The Ape Star
Frida Nilsson
Book summary
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.
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Frida Nilsson
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.
Bethany C. Morrow
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.
Arree Chung
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.
Benjamin Zephaniah
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.
Kate Pankhurst
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.
B. B. Alston
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.
Paul Harfleet
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.
Lee Bacon
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.
Clare Furniss
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.
Zanib Mian
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.
Kiran Millwood Hargrave
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.
C.S. Lewis
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.
Kenneth Grahame
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.
Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts
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.