The Lighthouse between the Worlds by Melanie Crowder (review)

Eleven-year-old Griffin and his father Phillip, on their own since the loss of Griffin's mother, focus on their work in Phillip's glass shop and their care for a neighboring lighthouse. After Griffin sees his dad get sucked into the lens of the lighthouse, the bedtime stories of parallel worlds his mother used to tell him and the intricate glass craft his father taught him turn out to be clues to a secret that spans seven other worlds, all tied to Earth via this very lighthouse. Each world is distinctly magical—including one with literal dream clouds, one where flora and humans are deeply interwoven, one with the unique ability to create glass wonders—and Crowder uses vivid sensory descriptions as well as striking metaphors to make the worlds come alive in novel ways. Together Griffin and Fi, a girl he meets along the way, hope to reunite with their respective families in this likely series starter, but the revelation of a secret about Griffin's mother leads them to a new world where a larger conflict seems to be just beginning. WJ