What Are You Looking For?

Expect a contemporary-school setting alongside shifters, fairies, witches and fairy-tale rules. Bryar’s resistance to her assigned role and the unwanted marriage plan sits alongside dreams, romance and a threat to lives and magic.

The princess’s snoring causes a palace commotion. Princes come seeking a reward if they can stop it, but the story leaves open whether their kisses will help.

This is a fantasy adventure in which a group of Guardians tries to stop Pitch from making children afraid. Jack Frost, who is not usually a hero, becomes an important ally.

Beatrice, who prefers staying indoors and relies on online messaging, is sent to live with a grandmother she barely knows while her mother returns to rehab. Hoping to secure some peace, Beat tries to find her grandmother a husband. Her plans change as she spends time outdoors and meets Toffie. The story brings family circumstances, romance and an unfamiliar South African village into Beat’s summer.

A compact, illustrated retelling of Genesis’s creation story, using selected King James Bible text and paintings to evoke each day’s work. The language and images are deliberately restrained rather than majestic.

This is a school-and-family story about coping with upheaval and trying to start afresh.

Three separate dog-centred adventures offer distinct starting points: Alpha’s life before leadership, Sweet’s search for a Pack, and Moon’s transition after disaster. The collection’s emphasis is on survival and life among Packs.

This is a historical story of a divided society and a personal return to danger, with Darnay’s choices set against injustice and revolution in France.

Expect a sampler rather than one continuous story: it brings together excerpts from many classic works, with literary, adventure and travel-related titles represented.

Expect a varied story collection rather than one continuous plot: art, storytelling, music, dance, sculpture and cinema feature in situations ranging from heritage preservation to changed film endings.

A childhood story about music, friendship and adapting when illness interrupts a much-loved activity. Millie is an imagined character; Oscar Peterson’s childhood and musical path provide the real-life inspiration.

A Finnish legendary world supplies the setting for a tale about a magical object of great value and the heroes who seek to possess it.

A theatre mystery brings friendship and a search for a missing performer together. The sisters’ immediate aim is to find him before the show, but what has happened to him is not revealed here.

This is a performance-oriented collection: children can take different parts, while the included suggestions cover props, scenery and costumes.

This is a family travel story centred on children adapting to a different country. It combines homesickness and practical changes with visits, schooling and attempts to keep familiar holiday traditions.

This is an imaginative fairy-tale adventure about family, friendship and finding missing people, combining modern Virginia with an older magical world. Its shifting settings, time structure and recognisable story figures may appeal to readers who enjoy elaborate retellings.

Expect a futuristic thriller centred on two teenagers from sharply different social positions. The book combines pursuit, military conflict, romance and a challenge to official narratives, with a graphic presentation of action.

This is a compact retelling of Luke’s journey, supported by striking early concept art. Its unusual strength is the pairing of familiar story material with visual designs that show how the Star Wars world developed before the films were finalised.

A lively school diary about a pupil who tries to force her way home through bad behaviour, then finds unexpected reasons to engage with school. Expect pranks, rivalry, comic embarrassment, music and friendship rather than a quiet adjustment story.

A folklore-infused fantasy about a cursed princess undertaking dangerous trials to save her brothers. Its strongest threads are family loyalty, courage, sacrifice and repairing harm, while its trials include physical danger, death and bereavement.

Choose this for a reader who enjoys ambitious fantasy, mythic worlds and protagonists who challenge restrictive communities. It is better approached as an imaginative, sometimes confusing journey than as a straightforward adventure.

A playful ensemble drama turns five animal tales into acted stories, then shifts towards a more personal final episode. Its distinctive appeal is imaginative performance alongside friendship and self-understanding.

This appears to offer a child-focused adapted Ojibwe story whose title names Old Meshikee and little crabs.

A fast-moving modern Cinderella story centres on a girl using her singing talent to seek a different life. Expect familiar fairy-tale patterns, family conflict and a performance-driven route towards independence.

A funny, thoughtful fantasy about a community facing upheaval. Its appeal lies less in grand spectacle than in practical problem-solving, social observation and seeing familiar life from the Nomes’ radically different perspective.

This is a family-and-friendship story about adapting to relocation, comparing yourself with a successful sibling, and rebuilding trust when sisters begin keeping things from one another.

Expect a playful, original Wolverine adventure shaped by mutant powers and adolescent unease. Its appeal appears to lie in comic-book invention, irreverent humour and a recognisable superhero setting rather than adaptation fidelity.

This is a gentle family story built from sensory seaside memories and a repeated pebble ritual. Its emotional centre is the child’s continuing connection with Grandad after his circumstances change.

A dark, fast-moving revenge thriller that reworks Macbeth through a teen girl’s response to sexual violence. Its central appeal is suspense and moral provocation; its intensity comes from trauma, murder and a sustained focus on retaliation.

This is a colour-rich magical quest about a child seeking companionship, forming a close bond with a dog, and responding when that relationship no longer fits her home. It offers a gentle framework for discussing change and belonging.

Choose this for a high-stakes forbidden romance set against a vivid, drowned future London, especially if a Romeo and Juliet reworking appeals. Expect war, scarcity and a grim atmosphere alongside the central relationship.

A warm, nature-focused story about belonging and care. Roz learns by observing the island’s animals, while raising Brightbill gives the story a family relationship and a reason to explore migration, instincts and seasonal change.

This is a reflective Arctic adventure about environmental change, cultural knowledge and responsibility. Its striking setting, illustrations and theatrical qualities may appeal to readers who enjoy atmospheric stories that unfold patiently.

A fast-moving fantasy adventure combines fairy-tale reworking, coding, futuristic inventions and family emotion. Amber’s ordered life is disrupted by a rescue mission, while her father’s past adds a more serious strand.

Macbeth United: A Football Tragedy is presented as a children’s-fiction reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, set in a football context.

A good fit for readers drawn to eerie fairy-tale retellings, magical quests, mysteries and determined protagonists. Its central journey carries genuine danger, while its romantic thread and unresolved ending may shape the reading experience.

A fast-moving fantasy mystery with an underwater setting, missing-person investigation and environmental concerns. It may appeal to readers who enjoy suspense, sea folklore and protagonists confronting difficult questions about trust, identity and responsibility.

This is a short, playful story about wanting one kind of pet, adapting to another and finding an unusual talent. Its main appeal is energetic silliness, especially repeated fart humour and the contrast between expectations and what Fluff can do.

Expect a brisk historical adventure centred on bereavement, trust and belonging. Maggie’s errand expands into an international race, with shifting loyalties, danger and friendships providing momentum.

This is a voice-led poetry collection about disability, change and self-understanding. Cosmo’s observations combine raw feelings with humour, curiosity and hope, allowing difficult experiences and new possibilities to sit alongside one another.

A lively fairy-tale reimagining where three heroines encounter magic, danger and friendship. Its central movement is from Rumaysa’s enforced confinement towards escape, shared adventure and protagonists who act as their own rescuers.

This is a sustained post-apocalyptic survival story in which blindness, predatory plants and human power struggles reshape everyday life. It offers danger, moral choices and competing ideas about how society might be rebuilt after catastrophe.

This is an intense retelling that gives a traditionally vilified woman an inner voice without excusing her actions. Its folklore, dark magic and shifting emotional perspective make the story morally complicated rather than comforting.

This is a thoughtful survival adventure in which Roz learns by watching, earns trust through helpfulness and cares for an orphaned gosling. Its accessible episodic structure supports shared reading, while the island’s dangers and losses may prompt pauses.

A child’s perspective makes refugee experience, antisemitism and changing countries personal and discussable. Family solidarity and curiosity sit alongside historically grounded accounts of persecution and loss.