What Are You Looking For?

A historical family story about wartime change, German-American prejudice and Carl’s first summer living away from home.

This is a coming-of-age story about Andy’s first relationships as a gay man, set alongside memories of a painful family life and his attempt to make a new start at college.

This verse novel follows a teenage artist through wrongful imprisonment and his effort to preserve his humanity and pursue the truth.

This story brings together a wetland ecosystem, a newcomer’s view of town divisions and a friendship that opens onto Blackfoot culture and stories.

This is a wartime story centred on service, family separation and friendship, with the Pacific setting bringing military danger into Hank's life.

A lively historical sports story, centred on the surprising circumstances of an Olympic marathon rather than a straightforward account of a conventional race.

This is a wartime family story centred on Ada’s changing sense of identity and the tensions that follow Ruth’s arrival. Its focus is on belonging and moral choices under threat.

A child-centred sports mystery combines a disputed accusation with clues to interpret. The appeal is likely to rest on following the investigation, rather than on sports details alone.

Expect a supernatural mystery with a strong historical strand, rather than a baseball-centred story. Boston history and events from different periods are woven into Tony’s investigation.

A character-focused story about wanting recognition and facing a sibling’s departure. The pageant provides a lively setting for exploring rivalry, while the family storyline brings a more serious emotional thread.

Expect a fast-moving, illustrated fantasy adventure in which Prince Alfred confronts danger beyond the palace while trying to save his mother and others. Humour sits alongside suspense, sadness, destruction and a noticeably darker atmosphere.

A sports mystery built around a strained friendship, team pressure and an investigation into threats and sabotage. The buried-treasure connection adds historical intrigue, while danger raises the stakes beyond the football pitch.

This is a character-led fantasy about maintaining balance while society modernises. Korra faces political unrest, spiritual conflict and difficult leadership choices, alongside friendships and romance. The storytelling offers more serious emotional and philosophical territory than typical children’s programming, with later seasons carrying greater intensity.

A playful magical adventure centred on pottery, crafts and recovering a missing object. It offers a straightforward conflict between Rachel and Kirsty and Jack Frost, with creativity forming the story’s distinctive setting.

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.

This is a fast-moving science-fiction fairy-tale reworking, centred on determined young characters facing divided loyalties, prejudice, identity and difficult choices about power. Its adventure is accompanied by graphic violence, frightening attackers, torture, deaths and some romantic and drinking-related content.

A tense school story about belonging and the cost of acceptance. Jericho’s growing unease gives readers a close view of how group loyalty can compete with judgement, while the initiation exposes humiliation, coercion and danger.

A fast-moving mystery-adventure about children building a home together while uncovering secrets around a missing billionaire, a threatening uncle and a possibly real sword-wielding protector.

A visually varied introduction to human rights, best approached one spread at a time. Its short, simplified statements are supported by imaginative artwork, making abstract ideas available for conversation without relying on a conventional story.

Expect an imaginative fantasy built around a dangerous darkness, paired roles and a developing relationship. Its strongest focus appears to be how people resist restrictive expectations while learning to trust someone very different from themselves.

This offers a contained lunar mystery with clues, suspects, suspense and humour. Its appeal lies in Dash’s investigation, the unusual space setting and the contrast between boredom, danger and intellectual challenge.

A lively school-election story about finding allies, challenging unfairness and turning strong feelings into action. Its campaign plot combines humour, friendship and political participation with a developing lesson about listening and working constructively with opponents.

This is a dark, visually distinctive folktale about a poor fisherman, Death’s unusual fairness, medicine, deception and consequences. Its accessible story shape is paired with a bleak ending that may invite thoughtful discussion.

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.

This is a character-led story about a Deaf teenager using graffiti and art to express herself while navigating exclusion, friendship and the expectations of hearing people.

A historically rooted survival and migration story, centred on siblings whose loyalty persists through violence, poverty, separation and an unfamiliar culture. It offers substantial scope for thinking about belonging and family responsibility.

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.

A warm but potentially emotionally charged story about a neurodivergent teenager responding to unfairness, protecting her sister and challenging a culture in which bullying can be enabled by silence.

This is a survival adventure that places a frightened, newly blind boy in prolonged dependence on Timothy. Its strongest material concerns trust, practical resilience and the painful unlearning of racial prejudice.

A tense, imaginative adventure follows Varjak from sheltered privilege into an unfamiliar city, where friendship, danger and dream-teaching reshape his understanding of himself and other cats.

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.

This is a fast-moving fantasy about survival, theft, vengeance and shifting loyalties. Kyra’s independence and uncertainty about her identity sit alongside Tristam’s grief-driven mission, while their partnership complicates both their goals.

This is a lively, comic Western adventure built around revenge, treasure-hunting and friendship. Its exaggerated action, shifting locations and ceremonious narration may suit readers who enjoy tall tales and dramatic storytelling.

This is a family-centred historical novel balancing lively summer activities and affectionate extended-family life with secrecy, bereavement, divided loyalties, and prejudice connected to wartime Italian American experience.

A light, fantastical superhero adventure in which a successful villain changes the hero into a potato, but cannot remove his powers or his determination to pursue justice.

A school rivalry develops into an uneasy partnership between two boys sharing a name, with questions of reputation, ability and ambition at its centre.

A young protagonist’s attempt to leave his old life behind becomes a journey involving institutional care, companions, family estrangement and the possibility that escape cannot settle what remains unresolved.

A determined young person tackles isolation, hard physical work and uncertainty while trying to make a home. The story also brings friendship, community support and pressure surrounding German ancestry during wartime.