The euphemism “peculiar institution” seems particularly apt when considering Thomas Jefferson’s relationship to slavery. The great founding father who penned the words “all Men are created equal” owned more than 130 slaves when he died in 1826. However enlightened and “revolutionary” Jefferson may have been for a man of his times, he nonetheless engaged in the savage practice of buying and selling human beings throughout his life.

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s completely engrossing historical novel looks at the last 20 years of Thomas Jefferson’s life through the eyes of three of his slaves: Beverly and Madison Hemings, who were also his sons, and Peter Fossett. That Jefferson fathered Beverly, Harriet, Madison and Eston by their mother Sally Hemings, one of his slaves, was a secret everyone knew at Monticello. Jefferson may not have been the worst of slave owners, but he was capable of cruelties such as whipping runaways and breaking up families as slaves were sold off. These horrors were dispensed by overseers, but they were done at his behest.

Bradley brings her characters and setting vividly to life. There are many heartbreaking moments, such as Beverly’s mother scolding him for referring to Master Jefferson as “Papa.” Jefferson is appropriately portrayed as a deeply conflicted man who could shower his slave children with fatherly attention one moment and then treat them like pieces of furniture the next. Three-quarters of the way through the story, the point of view shifts from Beverly and Madison to Peter Fossett, another enslaved boy on the plantation but not one of Jefferson’s sons. Although initially jarring, the shift proves crucial for the heart-wrenching conclusion.

In an afterword, Bradley explains what later happened to each of the characters and which aspects of the story are historical and which are fictional. She also includes a bibliography of books and websites for further study. Jefferson’s Sons is a fascinating, disturbing portrait of an American family that reflects many of the bizarre paradoxes of our history. This story has been told before, but never has it been told so completely and so well for young readers.

Meg Wolitzer has written a string of smart, critically acclaimed novels for adults in the last decade. In her newest book, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, the main characters are middle schoolers (not moms). The action of the plot surrounds a national Scrabble tournament—and it’s a hilarious, heartwarming story of suspense, friendship and family dynamics.

Life could be better for Duncan Dorfman. He and his single mother have moved to Drilling Falls, Pennsylvania, where they live with Duncan’s great-aunt Djuna in a “squirrel-colored” house that smells like yams and beans. At Drilling Falls Middle School, Duncan’s classmates call him “Lunch Meat,” and his only friend is video game-obsessed Andrew Tanizaki. In a desperate moment, Duncan reveals that he has recently discovered an unusual talent: He can read with his fingers. This greatly interests Carl Slater, a competitive Scrabble player (and jerk) who aspires to go all the way at the national Youth Scrabble Tournament and take home the $10,000 prize. Carl recruits Duncan to be his partner, knowing that he can draw only the best tiles. What Carl doesn’t anticipate is that Duncan will fall in love with Scrabble—and find that cheating takes all the fun out of the game.

At the tournament in Yakamee, Florida, Duncan meets April Blunt and Nate Saviano, two players who have their own sets of problems. April is the lone word nerd in a family of jocks, and Nate’s dad was a runner-up at the Youth Scrabble Tournament years ago, and has forced his son to live out his dream. In between nail-biting Scrabble games, excursions to the creepy amusement park Funswamp and skateboarding mishaps, the group of players forms a tight-knit group. They realize how lucky they are to meet other kids obsessed with words. “When the weekend was over, they would return to the real world, where no one knew what bingo-bango-bongs were, and where vowel dumps sounded like something embarrassing that could happen to you on the toilet.”

Equally appealing for boys and girls, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman captures the experience of not fitting in at school—and the pure joy of finally finding your niche. Without being preachy, Wolitzer fits in a lesson on ethics, as readers will consider whether it would be fair for Duncan to use his secret talent, even if he’d never get caught. Young Scrabble fans will delight in learning new tips, and readers who have not yet discovered the game will appreciate its puzzle-like aspect—and maybe be convinced that word games are cool and give Scrabble a try.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Wolitzer for The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman.

The very word breadcrumbs conjures up images of a boy and a girl lost in a dark and mysterious landscape, trying to get back home to safety. In her luminous new novel, Breadcrumbs, Anne Ursu draws on the archetypal worlds of fairy tales such as Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen,” yet also manages to create an original world of magic all her own.

The story opens with an evocative depiction of a snowstorm, and a premonition that the mundane world of school and winter sledding that Minnesota fifth graders Jack and Hazel think they know is not at all what it seems.

Best friends since the age of six, Jack and Hazel are in desperate need of some magic. Jack’s mom is suffering from depression. Hazel’s father has left, her mother is struggling financially and Hazel has had to leave her familiar private school and go to the public school. Hazel has gone from being called creative and imaginative to being a lonely girl who “needs to follow school rules.”

But there is one rule that Hazel believes in strongly: that best friends don’t suddenly desert you overnight of their own free will. Never. And so, when some horrible magic takes Jack away, Hazel must gather all her courage and her belief in friendship to set out after him into the cold, snowy woods.

Ursu has created a beautiful and compelling fairy tale that will appeal to young readers raised on magic. If you know any readers pining for something new now that the last Harry Potter film is out, have them follow the trail of magic in this marvelous book.

Patricia MacLachlan, Newbery Medalist for Sarah, Plain and Tall, delivers another heartfelt story of family and home in Waiting for the Magic. Just as William wonders who his fifth grade teacher will be when school starts, his professor father leaves home—again. In his absence, his mother decides that William and his little sister, Elinor, need a dog. Unable to decide which dog meets their needs, they return with four dogs of varying sizes and temperaments and a cat to boot.

The dogs’ arrival sparks some magic immediately when four-year-old Elinor and her grandparents start chatting with the canine newcomers. William, on the other hand, has never even thought about magic and certainly doesn’t believe in it. Although his grandmother suggests that he’s not young enough or old enough or brave enough to believe, he still resists the possibility that conversations are occurring between people and dogs.

William is quiet and steady, and when he discovers that his mother is expecting a baby, he musters the courage, with the help of his new dogs, to tell Mama that Papa should know about the situation. In light of his bravery, William begins to hear the dogs speak. But can he also find the courage to forgive when his father comes back? MacLachlan handles this scary and difficult parental separation with sensitivity, while Amy June Bates’ charming charcoal sketches and the dogs’ whimsical yet wise speech helps to lighten the mood.

Perhaps there’s more to magic than talking dogs, though. In distinct ways, the family members learn that real magic can be found at home among seemingly everyday events. Readers, who can’t help but be touched by this affirming story, will find themselves looking for magic in their own lives. MacLachlan has another classic in the making.

Liesl & Po begins very darkly. Liesl’s attic room is a “uniform gray darkness,” much like the world outside her window. In this bleak environment, she meets Po, a smudge of a ghost, three nights after her father dies. Po lives on the Other Side, a shadowy dimension of wild uncertainty.

The likable characters in this story all have some sadness and loss in their lives, while the villains are ugly and dark from a lack of inner light or feeling. Both types contribute to the somber mood in this lightless world. But small joys and flashes of warmth offer promise of what is to come.

Liesl and Po set out on a quest to restore Liesl’s father’s ashes to the home of her childhood. Along the way, author Lauren Oliver brilliantly weaves a cast of characters whose life stories begin to intersect in miraculous ways. Although the events feel a bit contrived at times, as the reader foresees the coming connections, these happy coincidences are not begrudged. Oliver is careful to make the entire construct feel like a fairy tale and young readers will be pleased by the way all the pieces come together.

In the passing of only a few days, we reach a conclusion that gives us the light we and Liesl and Po crave throughout the story. There is the redemption we hope for, the easing of sadness, and the delight in the hope newly found. This is a small story with big feeling, a quiet movement in a loud world, and a book definitely worth reading.

It was only a modest charm, a black heart with a hole right through it, shaped from flint during the Stone Age. But if the Flint Heart was black, so too became the heart of whoever possessed it. In the village of Grimspound, in the south of England, a warrior named Phuttphutt came into possession of the Flint Heart, and it turned him into an evil man. He killed Chief Brokotockotick, took over as the new chief and ruled with an iron fist, his long and bloody reign only ending with his death, when the creator of the Flint Heart buried it with Phuttphutt’s ashes under piles of rocks, where he hoped it would remain forever.

Thousands of years later, Billy Jago of Merripit Farm finds the Flint Heart, and the kind family man becomes rough and cruel. His children, Charles and Unity, seek help from the pixies. The marvelous world of the fairies comes alive for readers as fairies and humans work together to break the power of the Flint Heart and set the world right again.

In this fantasy “freely abridged” from the 1910 original by Eden Phillpotts, the prose by the husband-and-wife team of Katherine and John Paterson retains some of the Edwardian voice of the original and laces the story with understated humor. John Rocco’s digitally colored pencil drawings provide a perfect complement, glowing with fairy light. The full-page art, chapter headings and decorations make this a lovely volume, reminiscent of the Robert Louis Stevenson classics illustrated by N.C. Wyeth.

The Patersons have given new life to Phillpotts’ original, retaining and enhancing the magical wonder of a tale that ought to endure as a classic. This beautifully made book exemplifies, as John Rocco said in a recent interview, “the importance of the physical book for children in this ever-growing digital age.”

British author Frank Cottrell Boyce is probably best known for his book Millions, the story of two brothers who find a bag of money by the side of the railroad tracks. The story was later made into a movie directed by Danny Boyle. Boyce is himself a screenwriter (his films include Welcome to Sarajevo). And while his latest work for children, The Unforgotten Coat, is fiction, it includes photographs of real people which make it feel almost like a film or documentary story itself.

The story begins with a photograph taken during Julie’s Year Six class. As it happens, she is finding this photo and others years later, in the pocket of an unusual coat left behind at her old school. Through Julie’s memories, we learn that the photographer was a Mongolian boy named Chingis, who appeared suddenly in school one day along with his little brother, Nergui.

Chingis, a very self-possessed kid, immediately appoints Julie to be their “Good Guide.” He tells her, “ ‘In Mongolia we are nomads. When we come to a new country, we need to find a Good Guide. You will be our Good Guide in this place. Agree?’ “

Julie is thrilled: “ ‘Of course I agreed. No one had ever asked me to be anything before, definitely not anything involving a title.’ “

Julie takes her responsibility seriously. She does research on Mongolia and tries to get to know the new boys as best she can. But Julie soon finds that being a Good Guide to Chingis and Nergui is more difficult than she could have imagined.

Their lives seem to be surrounded in mystery. They walk home a different way each day. She can’t help but realize that the boys—and their parents—are afraid of something. Is it, as Chingis tells her, that Nergui believes he is being chased by a demon? Or is there something else troubling them—something beyond Julie’s ability to understand or fix?

This is a funny, sad and heartwarming story of the ways in which children come together and make their own communities. As Boyce notes in the afterword, The Unforgotten Coat was inspired by the story of a young Mongolian refugee named Misheel, whom he met during his very first author visit, to the Joan of Arc Primary school in Bootle, near Liverpool. And while the photograph in the book of a grown-up Chingis and Nergui isn’t real, you can almost believe it is.

“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.