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A fast-moving survival adventure places Sam and Delphy in immediate danger from wildfire while their developing friendship becomes central to their effort to reach safety.

This is an action-led animal fantasy about packs facing a looming threat. Lucky’s troubling visions, a traitor, divided loyalties and unexpected allies create a tense story about survival and trust.

This is a comic school story about an overconfident aspiring writer whose contest ambitions meet opposition, embarrassment and competing relationships. Its diary-and-message structure creates a brisk, multi-perspective-feeling reading experience.

This is a compact Norse fantasy about an overlooked boy who responds to hardship with ingenuity rather than force. Its adventure introduces gods, giants and morally complicated mythology while leaving room to reflect on courage, loss and belonging.

This is a character-led wartime coming-of-age story: relationships and growing up receive sustained attention before and during the conflict. Its view extends beyond the front to family life, nursing and shortages in England.

This is a tender, nature-centred story about a boy’s bond with a seal and his grandfather. Its strongest offering is emotional range: delight in the sea sits alongside physical danger, disappearance, the grandfather’s absence and the passage of generations.

Expect an imaginative, creature-filled adventure centred on finding sanctuary. Friendship, loyalty, courage and environmental loss sit alongside danger, threatening creatures and occasional insulting language.

This is a poetic survival story in which creative expression and learning become ways for Amira to retain possibility after violence and displacement. Its emotional force comes from contrasting family love, community life and profound loss.

This is a grief-centred coming-of-age story about surviving a friend’s suicide and finding ways to reconnect with life. Its emotional movement includes painful loss alongside family support, friendship, art, and possible first love.

A visually rich biography about how Peter Mark Roget’s love of words and lists developed into the thesaurus. It combines personal history with ideas about language, organisation, medicine, invention and learning.

This is a thoughtful, emotionally intense coming-of-age story in which the mystery and romance frame Aza’s experience of intrusive thoughts. Friendship, empathy and the effort to keep living with ongoing difficulty matter more than solving the case.