What Are You Looking For?

A lively read-aloud about a lost dog’s imagined adventures, using rhyme, humour and expressive illustrations to explore survival, landscape, curiosity and the pull of home.

Choose this for a visually led introduction to Leonardo’s many fields: art, invention, music, mathematics and observation. It offers breadth, historical context and striking machines rather than a narrowly focused account.

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.

A true, illustrated account of a boy who wonders how things work, teaches himself from old science books and builds a windmill for his drought-ravaged village. The emphasis is on persistence and practical invention.

This is a lively guide to finding creativity and confidence through magic, comedy, circus skills and science. It mixes practical activities with encouragement to practise, check facts, share ideas and accept that people can grow and change.

A visually rich shared-history book that links humanity’s beginnings in Africa with creativity, discovery and belonging. Poetry invites reflection, while the timeline adds factual context beyond the main narrative.

No reliable judgement about its reading experience can be made yet.

Expect energetic science learning through comic dilemmas, illustrations, experiments and short factual explanations. The book offers hands-on routes into physics, including light, electromagnets, compasses, telephones and periscopes.

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 suspenseful historical mystery set around Pompeii, combining a children's investigation with vivid historical detail and the looming eruption of Vesuvius. Expect friendship, curiosity and adventure, but also sorrow and frightening material near the conclusion.

This is a mystery adventure built around exploration, hidden places and a group of children acting together. Its strongest appeal is likely the remote coastal setting, animal companions and escalating danger.

This is an imaginative, politically charged fantasy for readers interested in languages, dragons and morally complicated loyalties. Vivien’s translation work opens onto family upheaval, rebellion, class divisions and a war whose human and dragon costs are visible.

This is an inviting, fact-rich beach exploration book: a repeated search pattern encourages participation, while illustrations and tucked-away information reward close observation. The final foldout shifts discovery towards imagination.

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 thoughtful picture book built around one question: different family members offer different answers, while Henry searches for an answer he can grasp. Its colourful illustrations and unusual page orientation invite looking as well as listening.

Expect a curiosity-led city adventure built around an unlikely friendship. Its main appeal lies in the contrast between Catherine’s orderliness and Big Cat’s wild, chaotic nature, alongside detailed artwork and discoveries hidden in familiar places.

Choose this for a reflective shared read about sunlight, living things and big questions. Its strongest experience is visual: children can trace connections across scenes and wonder aloud rather than follow a conventional plot.

This is a visually led story about a frightened newcomer trying to return home. Its emotional centre is Leaf’s isolation, while the woodland animals’ changing response opens space to discuss fear, curiosity and welcome.

This is an encouraging, action-focused introduction to caring for oneself, other people and the planet. Its strongest offering is turning large global aims into small, concrete things children can try, discuss or make together.

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.

This is an illustrated story about Becky pursuing an ambitious science project while classmates grow seeds in paper cups. Its interest lies in the contrast between an ordinary classroom activity and a more imaginative possibility.

This is an interactive introduction to rainforests, organised around children’s questions and answers. Its activities and memory-game cards may make factual exploration more participatory than a straightforward read-through.

A short, visually expressive story about a newcomer, suspicion and the possibility of belonging. Its emotional centre is the contrast between what the animals assume and what they learn about the stranger’s past.

This is a fact-rich visual tour of flowers, moving from basic botany and plant parts to habitats, pollination, unusual species, threats to plants and ways to grow flowers.

A hands-on game for learning and recognising bug names, colours and appearances, with opportunities to encounter both familiar insects and less familiar species from around the world.

A lively invitation to look closely at slugs, bees, spiders and other small creatures in familiar places. Its blend of humour, sketches, factual detail and observation activities makes ordinary surroundings feel worth investigating.

A gentle, visually playful story about curiosity, invention and noticing nature. Norton and Alpha’s discovery gives children a clear contrast between a mechanical home and the living world outside.

A gentle first look at artificial intelligence, designed to make a technically complex subject discussable through brief explanations and visual engagement. Its main offering is an introductory concept-building experience rather than a detailed account of AI’s capabilities or consequences.

A visually led introduction to a pioneering fossil hunter, linking Mary Anning’s life with discoveries about fossils, evolution, geology and palaeontology. It combines biography with factual explanation and reconstructed imagery.

A visually rich geology reference covering rock and mineral types, formation, gems, fossils, uses and related activities, with information arranged through photographs, diagrams, maps, comparisons and glossary features.

A supernatural horror story rooted in a family homecoming, with queer romance and questions of belonging. It combines frightening events with explorations of Vietnamese American identity, colonialism and family history.

A spooky social-media horror story about amateur ghost hunters pursuing missing vloggers into a dangerous house. Its distinctive video-diary presentation and page progress bar are intended to make the investigation feel immediate.

A tense, science-rich story combines South London settings, two connected teenage lives and an urgent attempt to prevent tragedy. It offers momentum alongside questions about whether circumstances, choices or both shape a person’s future.

This is a gentle mystery built around looking, waiting and imagining. Its pleasure lies less in solving the hole’s secret than in noticing how many explanations can coexist.

This offers a lively route into scientific curiosity: invention, robots and jokes are paired with explanations of antimatter, atoms, robotics and the scientific method. It may particularly engage readers who enjoy illustrated, idea-rich adventures.

Expect a playful fantasy adventure centred on an unusual hotel, magical visitors and comic world-building. The story appears designed for momentum and imaginative enjoyment, with short chapters, action and humour rather than a complex plot.

Expect a comic mystery built around a school trip, a possibly monstrous lake inhabitant and children trying to work out what is happening. The tone is melodramatic and silly, with illustrations supporting the humour.

Expect an exuberant, highly imaginative world built around joy, singing, visual comedy and surprising arrivals. Its appeal appears to lie more in playful characters and happenings than in a fully explained plot, though the available storyline is incomplete.

A mystery-led, psychologically serious story about a teenager trying to live under a new identity while her childhood crime, family history and public scrutiny remain close behind.

Expect a fast-moving, atmospheric slasher mystery built around teenage friendship, investigation and uncertainty about whether a haunting is real. The central appeal is suspense and clue-following rather than realistic crime analysis.

This looks like nature-centred fiction that invites children to wonder about trees and the wider living world.

Expect a comic treasure mystery driven by Aisha and her unusually capable dog. Its appeal lies in brisk adventure, puzzles, archaeology and playful language, though some readers may find the opening slow or the pace uneven.

This offers an immersive expedition narrative alongside natural-history detail: maps, sketches, specimens, survival tips and observations of rainforest life make the reading feel like exploring an adventurer’s field journal.

Expect an imaginative fantasy built around ordinary household objects seen from a tiny family’s perspective. Its appeal lies in clever details, family relationships and the contrast between the Borrowers’ hidden life and the human world.

A gentle, episodic story about meeting fear with curiosity. Plop’s conversations introduce several ways of understanding darkness, alongside owl facts and moments of comic mishap as he learns to manage a new experience.