What Are You Looking For?

This is a contemporary school story about a girl working out where she belongs while friendships, racial identity and public events reshape her understanding of courage. It offers an emotionally grounded route into questions about rules, protest and standing up for values.

This is a varied speculative-fiction collection rather than one continuous story. Its appeal lies in imaginative settings, changing moods and morally pressured situations, but the individual stories may differ considerably in intensity and subject matter.

A mystery-led magical-school adventure with a distinctive idea: Charlie can hear voices in photographs. Its strongest pull is uncovering hidden histories while deciding whom to trust inside an institution that feels secretive and controlling.

This offers a gentle coming-of-age story about finding a voice, resisting people-pleasing and building trust through friendship and romance. It also brings family relationships, music, social media and a disconnected summer setting into the same narrative.

A caring grandmother confronts a strong storm while trying to protect animals and her grandchildren. The story’s appeal appears to lie in determined action, family care and a challenge presented through weather.

Expect a comic adventure built around a very fearful mouse facing a series of jungle challenges. The story offers energetic danger, unusual situations and a central question about coping with fear.

This is a wartime story about a child trying to understand occupation, separation and moral choice. Its strongest thread is Marit’s changing view of courage, loyalty and compassion amid danger.

This is a fast-moving wartime escape story combining orphanhood, sibling loyalty and espionage. Its child characters repeatedly make difficult choices while trying to survive danger, loss and separation.

This is a spooky rescue adventure centred on a frightened boy trying to protect his brother. Expect cemetery and crypt imagery, supernatural games, riddles and sustained suspense, alongside friendship and compassion.

This is a clue-led historical adventure about a young protagonist acting under pressure to help her imprisoned father. It offers travel, ancient objects, a companionable magpie and a mystery that links art and evidence.

An intense survival adventure centred on persistence, practical problem-solving and changing self-understanding. Brian’s isolation makes ordinary needs—food, shelter, fire and safety—into urgent challenges, while the wilderness remains dangerous rather than comfortably picturesque.

This is a high-pressure family and sports story about twins whose ambitions, rivalry and difficult circumstances lead them towards separate dangers. It combines emotional conflict with themes of loyalty, adversity and recovery.

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.

Expect a tense survival mystery built around kidnapping, an isolated camp, family betrayal, shifting suspicion and deaths. Its emotional centre is Liv’s effort to retain her moral judgement when silence might feel safer.

A lively, joke-filled spy adventure in which Vi confronts family upheaval alongside super-villains. Expect gadgets, secrets, action and emotional pressure, with the family situation driving her determination.

This is comic fantasy adventure about an underestimated boy whose intelligence, courage and loyalty matter more than physical strength. Its lively illustrations, eccentric names and slapstick tone may make the story especially inviting.

This is a reflective story about losing a familiar home and friendship, then slowly finding steadiness elsewhere. Its poem-by-poem structure gives Diana’s changing feelings room to emerge through observations, notes and everyday family moments.

This is a tense superhero story about young people confronting inherited wrongdoing, dangerous adults and complicated friendships. It combines investigations and emotional conflict with perilous confrontations, including threats, coercion and graphic-sounding physical violence.

This is a historical family story about fitting in, responding to school teasing and deciding whether to challenge unfair blame directed at Japanese-American friends. Its central interest lies in personal choices made amid wider wartime uncertainty.

This is historical fiction about a young person confronting racism and the failure of trusted adults. It offers a serious, unsettling exploration of how prejudice affects families, communities and personal judgement.

This is a historical family story about a child living with hunger, poverty and uncertainty, while Christmas highlights what the family cannot afford. Booky's spirited response sits alongside serious pressure at home.

This is a family-and-belonging story with adventure elements: Thunder’s life is shaped by rejection, care and a divided community, while a forest fire creates a serious test. Its central choice concerns whether long-built loyalty can outweigh blood ties.

A supernatural coming-of-age story about inherited responsibility, private secrets and a choice with potentially enormous consequences. Adam’s wish for normality collides with a frightening vision and a demand to act.