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A lively family adventure pairs a serious kidnapping situation with comic sibling behaviour and improvised plans. The children’s contrasting personalities drive much of the story, especially during their confinement and attempts to influence or outwit their captors.

Expect frontier adventure built around a group of young companions, their mission, wilderness travel and encounters with enemies.

A lively historical adventure centred on Nell’s resourcefulness and her relationship with Aunt Kitty. Investigations, disguises, humour and puzzles drive the story, while family mysteries and the realities of loss add emotional weight.

This is a brisk child-centred mystery in which Benjie’s enthusiasm for spying and Pete’s protective actions help uncover burglaries. Suspense comes from the family’s vulnerability and Benjie’s capture, while humour and animal loyalty soften the danger.

A faith-centred retelling of Rahab’s story, focusing on courage, secrecy, escape and protection of family. The telling strongly foregrounds Christian belief and presents Rahab’s earlier profession only obliquely.

A buoyant, unusual adventure pairs a determined child with a loving guardian and a rooftop community. Its imaginative freedom sits alongside peril, precarious living, family uncertainty and moments of physical harm.

Expect a brisk fantasy quest built around danger, escape and puzzle-solving. The book spends substantial time in Noradz, where cleanliness is enforced harshly, before moving towards a frightening confrontation in the City of the Rats.

A lively visual story about making a home from mishaps. Its strongest pleasures are comic accidents, inventive machinery, expressive illustrations and the animals’ growing community.

A lively detective adventure centred on sisters, friendship and a tightly connected high-rise community. The mystery moves through clues, suspects and reversals, balancing comic sibling exchanges with the seriousness of murder and its effects.

This is an adventurous, emotionally charged animal-led quest. It offers talking animals, friendship and humour alongside a bleak altered world, separated families, imprisonment, disease and threats to survival. The ending appears to open into a continuing story rather than resolving every possibility.

Expect a lively rescue adventure centred on Molly’s courage and cleverness. The pirate setting, island peril and treasure chase offer momentum, while Molly’s role gives the story an assertive child protagonist.

This is an emotionally charged historical animal adventure: Delta uses courage and resourcefulness to search for separated friends while Pompeii faces catastrophe. It offers suspense, relationships and a window onto Roman life, including the unequal position of enslaved people.

Expect an imaginative café adventure built around peculiar food requests, mythical creatures and the partnership between Rene and Glumfoot. Its rhyming, visually led presentation makes the story’s grotesque culinary comedy a central part of the experience.

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.

An energetic historical adventure where two young performers move from local danger into espionage, using acting, observation and quick thinking while travelling between Cumberland and London.

This is a survival adventure that places a frightened, newly blind boy in prolonged dependence on Timothy. Its strongest material concerns trust, practical resilience and the painful unlearning of racial prejudice.

This is an action-led historical mystery about resilience, friendship and justice. Vita’s perilous journey through Roman London and the gladiatorial world combines family upheaval, betrayal, disguise and vivid historical atmosphere.

A tense historical adventure about separated siblings and Jan, a young thief who joins them. Its strongest qualities are resourcefulness, loyalty and compassion, alongside a serious portrayal of children navigating war’s aftermath.

Expect an energetic treasure-hunt adventure involving tunnels, caves, ruins, a hidden weapon and suspected betrayal. Its central appeal is discovery under pressure, with Tom’s street-smarts and his friends’ trust tested as the expedition unfolds.

Expect a nature-centred adventure in which Nim’s resourcefulness and relationships with animal companions matter.

A tense climate-emergency adventure that combines rising floodwater and urgent problem-solving with questions about identity, friendship, bullying and finding courage. The children’s changing relationships are central to the story’s momentum.

A spirited magical adventure about a girl pursuing family answers, learning witchcraft and building friendships in Hedgely. Expect a picturesque but spooky setting, folklore-inspired creatures, exciting escapes and a heroine whose courage develops unevenly.

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.

A game-based adventure about friendship, exploration and danger, centred on Mike's encounters with other players and the mystery of a destroyed village.

A comic-leaning fairy-tale adventure follows Annie as she tries to undo another magical problem, while navigating the demands of her sister, a transformed prince and Prince Liam.

This is a survival story shaped by isolation, difficult choices and questions of identity. Miyax’s struggle connects traditional knowledge, modern expectations and belonging, with the wolf pack offering an important but unfamiliar form of community.

This is a playful speculative adventure built around altered physical laws, time reversal and the comic predicament of two teenagers becoming babies. Its central appeal appears to be imaginative problem-solving rather than realistic everyday experience.

This is an adventure story about two young people making their own fun, then facing a hijacking after boarding a mail train. Its appeal lies in energetic escapades, partnership and undercover danger.

This is a magical school adventure about belonging, danger and resourcefulness. Ned’s lack of magic places him at a disadvantage, but the central problem becomes how he can help when usual powers are unavailable.

A supernatural mystery about a teenager confronting deep fears while searching for his missing mother. It combines coastal horror, strange allies and escalating danger, with family loss and courage at its emotional centre.

A brisk mystery-adventure centred on a young performer who investigates a suspicious death while pursuing answers about his missing father and imprisoned mother. Escapology provides an unusual skill set, while the numbered clue drives the central puzzle.

Expect a fantastical adventure centred on a small child facing authority, isolation, and imprisonment, with family pressures and assistance from allies.