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This offers a plot-led fantasy involving assassination, magic, royal duty, secrets and romance. Its central appeal is the partnership between an ambitious apprentice and a highly dangerous royal agent, while the volume leaves major messages unresolved.

A visually presented introduction to Hispanic and Latino American figures whose work spans culture, public life, science, sport and the arts. It offers short life sketches rather than one continuous narrative.

A poetic, emotionally serious story about two traumatised teenagers seeking connection and truth. Its unusual voices and recurring poems offer rich interpretation, while difficult experiences and contested ideas about healing require thoughtful engagement.

This is a serious, character-led account of friendship tested by colonial injustice. It offers a personal route into Kenya’s history, showing how fear, racial privilege and silence can damage people across divided communities.

A suspenseful historical novel linking a present-day investigation with a teenager’s experience of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. It combines mystery, racial history and questions about privilege, social inequality, identity and justice.

A warm, unusual story about an orphan girl and a gorilla forming a family, while facing official scrutiny and prejudice. Its humour and tenderness sit alongside uncertainty about belonging and justice.

This offers imaginative fantasy alongside sustained questions about Black identity, friendship, prejudice and self-determination. Its dual perspective gives Tavia and Effie distinct forms of identity exploration, though the opening may feel slow before the action intensifies.

This is a symbolic story about colours whose town becomes divided after one colour claims superiority. Friendship, mixing and cooperation challenge exclusion, making the book particularly useful for starting conversations about racism and belonging.

Expect lively, performative poems alongside serious real-world concerns. The collection can invite laughter, close attention to word choice and discussion about fairness, nature, animal treatment and how poetry communicates ideas.

A lively introduction to women’s contributions across history and different fields, presented through colourful illustrations, short profiles, facts and quotations. Its page-by-page structure supports dipping in, revisiting individual figures and noticing links between personal achievement and wider social change.

A lively fantasy mystery for readers who enjoy hidden worlds, supernatural beings, competition and surprises. Its emotional centre is Amari’s search for her brother and her movement from feeling like an outsider towards recognising her strengths.

This is a visually contrasting, rhyming story about a boy who loves the natural world, faces homophobic bullying at school, and develops a plan to reclaim his school through creativity and nature.

A warm, idea-led adventure about friendship across a human–robot divide. Its central relationship invites readers to question inherited beliefs, while action and humour keep the story moving.

This offers a tense journey story alongside a close account of sibling care. Clem’s storytelling, memories and uncertain perspective add emotional depth, while the political setting invites reflection on belonging, surveillance, displacement and how families preserve hope under pressure.

A lively school-and-family story about handling change, friendship and unfair treatment through humour and imagination. Omar’s Muslim identity is part of everyday life, not a separate lesson.

A richly imagined adventure about mapmaking, friendship and courage under authoritarian rule. Isabella must act when murder, imprisonment and a friend’s disappearance unsettle her island, leading her towards magic and danger in the Forbidden Territories.

This is an imaginative fantasy adventure about siblings entering a winter-bound world and taking part in its liberation. Its moral framework includes courage, sacrifice, repentance, forgiveness and explicitly Christian allegory.

Expect a gently comic adventure in which a boy, a dragon and St George confront expectations about what dragons and heroes should be. The story makes room for poetry, friendship and a staged solution rather than presenting fighting as the only answer.

A lively, comic team caper in which classmates use specialised talents and improvised devices to recover a confiscated ceramic cat. The noir-like text, expressive illustrations and exaggerated characters make the adventure feel deliberately outlandish.

This is a short, poetic remembrance of a childhood home where prominent Black cultural and political figures gathered. Its words are spare, while the paintings make the people, rooms and atmosphere expansive.

A long, sweeping fantasy about a farm boy and newly hatched dragon confronting an evil empire. Its appeal lies in adventure, magic, training, invented cultures and the growing responsibilities attached to power.

This is a family-centred historical novel about Black children growing up amid racism and hardship. Its conflicts involve a death sentence, racial identity, land ownership, voting rights, work, community pressure and the effort to preserve dignity.