What Are You Looking For?

This is an animal-character adventure that pairs challenges and friendship with reflection on helping others. It also includes love, loss, fear and loneliness.

This is a friendship story about two friends adjusting to change while one faces an eating disorder and possible self-injury.

The book brings Christian Bible stories into Daisy’s adventures, linking what she observes to forgiveness and the love behind gifts. It may suit a family looking for story-led engagement with Christian ideas.

A relationship-focused coming-of-age story about a girl confronting a mother’s long absence, a changed family, friendship difficulties and new caring responsibilities. Poetry and supportive relationships help Apple express complicated feelings.

This offers an unusual fantasy of human-and-animal identity, endangered magic and a kingdom in crisis. Its emotional centre is a restrained relationship tested by changed bodies, difficult choices and the demands of a larger quest.

This is a supernatural mystery with a strongly suspenseful premise: a murdered teenager’s spirit seeks answers.

This is a warm, playful celebration of a father and daughter’s shared routines. Animal comparisons turn ordinary moments into imaginative games, while the illustrations add movement, colour and visual details for readers to notice together.

This is a tender family-centred story about hair, care and pride. Its imaginative comparisons and references to hairstyles connect personal appearance with African-American identity and cultural history.

This is a story-led introduction to watching birds and caring about garden wildlife. Alongside Lottie’s rescue attempt, it offers bird and migration facts and practical activities involving fat cakes and a bird bath.

This is a tension-led fantasy romance about a hidden witch and the witch hunter pursuing her. It combines alternating viewpoints, political intrigue, blood-based magic, secret identities, deception and a slow-building relationship between enemies.

A friendship begins when two boys meet during a beach trip. The story makes room for difference, uncertainty and everyday kindness, alongside questions, frustrations and confusions.

An upbeat, personal introduction to farming that follows a working year and explains sheep care alongside stories, humour and reflections on the realities of farm life.

A gentle adoption story that acknowledges frightening beginnings, uncertainty about change and lingering sadness or anger, while offering comfort through foster carers, social-worker support and a loving adoptive family.

Read this as a warm, symbolic conversation between an adult and child about making a life together. Concrete building, imaginative journeys and emotional “tools” sit alongside ideas of protection, hope and forgiveness.

This is a gentle family story built around an everyday journey. Each relative brings a different pace, route and kind of companionship, while Papa’s shoulder ride becomes the child’s especially cherished school-day experience.

This is a humorous, emotionally serious story about a guarded young person whose magic, friendship and care for her grandmother bring questions about love, loss and opening up.

This is a tender but potentially painful story about a child living alongside a seriously ill sibling. Nature, friendship and imaginative activity offer connection, while the family faces worsening illness and possible bereavement.

A gentle family story about love, loss and renewal: a child learns about Grandad and Gramps’s life together, then helps Grandad move towards new adventures while keeping shared memories alive.

This is a gentle, lyrical story about Polar Bear and Cub discovering the changing world together. Seasonal imagery frames the central reassurance that a parent’s love does not change.

This offers a tense journey story alongside a close account of sibling care. Clem’s storytelling, memories and uncertain perspective add emotional depth, while the political setting invites reflection on belonging, surveillance, displacement and how families preserve hope under pressure.

A compact, imaginative fantasy about a child’s anger and imaginative escape. Max’s journey towards and away from the Wild Things gives the book energetic movement, while his return home brings the story back to family.

This is a free-verse school story about friendship changing, family crisis and finding a way to express difficult feelings. Nate’s love of reading and writing becomes important as he faces anger, worry and transition.

A witty, emotionally serious story about teenagers confronting illness, love and mortality. It combines an accessible prose style with grief, brief sex, some swearing, drinking and reflections on literature, fate and what makes a life matter.

A poetic supernatural romance centred on desire, identity and difficult choices. Immy’s love for Claudia is intertwined with blood hunger, recurring lives, past mistakes and the sustaining bonds among three vampires.

This is a heartfelt speculative romance about two teenagers whose connection reaches across time. It pairs contemporary family difficulties and first love with reincarnation, mysterious music and imagined past and future lives.

Expect an eerie, imaginative timeslip story in which Minty investigates a mysterious garden and tries to help two children from different historical periods. Its suspense is closely connected with family distress and compassion.

This is a tender story about settling somewhere new while carrying memories of the past. It combines sadness with hope, showing how familiar relationships and community support can matter during change.

This is a family-centred story about conflict, estrangement and the possibility of reconnection. Its emotional movement comes through arguments, secrets, memories and understated gestures rather than a simple ideal of affectionate family life.

A reflective mystery about a family facing a child’s worsening health, with magical or unexplained elements entering an isolated summer. The emotional centre is Janine’s determination to reach Ricky when fear and protection keep them apart.

This is an emotionally intense fantasy finale combining romance, family grief, supernatural politics and dangerous missions. Its appeal lies in interconnected relationships and high-stakes choices, but it expects familiarity with a wider fictional world.

This is a family-adjustment story about Charlie feeling displaced by a new baby calf. It offers a gentle framework for discussing jealousy, changing routines and the possibility that love can expand rather than run out.

A tender family story about spending meaningful time with a frail grandmother, facing her death, and finding a loving image that helps Xiao Le and his mother live with loss.

A coming-of-age story about leaving a familiar place, falling in love, and facing painful change. Stephen’s compassion, humour and eventual movement towards self-acceptance are central to its emotional arc.

A story about loving and wanting to protect an animal while respecting another family’s responsibility. It may invite thoughtful discussion about grief, boundaries and what practical help really means.

A gentle-looking story about Fanny turning her own creation into a picture-book character, with storytelling and a birthday gift linking her imaginative work to someone she loves.

A romantic hospital story about two teenagers whose serious lung conditions make ordinary closeness dangerous. Stella prioritises medical safety; Will wants freedom from treatment, creating a tense conflict between affection, independence and survival.