Best Children’s Books of 2016

by Wesley King. Razorbill, 283 pp., $16.99.
What would you do if your father was labeled a traitor? Twelve-year-old Marcus Brimley has been searching for clues to his father’s innocence since his disappearance eight years earlier. When Marcus solves a complex computer code, he’s hurled into an alternate universe—but he soon realizes he was followed by high-tech drones that begin destroying everything in sight. Can he align himself with the people and dragons of this unknown world and avert catastrophe? Ages 8 to 12.