My Aunt Manya by José Patterson (Matador, £6.99) is the story of 10-year-old Sarah, sent unaccompanied to New York to escape the Russian pogroms. She endures stinking conditions in steerage, assists with the birth of a baby, learns English from a kind, fellow passenger and confronts a final challenge on Ellis Island before finding a new home.
Sarah's adventures are simply told, with authentic detail and nothing too scary for readers aged nine to 12. There is real emotional depth to the account, with its affectionate recollections of tsimmes, kugel and faith in beshert. Patricia Drew's line drawings are the perfect accompaniment.
A very different journey for Sesame Street's furry blue monster, Grover, in Shalom Everybodeee! (Tilda Balsley and Ellen Fischer, Kar-Ben, £5.50). Touring Israel, Grover visits the key sites - the Wall, a kibbutz, Masada - even managing to scuba-dive in Eilat.
Balsley gets the monster's distinctive perky voice just right and there are plenty of laughs, especially when an important archaeological find turns out to be a suspiciously familiar blue hair. But when Grover covers himself in Dead Sea mud, one can't help but worry if he will ever be quite so blue and furry again. Ages up to seven.
Is there anything creepier than Punch and Judy? Yes - Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Mr Punch, in a "completely remastered" 20th anniversary edition (Bloomsbury, £14.99). A boy tells of his sinister seaside experiences when visiting his grandfather, a man with a shady past and a breakfast penchant for red, kosher sausages.
Amid the horror, there are some memorable Punch-and-Judy revelations, such as the reason why puppet characters worn on the left hand are frequently killed off. Dave McKean's illustrations are almost universally crepuscular and feature skull-like, frowning humans, alarming close-ups of eyes and malevolent puppets. Age 14 up.
Decisive moments of bravery and defiance - coming of age, coming out, taking a stand against parents or educational discrimination, escaping abusive relationships and societies - are the themes of [Re]Sisters (For Books' Sake, £7.99), a YA anthology of 18 variations on teen anger and self-assertion, some in a real-world setting and others dystopian. Liz Flanagan and Zoe Apostolides handle the short form with particular skill in their well-observed love stories. My own tale, A Whole Plate of Biscuits, imagines a world in which the mechitzah plays an unexpected role. Age 16 and up, with parental guidance.
