Come journey to the plains of Africa and experience farm life in a different way. The age-old song of Old MacDonald carries through this story as readers are introduced to baboons, dassies, warthogs, and springboks along with more familiar animals like lizards, rhinos, and lions. Each animal has their own spread of colorful collage-style artwork, by Caldecott Honor winner Rachel Isadora, to illustrate their life (and the unique sounds that they make) on Old Mikamba’s farm. The final spread of the book provides extra information for each animal to inspire young readers to learn more about these interesting inhabitants of Africa.

Rarely does one come across a work of limitless imagination, but Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow by Daniel Nayeri is exactly that. It is collection of four novellas, each in a different genre. In “Toy Farm”, a western, there is a showdown between a farmer who grows living toys and a rancher who grows soulless humans. “Our Lady of Villains” is a remarkable science fiction tale that depicts a future where reality and technology have seamlessly blended to the point where nanotech allows people to live in a fantasy world, but at what cost? The amazing “Wish Police” is a detective story set in modern NYC that features the W.I.S.H Police (Wicked Ideas Suddenly Human) a team of investigators that track down evil wishes made by angry children that have the potential to wreak very real—and permanent—damage on the world. And finally, “Doom with a View” is a comedic love story narrated by the handsome and charismatic Death, who relates the tale of a real-life Romeo and Juliet pair, whose parents’ feud isn’t the only barrier to their love; these two can’t even speak the same language.

Nayeri is a masterful wordsmith, and it’s worth reading these novellas to see the breadth of his worldbuilding talent. There are puns that work in four languages and a wholly realized dialect of future-technospeak. But while craft is on display, it’s the stories that really capture the reader. Four developed worlds, with unique characters who touch the reader with their strength and integrity, is a feat, and it all works here. And as a bonus, pay special attention to “Wish Police”: the film rights of which were just optioned to Aron Warner, the producer of Shrek, at Reel FX Animation Studios!

Despite its prominent presence in real-life adolescence, teen angst is a difficult emotion to capture, and is rarely done right in YA lit. It’s a mix of “no one understands me,” “it’s easier to build walls than confront my feelings,” and “deep down, I want to find something in this life that’s meaningful to me.” It’s also a lot of uninhibited anger. ‘Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock’ not only nails this weird, visceral mixture of feelings, but it also uses this angst to tell an incredibly heart-wrenching story sure to resonate with anyone who has ever felt that they live in a world where they don’t belong.

Today is Leonard Peacock’s birthday. It’s also the day he’s going to kill himself, and his former best friend. But first, he needs to give presents to the four people who matter to him most. As is sadly the case in real life, it’s easy to dismiss Leonard as just another unreasonably angry teenager, just another unfortunate statistic. But as his story unravels — and as he reveals more and more about his past — it becomes clear that his problems are deeper seated and more disturbing than anyone could have ever imagined. Leonard’s narration moves at a breakneck pace; his thoughts feel simultaneously frenzied and focused. What struck me most about Leonard’s character, though, is that despite his insistence that the world means nothing to him and he wants to hurt both himself and others, there’s a small but potent part of him that wants to find meaning in this world, that wants reassurance that things ultimately get better, even for people who are prone to sadness. I can’t stop thinking about Leonard, and I have no doubt that readers will find hope in this honest, unflinching portrayal of uncontrollable anger and the infinite possibilities that stem from confronting it head on.

Neil Gaiman’s latest is based upon a simple premise that allows him to throw just about every imagining onto the page. A father is tasked with buying a bottle of milk for his children’s breakfast, but when the trip takes longer than expected, the children naturally have questions when he returns. Without skipping a beat, the dad launches into a frenetic tale that begins with alien abduction but very quickly involves a time-traveling Stegosaurus, pirates, a volcano god, and piranhas. Well, maybe not piranhas, the father concedes when his son points out that piranha are fresh water fish. And throughout it all, the milk comes along for the ride and even plays a crucial part. The interplay between the children and their dad allows the story to remain ductile as the dad responds to his children’s skepticism, incorporates their suggestions, and weasels his way out of narrative dead ends. In many ways, the various twists and increasingly absurd characters are only a thin foreground to this backstage interplay between father and children. Despite the title, this is a story more about storytelling than milk.

With all due reverence to Gaiman, the true star of this book is artist Skottie Young, who is better known for his work in comics, including the recent adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. There’s a raw, chaotic energy to Young’s pen lines with smoke and hair and fabric and wires spiraling out off of every delightfully over-the-top character. Young’s illustrations deftly keep pace with this sprint of a story and flesh out a lot of the world that the text simply doesn’t have time to dwell on. Here’s hoping this isn’t Young’s last foray into children’s books.

In this fourth installment of Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It series, it’s three years later and the story this time is not told by Miranda but rather her younger brother Jon. Like Miranda, Jon offers his unique perspective of what life is like in this post-disaster dystopian novel. In the previous two novels told from Miranda’s POV, the reader follows a teenage Miranda, who is on the verge of adulthood as she and her family learn how to adapt to this new life. Through Jon’s POV in this installment, the reader gets to learn more about how the world is coping with the changes.

Jon’s character is interesting. He is a boy who has had his childhood basically stolen from him, and has grown from a boy into early adulthood in this dystopian environment. Jon has had to struggle in a world where food is scarce, the air quality is poor, and caste systems rule everyday life. In the previous two novels, Jon is the character that the others make sacrifices for, all in the name of his survival. His development in the other novels sometimes made Jon a hard character to like in this one. Jon often seems selfish and unwilling to stand out—it is only when faced with huge obstacles and the deaths of those closest to him that he sees he can’t take the easy way and go with the norm.

This novel was hard to get through, not only because of its harshness, but because as the reader I was looking for a resolution. But the author doesn’t wrap everything up with a perfect solution to all the problems, and because of that, it is a better book. The fact that the reader does not know what happens to the characters gives the glimmer of hope in a novel that is packed with violence and no easy solutions. This is a society riddled with prejudice, broken into the haves and havenots. I think what stands out most about this dystopian over others is how Jon has been on both sides, so the reader gets a more in-depth look at all the things that make this society troubling. Since this novel examines the problems facing only one enclave and grub town, it really makes the reader wonder how other groups are handling this new life.