What Are You Looking For?

This is a football story with a family-move dilemma: Oliver has found a place on his new team and begun to make friends, but another move may take both away.

This is a family-focused story about a teenager carrying substantial responsibilities while imagining a future beyond her home town. Her sister's pregnancy adds pressure to an already demanding household situation.

This is a coming-of-age story about a teenage artist negotiating family strain, online belonging and a chance to pursue creative ambitions. Furry identity and community are central to Maeve’s friendships and self-expression.

This is a child-centred historical story about family work, community strain and changing social relationships. Its central challenge is how a small act of welcome might matter when prejudice and hardship affect a whole town.

This is a young-adult story focused on Marisa’s family party, with social life, dating and driving forming part of its adolescent setting. Its distinctive angle is the meeting of Cuban family customs and an uptight neighbourhood.

A historical adventure about starting again after disaster, building friendships and trying to protect a new home from moving sand. Expect family upheaval, school conflict and an ending whose precise emotional shape is unclear.

Expect a sports-focused children’s fiction title connected with competition, teamwork and friendship.

Expect a gentle, rhythmic family story centred on preparing a Thanksgiving feast. Its appeal lies in repeated rhyme, shared household work, period details and the anticipation of everyone gathering at the table.

Expect a relationship-focused supernatural story in which Lindsay weighs a publicly declared mate against an intense attraction to someone else. Her decision is complicated by expectations from her family and community.

A clear, child-centred novel about a girl whose education and future are threatened by family expectations and coercive power. It offers determination, moral courage and hope alongside serious social injustice.

This is a fantasy about an underestimated boy who confronts a threat to his family’s protected magic, alongside a girl investigating a mystery that links her to him.

A coming-of-age story about choosing one’s own direction when sport, family and community expectations pull strongly. Its remote landscape and hockey culture provide an intense setting for questions about loyalty and independence.

A warm, humorous portrait of childhood unfolds through linked episodes rather than one tightly described plot. Family, school, neighbours and memorable mishaps give the book an affectionate, community-centred feel.

Expect an energetic rescue adventure moving between a rural industrial town and an imaginative jinn world. Nura’s loyalty, resourcefulness and courage drive the story, while friendship, family responsibility and resistance to exploitation shape its emotional centre.

This is an ocean adventure about attempting something others doubt, preparing carefully, coping with difficult conditions and discovering capability. It also brings ocean wildlife and pollution into the story through Lucy’s classmates.

This is an outdoor adventure about a child investigating her grandmother’s disappearance, helping eagles in difficulty and discovering a stronger sense of belonging in the mountain community.

Expect a twisty, atmospheric ghost story with humour, danger and a morally ambiguous central character. Harriet’s pursuit of power drives the tension, while the surrounding friendships and queer romantic thread add warmth and complication.

A warm, lively story about an isolated child finding companionship, then helping her family reconsider a wild animal. Its historical setting and concluding information extend the story into an introduction to prehistory and domestication.

This is a child-centred detective adventure in which solving a mystery becomes a way to learn about Gran’s life, memory and the importance of understanding people as individuals.

Expect an ambitious illustrated adventure in which two sibling seeds face separation, danger and uncertainty while learning about Earth’s history and living systems. Its emotional centre is family loyalty, alongside a sustained interest in survival, connection and the natural world.

A brisk environmental adventure about a reluctant visit becoming a relationship with a grandad, a local stream and its wildlife. Kyle’s growing responsibility gives the story an encouraging focus on courage, care and standing up for a place.

A lively, voice-led coming-of-age novel combining humour and friendship with family strain, social pressure and gang-related danger. Lemar’s art and relationships offer warmth, but the story also reaches a killing and difficult choices.

This is a supernatural family drama about a dead teenager’s unexpected return and its consequences. It offers emotionally serious reflection on grief, regret, identity, memory and the possibility of repair.

Expect atmospheric Gothic fantasy: a boy investigates unsettling events in a cold, impoverished village while family history and vampire folklore shape the mystery. The tone is menacing, symbolic and sometimes visceral.

This is a wartime story about a child whose ordinary village life is disrupted by evacuation, military preparations and a missing cat. It combines danger, friendship and a later family connection across generations.

A warm set of everyday adventures about brothers whose activities include helping at home, spending time with friends, caring for family, and engaging with their local environment.

This is a character-centred story about a bereaved young person trying to manage ordinary responsibilities while carrying several earlier losses and a turbulent inner life.

A warm, sensory market outing invites children to notice foods, smells, textures, colours and sounds while following Zeki and Mum from stall to stall. The story’s pleasure lies in everyday exploration rather than a dramatic problem or high-stakes plot.

A gentle verse story about a child living through separation, relocation and a changed family life, while finding companionship in relatives, new friends and the community around a diner.

This is a historical school story combining basketball, friendship and a risky practical joke. Manny’s wish to stay connected to his friends leads to invented sports reporting, while wartime uncertainty affects family conversations and everyday choices.

This is a reflective true story about a child encountering a forest fire and witnessing people and animals shelter together. It offers historical atmosphere, vivid nature imagery and a striking picture of shared vulnerability during disaster.

This is a wartime coming-of-age story seen through family affection, community routines and a child’s uncertainty. Expect comic boyhood episodes alongside waiting, separation and the pressure to live up to admired heroes.

This is a reflective story about ordinary family and community life alongside the demanding work of mining. Its quiet rhythm and contrasting imagery invite attention to what the boy notices, remembers and wonders about.

This is a comic family story about children learning to see beyond their grandmother’s intimidating manner. Its linked episodes mix practical hardship, rule-breaking schemes and generosity, with the relationship developing across successive summers.

A serious wartime story about children caught up in the Battle of Stalingrad, combining personal loss, frightening danger and pressure to take part in fighting.

A determined girl challenges unfair access to school football while adjusting to bereavement, remarriage, a new home and difficult relationships. Her campaign sits alongside rebellion and a mystery involving adults around her.

This is a dark fantasy journey about responsibility, trust and the boundary between life and death. Its strongest appeal may be the combination of perilous magic, unusual companions and a protagonist confronting a hidden destiny.