"...the labyrinth was empty. Dean had disappeared."

Okay, time travel fans, The Blackhope Enigma by Teresa Flavin is a good one for you.  Dean's just goofing around as he walks through the labyrinth in Blackhope Tower, but poof!  He disappears, and his sister Sunni is shocked to see him IN a nearby painting, done centuries ago by the mystical artist Fausto Corvo.  So Sunni goes in after him, as does her classmate Blaise and (uh-oh) bad guy Angus.  Soon they're crossing through different layers of the painting, ending up in different lands, encountering some nasty creatures, meeting others "inside" the painting, and having one heck of an adventure as they desperately try to figure out how to get back home. Who can be trusted?  Parts of the story were a bit confusing, but many readers will enjoy the pace and action.

What's it like if you're homeless...and you're a kid?

I was all ready to be sad when I read Almost Home by Joan Bauer, but instead I was touched, impressed, and inspired.  Sugar Mae Cole and her mom, Reba, have lost their home and moved to Chicago to start over. But after the job Reba hopes for doesn't come through, she has a breakdown, and Sugar heads to a loving foster family.  With help from a book by her late grandfather, a puppy named Shush, and an understanding teacher from her previous school, Sugar strives to carry on.  She's a strong, likable character, and many of her feelings are expressed in emails and poems that she writes.  Even though the book is fiction, it puts a real face on the issue of homelessness in a compassionate way, and yes, there are touches of humor.  This is a mesmerizing, wonderful book - I'd love to hear a book club discuss it.

"...when you find your soul, you have to go"

And someone (something?) leaving is the trigger for the wildly creative fantasy Summer and Bird by Katherine Catmull.  Summer and Bird are sisters, and they wake up one morning to find that their parents are gone.  Trying to follow a picture-letter left behind by their mother, the girls stumble into Down, a place of magic.  They're soon separated, and as the narrator follows their individual journeys, the reader learns that Mom is actually the queen of birds and can change from woman into bird and back again by using the swan robe.  The girls encounter ravens, snakes, the evil Puppeteer, and so many other fantasy elements that your head will spin.  Imagery! Symbolism!  Metaphors!  The language is rich and the details are intricate, but the story gets so unusual (a World Snake?  a woman who eats live birds?) that I think this book is better suited to older readers.