Years later, I can still recall my first trip to Narnia, my first flight to Neverland, and my first meeting with Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which, the enigmatic witchlike trio in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Science fiction and fantasy transported me to far-off lands and introduced me to otherworldly beings while imparting real-world lessons. C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe taught me that no one—not even the traitorous Edmund—is beyond redemption, while Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the story of a seemingly idyllic society revealed to be a rigidly governed dystopia, gave me the courage to question authority.

That’s the beauty of speculative fiction: Its immersive worldbuilding keeps young people enthralled even as they absorb important life lessons. This year’s crop of science fiction and fantasy will not only delight middle graders; it will also leave them braver, more thoughtful, and more deeply empathetic.

In Kyle Lukoff’s A World Worth Saving (Dial Books, Feb. 4), A Izenson, a 14-year-old Jewish transgender boy whose parents are forcing him to attend conversion therapy meetings run by an organization called SOSAD, contends with feelings of alienation exacerbated by the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic. When a strange creature calling itself a golem tells A that it’s up to him to right the “great wrongs…brewing across this land,” A is uncertain. But, angered by everyday injustices—like the disappearance of a SOSAD friend who’s being subjected to “further treatment”—he rises to the occasion. Lukoff masterfully blends Jewish lore with a taut narrative rooted in the here and now. Countless titles are described as both timeless and timely; this one truly earns that praise.

One might expect an Usher—a creature neither dead nor alive, tasked with guiding the departed to the various realms of the Afterlife—to be all-knowing, but Clare, the vulpine protagonist of Aubrey Hartman’s The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest, illustrated by Marcin Minor (Little, Brown, Feb. 25), is wracked with insecurities about both his physical appearance and his very soul; he’s sure that upon his own demise, he’s destined for the realm of Pain. The arrival of a newly deceased badger sets into motion a journey of self-discovery. In this enchanting story, the macabre mingles with playful whimsy as Hartman conjures a world where, even in death, characters are granted the freedom to redefine themselves.

Robots figure heavily in this year’s science fiction—perhaps a reflection of growing concerns with artificial intelligence. In Guojing’s graphic novel Oasis (Godwin Books, Feb. 18), two siblings, left to fend for themselves in a desert wasteland while their mother works in an underground factory, discover an abandoned robot who becomes a maternal substitute. In Oz Rodriguez and Claribel A. Ortega’s The Girl and the Robot (Disney-Hyperion, March 25), an Afro-Latine preteen whose father was recently deported finds a kindred spirit in an automaton from outer space who crash-lands in her Brooklyn neighborhood.

These tender and thought-provoking tales use fantastical premises to explore immigration, economic inequity, environmental devastation, and the heartache of being separated from loved ones.

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.