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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.

This is a character-focused story about friendship, identity and growing independence. Henry’s heritage and Marcus’s emerging self-confidence create different but connected journeys, with humour and affection balancing angry confrontations and social pressure.

This is comic, diary-like young-adult fiction about Georgia Nicolson, whose self-centredness, friendship and romantic uncertainty sit alongside a sense that she has not yet grown up. Its humour includes recurring theatrical and eccentric comic situations.

A stark historical journey about a young woman claiming an independent life, while discovering that escape does not remove poverty, danger or responsibility. Its restrained style and unsettled emotional relationships may reward readers who prefer serious, atmospheric fiction over easy comfort.

This is a romantic fantasy about people negotiating marriage, status, belief and social expectations in a fictional world resembling colonial America. Friendship, adventure and intrigue accompany a relationship that becomes a passionate marriage.

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.

This is a family-and-community story about cultural identity, belonging and resilience. Its period details, family interactions and humour sit alongside racism, economic pressure and the difficult work of translating between languages and expectations.

This is an identity-focused coming-of-age story: Sophie confronts stereotyping, cultural expectations and questions of belonging while a school relationship brings those tensions into sharper focus.

This is an emotionally serious but often humorous story about a child trying to solve an illness he cannot control. Its interest lies in Colin’s urgency, bold schemes and changing understanding of help, responsibility and loss.

This is a sports-centred coming-of-age story about a transgender teenager balancing football, privacy, romance, family relationships, and the possibility of advocating for other trans young people.

A character-led YA novel about a Muslim teenager negotiating prejudice, family background, self-protection and first love in post-9/11 America. Music and breakdancing provide important ways for Shirin to cope and express herself.

A dark, atmospheric Dracula retelling centred on two sisters, captivity and resistance. Its strongest offering is the way female relationships, Traveller identity and collective courage reshape a familiar vampire story.

A serious, emotionally charged story about a bereaved child facing prejudice, instability and threats to her bond with Joe. It may invite empathy, but its portrayal of rescue and belonging appears partly sentimentalised.

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 coming-of-age story about identity, belonging and disclosure, balancing painful social pressures with friendship, family love and romantic possibility. It offers a queer Mexican American protagonist whose choices are shaped by school, faith and immigration-related family separation.

A school-transition story about Frankie finding ways to join in, protect her privacy and build friendships through music, while facing sensory challenges and the return of a bully.

A historical adventure rooted in the early-20th-century Philippines, following Amihan and Mariposa as they respond to official policy and try to return to Culion. Its emotional centre is family love and friendship.

A formally varied, emotionally serious story about friendship and recovery. Its urban green space, ravens, artwork and shifting voices give the characters’ grief, exclusion and difficult choices a layered setting.

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 an ambitious story about music, courage and human connection across several historical settings. It offers mystery, fantasy and emotionally serious struggles, with separate children's stories eventually shown to be interwoven.

This offers a slow-burn romance set against royal duty, forbidden magic and an investigation into killings. Its strongest appeal appears to be the developing relationship between Denna and Mare, alongside questions about identity and loyalty.

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.