What Are You Looking For?

A lively story about a child whose entrepreneurial idea grows rapidly, testing friendships and responsibilities. It offers an engaging way to think about ambition, persistence and the consequences of taking risks.

A dark, imaginative adventure for readers who enjoy secret societies, mythological creatures and determined protagonists. Its strongest hooks are the hunter trials, the forest’s threats and Winnie’s effort to reclaim her family’s standing.

A fast-moving supernatural mystery about a teenager searching for her missing mother, then uncovering concealed family history and a strange inheritance. It offers suspense, folklore, friendship and a seaside setting, with the pace reportedly slowing after the opening.

This is a richly illustrated mermaid adventure about protecting a home from development. Its diary format, playful language and underwater world may invite shared reading, visual exploration and discussion.

This offers a school-start story about friendship and belonging, with a particular focus on how Pelly’s difference affects her relationships with Tangle and Eno.

This is a richly layered historical coming-of-age novel about a book-loving girl negotiating family duty, education, friendship and romance while a murder’s consequences reach into her community.

A bright, rhythmic school-community portrait where children learn, play, share food and celebrate together. Its central refrain gives the book a clear, reassuring shape, while the illustrations carry much of the representation.

A lively, first-person school story combines farcical problem-solving and slow-burn romance with serious family instability. Its emotional centre is Aideen’s habit of helping others while struggling to address her own circumstances.

A richly imagined mystery combines Ghanaian mythology with advanced technology and a Black diaspora community in future San Francisco. Akoma’s investigation centres on family loyalty, ancestral power and trust, while the story also includes tense magical danger and morally difficult decisions.

A stranger arrives by sea and is confined, mistreated and expelled as the islanders’ fear becomes hatred. Their final wall leaves a bleak image of exclusion rather than reconciliation.

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

This is a friendship-and-identity story in which a disrupted routine opens space for music, independence and new connections. Its interest lies less in high-stakes danger than in ordinary emotional change and finding a direction.

A body-positive coming-of-age novel about Willowdean’s attempt to reclaim confidence by entering a beauty pageant, while navigating attraction, friendship, family tensions and her community’s expectations.

A focused, dual-narrative historical novel about displacement, survival and access to water. Its language is spare, but the experiences include war, deaths and severe deprivation, balanced by perseverance and collective problem-solving.

A playful search story built around surprise: Louis’s failed-looking tricks become an entertaining show. Its visual humour, colourful illustrations and diverse audience create a warm, upbeat reading experience, with a final reveal involving the rabbit.

This is an ocean adventure about attempting something others doubt, preparing carefully, coping with difficult conditions and discovering capability. It also brings ocean wildlife and pollution into the story through Lucy’s classmates.

A gentle environmental story about a small, quiet character whose observations are initially overlooked. Whisper’s eventual advocacy involves friends, creativity and persuasion rather than simply becoming louder.

A visually rich, wordless comparison of family life in Australia and Morocco. Its mirrored structure and detailed collages encourage children and adults to notice routines, places, relationships and connections rather than relying on written explanation.

A visually led story about migration, courage and belonging, with no written narration to settle meaning. Its animals and expressive images invite readers to infer what leaving, travelling and arriving might involve.

Choose this for a creepy, atmospheric mystery centred on horror-film culture, a disturbing small-town setting and escalating suspense. Its appeal lies in eerie world-building and supernatural uncertainty rather than gentle or reassuring storytelling.

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.

This is a warm, socially grounded adventure about two girls whose friendship grows after an initially hostile meeting. A herd of cows, family difficulties and community problems combine humour, feeling and an unexpectedly hopeful direction.

This is an outdoor adventure about a child investigating her grandmother’s disappearance, helping eagles in difficulty and discovering a stronger sense of belonging in the mountain community.

A comic adventure about an underestimated child confronting a frightening threat, while the adults and children around him face the consequences of past choices. Its imaginative monster story also explores belonging, courage and changing relationships.

This is a gentle, realistic story about a child negotiating identity and belonging after moving countries. It offers a clear starting point for discussing names, pronunciation, welcome and cultural pride.

A gentle, direct introduction to anxiety, depression and loneliness, centred on the beginning of a supportive friendship. It makes talking, seeking help and finding suitable support networks part of the story.

A fast-moving dystopian adventure combines a family search with uncertain alliances, a lottery camp and an environmental mystery. Its central pull is whether belonging means escaping Earth or helping protect it.

A dramatic, atmospheric story of companionship and courage, moving from cosy village life to stormy seas and back to communal celebration. The cat’s unusual power gives the legend a magical, memorable turn.

A warm, humorous coming-of-age story about Joe Morelli’s attempt to save his family café. Alongside business ideas and community life, Joe explores his Italian heritage and the history of Italian immigrants in Wales.

A gentle family story centred on two male penguins who care for an egg and raise Tango. Its main emphasis is belonging, parenting and adoption, with wider questions about what makes a family.

This is an identity-and-belonging fantasy in which girls marked as impure are drawn into military training and conflict. It combines a supportive friendship group with questions about power, gender and social judgement.

A determined girl enters a spirit world to protect her brother, recover what has been taken from her and address an enchantment threatening human and spirit communities. Folklore, gods and political conflict drive the fantasy adventure.

This is an action-led fantasy about a trans teen navigating a dangerous divine competition, with friendship and social inequality at its centre. Its imaginative mythology and representation may appeal, while the sacrifice premise and sustained peril make the emotional stakes substantial.

A gentle Chilean folktale about finding companionship, caring for someone who is not yours to keep, and living through separation. Its sea imagery and illustrations may invite close, unhurried attention.

This is a lively shared-reading book centred on noticing who lives in a building, what each neighbour enjoys and how separate activities become a collective celebration.

A gentle adventure about curiosity becoming a shared project. Arthur and his father respond to rumours about the forest by building towards a view beyond it, while bread, neighbours, a storm and a dog add warmth, suspense and opportunities to notice how the community responds.

A gentle, fantastical story about a statue searching for a place where she feels important and accepted, then discovering the warmth of familiar community. City scenes and animal characters support the emotional journey.

A tense, emotionally serious science-fiction mystery about desperate choices, hidden exploitation and sibling love. Its strongest appeal is the combination of a threatening facility, ethical questions and contrasting prose and poetry voices.

A clue-driven mystery set among gifted students, pairing investigation with questions about grief, friendship and the human cost of treating crime as an intellectual puzzle.

A fast-paced adventure follows Ollie into The Haven, a child-run refuge and investigation network. The story combines criminal danger, missing children, bereavement and a threat to London, with friendship developing between Ollie and Dodge.

Expect a playful space adventure centred on a father and son, with absurd alien details, school embarrassment and moments of danger. Its emotional centre is the difficulty of recognising a parent’s love beneath embarrassing behaviour.

This is a fantasy adventure about a young witch who loves robots, enters the City seeking robotics education, and confronts a secret threatening the balance between magic and technology.

This is a school-set novel about how a group experiment changes relationships, authority and public debate. Its central interest is the tension between belonging and independent judgement, with the school newspaper representing a challenge to growing conformity.

A lively mystery about art, friendship and the consequences of a secret becoming much larger than expected. It offers suspenseful investigation alongside attention to shame, anxiety, money worries and pressure to perform.

This appears to be LGBTQIA+ fiction foregrounding, at least in one cited passage, the importance of safety, acceptance and belonging.