What Are You Looking For?

A gentle friendship story centred on everyday family life: the girls share meals, chores and play while one of them stays with Violet’s family as an exchange student.

A playful, offbeat tale that pairs an unusual word sequence with colourful illustrations; its story may feel deliberately odd rather than neatly explained.

A playful fantasy adventure combines a search into Jenny’s family history with jokes, riddles and unusual medieval characters. French vocabulary is a deliberate part of the reading experience.

This is a fantasy adventure centred on a young thief navigating a city where words mislead and trust is difficult. The plot also brings together loyalty to family, friendship and a dangerous rescue.

This is a verse novel about difficult choices after a relationship takes a dark turn, with consent and control at its centre. Its playful language also gives weight to how characters relate and express identity.

Expect a lively, absurd animal adventure built around friendship, danger and rescue. Its distinctive appeal lies in comic names, playful language, a fantastical setting and illustrations intended to invite shared noticing.

This is a high-stakes survival story about three teenagers fleeing danger, with friendship and hope providing emotional counterweights to fear, loss and an uncertain journey.

This is a comic teen story about friendship, flirting, misunderstandings and the difficulty of managing a situation that keeps expanding. Jess’s plan involving Fred, together with Flora and the visiting French students, contributes to the complications.

This is a gritty coming-of-age novel about Manny’s family, identity and desire for respect. It combines hardship with affection, humour and tenderness, using striking language to portray a Mexican-American teenager’s world.

This is an emotionally engaging school story centred on a bright child whose thoughts are overlooked because she cannot communicate conventionally. It offers sustained attention to dignity, family advocacy, friendship and the consequences of assumptions.

Expect culturally grounded stories focused on Arab/Muslim family life and the experiences of Fadi and Sana. The book may offer a gentle starting point for discussing belonging, heritage and how families preserve culture.

A brisk, morally charged pirate adventure, offering suspense, loyalty and memorable danger while also exposing readers to older language and attitudes that need context.

This is an adventure-led historical novel centred on Deaf community, sign language and human dignity, while exploring how inherited prejudice shapes relationships between communities.

A tense historical survival story centred on two sisters, with vivid attention to language, place and the aftermath of political collapse. It combines danger and emotional uncertainty with questions about belonging and self-determination.

A suspenseful historical mystery set around Pompeii, combining a children's investigation with vivid historical detail and the looming eruption of Vesuvius. Expect friendship, curiosity and adventure, but also sorrow and frightening material near the conclusion.

A warm, question-led story about how Barley Bear and his adoptive mother became a family. It introduces adoption-related ideas through cuddling, conversation and illustrations, rather than presenting a detailed account of every adoption experience.

This is an imaginative, politically charged fantasy for readers interested in languages, dragons and morally complicated loyalties. Vivien’s translation work opens onto family upheaval, rebellion, class divisions and a war whose human and dragon costs are visible.

This is a visually led story about forced movement, family resilience and the search for safety. It may help children consider refugees as people with fears, relationships and hopes, rather than as an abstract issue.

A warm picture-book story about welcoming a mysterious, vulnerable stranger, forming attachment, experiencing sudden separation and extending hospitality to others like him. Its imaginative setting leaves room to discuss belonging without explaining everything about Mister Toots.

This offers a lively introduction to Welsh folklore through brief, retold stories with magical, humorous and emotionally resonant elements. It may particularly suit shared reading or readers curious about Wales, names and traditional tales.

This is a relationship-centred YA story about second chances, shifting friendships, and communication. Its distinctive element is Ollie's deafness and the way sign language, texts, and context shape interactions.

This is a coming-of-age novel that combines personal stories with substantial exploration of Deaf culture, language and rights. It may suit readers interested in how identity, communication and community shape one another.

A thoughtful contemporary romance about finding ways to communicate, with disability, anxiety, friendship and family relationships treated as substantial parts of the story rather than simple obstacles.

Choose this for a reader who enjoys horses, richly imagined landscapes, folklore and a slowly tightening mystery. Its emotional centre is a complicated family whose love and resilience coexist with absence, suspicion and uncertainty.

A warm story about a child whose busy family weekend becomes an unexpected learning experience. It offers a lively picture of shared work, celebration and community, while making room for a child’s worry about disappointing school expectations.

A story of sporting ambition and family inheritance, shaped by segregation and racial prejudice. Its verse form brings rhythm to Charley’s determination, while historical danger and a consequential choice give the narrative emotional weight.

This is an intimate survival story centred less on action than on two people’s changing relationship, private memories and the difficult work of rebuilding life after catastrophe.

Expect a highly comic, unconventional story that turns homework, authority and strange family dynamics into absurd adventure. Its strongest appeal is likely its playful language and refusal to treat rigid learning schemes as unquestionable.

This offers a lively, personal story about cultural and family pressures, school belonging and wanting independence. Humour sits alongside increasingly serious material, so the emotional experience may change notably as Jo grows older.

This is a gentle family story about adapting to hearing loss without losing closeness. Jacki and her mother use sign language, while Jacki discovers that music can also be shared through vibration, movement and visual communication.

This is an adventure about survival and an unusual cross-generational friendship. Alongside practical danger, it gives substantial space to loneliness, care, learning and the ways a relationship can change someone’s view of the world.

This is an energetic, funny and sometimes unsettling portrait of childhood, told through Paddy’s immediate perspective. Its loose vignettes reward attention to changing relationships rather than expecting a conventional, steadily plotted story.

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.

This is a journey of identity and connection, set against the Australian outback. It offers friendship, discovery and engagement with First Country history and culture, while the girl’s lost memory creates an uncertain starting point.

This is an imaginative family-and-adventure story about how feelings, books and language can shape relationships. Its fantasy premise sits alongside a contemporary refugee storyline, offering both playful invention and social questions.

Expect anarchic humour, imaginative adventures and a central character who challenges adult authority. Pippi’s friendships, confidence and physical strength drive the fun, while the episodic structure offers distinct comic situations rather than one tightly unfolding plot.

This is a performance-friendly poetry collection: playful sounds, repeated rhyme, comic images and short narratives offer opportunities to laugh, listen, join in and notice how words work.

This is an imaginative story about making a world that reflects one person’s ideas. Its main appeal is the inventive detail: Wesley turns a plant into resources, culture and communication, then sees others respond.

This is a humorous friendship story about inventing words, receiving attention, feeling jealous and trying to repair a damaged relationship. Its ancient setting also invites curiosity about language and inventions.

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 lyrical bedtime story where songs carry Shona from childhood dreams into a later moment caring for her ageing father. It offers Scottish cultural language, imaginative pictures and a strong sense of family continuity.

A warm, food-centred anthology links different residents and stories through one neighbourhood. Its imaginative meals and restaurants frame questions about family, culture, home, love and loss, while the short-story structure offers changing characters and perspectives rather than one continuous plot.

This is an adventurous historical mystery built around Green Knowe’s layered past. Its strongest thread is the friendship between Susan and Jacob, alongside danger, hidden jewels, escape, fire and links between generations.

This is a grief-centred magical-realist family story, combining a search in Taiwan with memories, ghosts, art and questions of cultural and personal identity.

This is a coming-of-age story about self-understanding, changing friendships and finding a community where different identities can be discussed openly.