, her mother and her brother are sent to an internment camp in Arizona, the Mendez family leases the Munemitsu asparagus farm in California.

In alternating chapters, the girls express their confusion and frustration when they are denied basic freedoms. Sylvia, eager to start third grade in a school with new textbooks, is told that she must attend the Mexican school, which is further away, only prepares students for menial jobs and gives them out-of-date, hand-me-down textbooks and scarred, secondhand desks. Meanwhile, Aki and her family must cope with meager housing and supplies and an almost three-year separation from Aki’s father.

Despite their physical distance, both girls share a love for dolls and develop a friendship via letters. And despite their different ancestries, both families share a common goal: equality. As Aki’s brother must decide if he can serve in the military of a country that doesn’t recognize him as an American, Sylvia’s father sues the local school system on March 2, 1945, for her right to attend the closer white school. Author Winifred Conkling used court records from the real-life case to include some of the courtroom dialogue, almost verbatim.

Although the story ends with the return of Aki’s family to their farmhouse, an enlightening afterword explains how history unfolded. Conkling provides photos of the real Sylvia and Aki and information about Japanese internment camps, but perhaps the most profound element is the record of the Mendez lawsuit, which not only inspired the end of school segregation in California in 1947, but influenced the landmark lawsuit Brown v. Board of Education, which made school segregation illegal nationwide in 1954. Change and friendship may start small, but their impact can be far-reaching.