What Are You Looking For?

A fantasy caper built around a criminal boy’s plan to ransom a fairy, with high-tech opponents and a possible clash between species.

A funny school-and-family story about disrupted routines, fostering and learning to cooperate when two boys must tackle a shared challenge.

Expect a brisk, high-stakes science-fiction adventure built from movie-like set pieces: secret hideouts, monsters, lost cities and missions. Its emotional centre is the friends’ changing reliance on friendship, loyalty, trust and teamwork.

A thoughtful time-slip adventure about two boys separated by centuries but connected by hardship. Its mystery framework brings contemporary housing insecurity and Victorian workhouse life together, while the boys’ friendship gives the story an emotionally hopeful centre.

This imaginative story offers a memorable giant, a child’s difficult change of heart, and a large-scale struggle between technology, nature and destructive forces.

Expect children’s fantasy involving the named protagonists. Its appeal lies in lively family exchanges, problem-solving and events shaped by the children’s decisions.

This is an adventurous friendship story set around hiking, camping and outdoor survival. Its emotional centre is Vincent’s struggle with school, coordination and belonging, alongside classmates whose different circumstances affect how the group works together.

This is an adventure about two young people from opposing populations whose friendship brings hidden injustice into view. Its imaginative giant-built city provides a route into questions about prejudice, power, exploitation and environmental responsibility.

A lively fairy-tale reimagining where three heroines encounter magic, danger and friendship. Its central movement is from Rumaysa’s enforced confinement towards escape, shared adventure and protagonists who act as their own rescuers.

This is an action-led story about a young aspiring journalist and friends using a newspaper to investigate a threatened slum. Its strongest appeal is the combination of friendship, initiative and social stakes.

Expect comic poetry about growing up, using exaggerated everyday situations such as sibling conflict, an unwanted shirt and a spider. The collection appears suited to reading aloud and sharing reactions.

A fast-moving rescue adventure about courage, loyalty and learning to trust. Wolves are central companions, while Feo’s journey brings danger, humour and a friendship that develops under pressure.

Expect an imaginative, creature-filled adventure centred on finding sanctuary. Friendship, loyalty, courage and environmental loss sit alongside danger, threatening creatures and occasional insulting language.

This is a personal and historical account of migration, family separation, reunion and racism. Its emotional movement includes joy, fear, sadness and determination, with illustrations or presentation contrasting Trinidad and England.

A choice-driven story about finding a voice when other people control the decisions. Fred’s move to a new school brings pressure, friendships and opportunities to pursue his art, while each reader’s choices shape a different route.

This is an emotionally attentive story about a child whose secluded woodland life is abruptly disrupted. It explores unfamiliar family relationships, different ways of experiencing the world, and the possibility of connection without requiring October to become someone else.

A child navigating a new life, missing family and friendship encounters a magical garden whose promises lead towards adventure and a darker fairy-tale atmosphere.

This is a family adventure involving financial uncertainty, threatened property and a long journey from rural India towards the city and across the Himalayas.

This is an imaginative, unsettling quest about two dependent beings trying to build a home rather than achieve isolation. Expect comic absurdity alongside menace, moral complexity and sustained questions about freedom, family and survival.

This is a thoughtful survival adventure in which Roz learns by watching, earns trust through helpfulness and cares for an orphaned gosling. Its accessible episodic structure supports shared reading, while the island’s dangers and losses may prompt pauses.

A myth-rich adventure that joins friendship, cultural detail and care for the natural world. Its imaginative journey gives children an active role in responding to environmental damage.

A fast-moving school thriller that turns familiar rules, routines and adult authority into a mechanism of control. Its central tension is whether individuality and independent judgement can survive pressure to comply.

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.

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 grief-focused wilderness adventure in which two young people pursue a hopeful but dangerous mission. Expect emotional recovery to matter alongside physical survival and friendship.

A fast-moving mystery about a child trying to clear her father’s name, with computer crime, family pressure and danger. Victoria’s intelligence, courage and persistence drive the investigation.

Expect a fast-moving fantasy adventure built around a race, inventive magical creatures and a quest to help family. Its emotional centre is a quiet child learning to recognise his own capabilities.

A vivid island adventure about two grieving girls whose hostility gradually becomes friendship. It combines mystery, ocean danger and village traditions with sustained attention to apology, forgiveness, cultural understanding and learning to live with loss.

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.

Expect an entertaining ghost adventure with intersecting storylines: kindly ghosts seek a home, while an orphaned heir faces a frightening scheme involving deliberately terrifying spirits.

A warm, strongly moral story about an orphaned girl, changing homes and the relationships she forms. Its emotional centre is the contrast between Heidi’s mountain life and her unhappiness in Frankfurt.

A tense, emotionally serious survival story follows Ade through a collapsing city while his mother withdraws and neighbours become an unexpected support network. Its strongest offering is a child-centred exploration of vulnerability, responsibility and collective care.

This is a lively Greek-myth fantasy where comic gods and a young goddess accompany Elliott through danger. Its emotional centre is a child trying to care for his unwell mother while protecting his family’s home.

Choose this for a reader who enjoys atmospheric mysteries, eccentric characters, supernatural adventure and comic wordplay. Its central appeal is following clues through an unusual seaside world while Herbie and Violet face escalating danger.

A lively Nigerian boarding-school adventure foregrounding friendship, cultural setting and fair access to education. Jummy’s new experiences offer both familiar school-story pleasures and a perspective shaped by different routines and expectations.

A high-stakes fantasy about two young people facing an oppressive society, dangerous magic and threats to their families. Its strongest focus is courage joined with cultural pride and resistance to injustice.

A richly atmospheric mystery for readers who enjoy eerie settings, puzzles and gradually revealed secrets.

This is a suspenseful historical story about family separation and friendship under political pressure. The documentary-style sections let readers see events through children’s eyes while gradually revealing the risks surrounding their attempts to stay connected.

This is a fast-moving fantasy adventure built around three young characters with different goals. It offers magical creatures, peril and hidden truths about the island and the beliefs surrounding its beasts.

This is a quest fantasy about siblings facing separation, magical danger and inherited family trouble. Its appeal lies in Fairyland, nature-linked magic, riddles, storytelling and a movement from grief and hardship towards courage and hope.

This is a thoughtful story about a child carrying adult responsibilities who finds friendship, creativity and adventure while visiting Italy. An injured otter and the people Jakub meets help broaden his sense of who he is.

This is an immersive fantasy adventure in which a rejected boy is drawn into unicorn riding, dangerous magic and a threat to the wider community. Alongside suspense, it explores grief, disappointment, friendship, loyalty and the search for belonging.

Expect a lively, illustrated fantasy quest built around an underdog team. The story combines dungeon challenges, comic world-building and a friendship arc, while Kit’s impulsive decision creates the central problem.