Recently I had a conversation with a thoughtful person in the book world on the topic of how we imagine characters and thus feel connected to their stories: Do fewer details make them blank slates who can be imagined however we wish? The catalyst was a book by an author who wrote a character with few defined characteristics beyond age and gender. Still, this character moved through a specific, real-world setting. And while our imaginations may be limitless, we all automatically (often subconsciously) fill in gaps in ways that reflect prior exposure and conditioning.

Our discussion got me thinking: Do overt differences act as a barrier to identification—or does the very act of imagining yourself in the shoes of a character unlike you enhance empathy and expand your world?

In real life, identity shapes what we can ignore and what we must pay attention to. In constructed fictional worlds, skillful authors make deliberate choices about what to mention and what to elide. Erasing particularities about characters reduces the chances of finding surprising, delightful points of commonality across differences and, worryingly, positions difference as something negative.

A generic person simply doesn’t exist. If you try to write one, whose ways of navigating the world are you situating as “the standard”? I once heard an educator (whose speech was regionally neutral in a U.S. context) say she believed in spelling reform—writing English words as they’re pronounced. But, I wondered, according to whose accent? Children’s literature legend David Almond, who’s from Tyneside in the north of England, wrote this delightful phonetically spelled opinion piece: “ye hav to knaa the words the world thinks is rite and ye have to knaa how to spel them rite an speek them rite. Othawize sum misgiyded folk mite think yor just a dope.”

The quest to write a “universal” character feels to me as impossible (and sterile) as the spelling proposal. The texture of our lives is what makes them interesting. In that vein, the following beautifully executed books stand out for their distinct voices and their protagonists, who are richly grounded in specificity. The authors introduce us to characters who feel tremendously relatable precisely because they’re so well fleshed out.

Bryce Fairbanks in Medicine Wheels by Byron Graves (Heartdrum, June 2): Desperately in need of stability, an Ojibwe boy goes to stay in his late father’s room at his grandparents’ house on Wolf Creek Reservation. He grapples with grief and mental health and, through skateboarding, finds belonging, discipline, emotional self-regulation, and sense of direction.

Jaliya Powell in The Lovers, the Liars, and Me by DeAndra Davis (Atheneum, June 23): A Florida teen spends the summer before college with relatives in Jamaica, hoping to locate her long-missing mom. Her search leads to stronger self-confidence that allows her to courageously forge deeper personal and cultural connections—and even open up to unexpected love.

Bowie Jones in Radio Free Texas by Libba Bray (Scholastic, Oct. 6): In a small town in Texas in 1980, a 17-year-old white boy impulsively takes the fall for his crush when she lights a firecracker at school. His resulting community service hours at a local radio station lead to unexpected growth and newfound purpose.

Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.