What Are You Looking For?

A forceful historical adventure about enslaved people resisting plantation rule. Moa’s choice to join Tacky’s uprising brings friendship, courage and hope into direct conflict with coercion, danger and the possibility of death.

This is a tender family-centred story about hair, care and pride. Its imaginative comparisons and references to hairstyles connect personal appearance with African-American identity and cultural history.

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 contained, high-pressure murder mystery with horror elements: an isolated theme park, a stalking mascot, successive deaths and a buried history that the protagonists must unravel.

Expect a visually led, imaginative space story rather than a reliable account of Laika’s life.

Choose this for a visually supported introduction to Black British history that connects overlooked people and communities with larger questions about slavery, migration, war and how national histories are made.

This offers a visually rich way into deep time: readers learn about changing life and Earth while searching illustrations for creatures, then using the glossary to revisit unfamiliar terms and animals.

A lively making-focused non-fiction book combining ten home invention projects with stories and tips about Colin Furze’s larger creations. Its appeal is likely strongest for readers who enjoy building, experimenting and humorous contraptions.

This is a fast-moving historical ghost story that combines football, Iron Age Britain and unsettling visions, with Seth’s family worry and a meeting that helps him find courage.

Expect a lively, irreverent introduction to ancient Egyptian history, moving among pharaohs, pyramids, gods, mummies, writing and ordinary people. The comic approach foregrounds surprising and unpleasant details rather than offering a solemn historical overview.

Choose this for a fast-moving scientific overview that links geology, climate, anatomy and evolution across immense stretches of time. It favours memorable ideas and lesser-known organisms over comprehensive coverage or visual explanation.

Choose this for a child fascinated by vehicles, farming or how machines work. It combines accessible explanations with colourful illustrations, comic characters and small visual details that invite looking closely.

A lively, irreverent introduction to pirate history, this book mixes historical information with jokes, illustrations and deliberately gruesome stories. Its central angle is corrective: pirates are presented as far less heroic than popular legends suggest.

This is an illustrated adventure that uses a boy’s encounter with Stone Age life to introduce practical processes and archaeological curiosity. Its open-ended dream-or-time-travel premise invites discussion rather than a single definite explanation.

This offers imaginative fantasy alongside sustained questions about Black identity, friendship, prejudice and self-determination. Its dual perspective gives Tavia and Effie distinct forms of identity exploration, though the opening may feel slow before the action intensifies.

This is a structured, visual introduction to artificial intelligence, moving from Turing and early systems through rules, neural networks, deep learning, robots and future possibilities.

A powerful poetic celebration of African American resilience and achievement, this book moves from historical suffering to cultural, sporting and civic accomplishment, inviting shared reading, recitation and reflection.

A lively introduction to women’s contributions across history and different fields, presented through colourful illustrations, short profiles, facts and quotations. Its page-by-page structure supports dipping in, revisiting individual figures and noticing links between personal achievement and wider social 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.

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.

This is a lively choice for a child who enjoys mischief, silly bodily humour and action. Its Viking setting, school episodes and group problem-solving provide variety, while the short, episodic structure can support shared reading or growing independence.

A powerful testimony about enslavement, bodily suffering and the struggle for freedom, carried by Mary Prince’s distinctive voice but shaped by an editor and abolitionist publication context.

This is a structured historical introduction to slavery, combining broad chronology with accounts of enslaved people’s lives, journeys and escapes. Its contemporary coverage may help connect past systems with slavery that still exists.

This is an engaging introduction to the First World War, linking its broad history to individual experiences. Its movement between people, countries and wartime settings makes a distant conflict feel immediate without turning it into fiction.

A tense survival adventure places young people in a natural disaster and gives Dylan and Louie difficult practical and emotional problems to solve. Its strongest thread appears to be movement from suspicion towards cooperation.

This is a visually led Earth-history journey, using one pebble to connect geological change with the appearance of living things and human activity. Its chronological sweep may invite shared looking, pausing and questions rather than one quick read.

Expect a gradual plot, military conflict, monsters, magic and questions about whether unity can challenge oppression.

This is a varied poetry collection that can offer changing moods, subjects and settings rather than one continuous narrative. Cornwall, its history and traditions recur as points of reference, while the poems’ specific content remains varied.

A richly imagined fantasy combines Arthurian legend, secret societies and demons with Bree’s investigation into her mother’s death. Its strongest offering is a Black protagonist navigating grief, power and contested history alongside diverse allies and difficult questions about inherited authority.

This offers a suspenseful teen mystery centred on secrets, fear and investigation, alongside questions about popularity, friendship and family history. The central situation involves twins, unresolved crimes and threatening messages.

This is a brisk estate mystery built around literary-themed contests, investigation and shifting family secrets. Derin’s personal reasons for entering give the competition emotional weight, while hidden passages and mysterious notes sustain the puzzle.

This is a visual, fact-led football exploration rather than a story-led book: lift-the-flap pages invite children to investigate equipment, training, skills, history and life around clubs.

A warm, humorous queer coming-of-age story set against a restrictive period in British school life. Its romance is developed through reading and anonymous correspondence, while the unusual footnotes, stage directions and editorial asides give the storytelling a playful, self-aware shape.

A relationship story becomes a way to examine how inherited political, religious and family divisions shape young people’s choices. The book presents reconciliation as fragile, requiring listening, risk and engagement rather than simple agreement.

This is a personal investigation into relatives who vanished during the Holocaust. Rosen follows clues, disappointments and discoveries, while poems and family materials give emotional and historical shape to what happened.

This is a family-and-identity story with two children whose experiences overlap but are not identical. It brings donor conception, LGBTQIA+ life, attraction, Jewish traditions and online research into one household and school setting.

A dark, atmospheric fantasy for readers who enjoy folklore, mystery and psychological unease. Alice’s search for her mother carries questions about trust, belonging and who has the right to shape a story.

A lively comic adventure for readers who enjoy K-pop, friendship drama and imaginative history. Its energy comes from mishaps, eccentric adults, a young pharaoh and repeated attempts to put time and history right.

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.

This offers a child-focused nonfiction starting point for exploring the historical subject named in the title.

Expect a character-focused sequel combining queer Arthurian fantasy, a travelling quest and emotional aftermath. The central concerns are panic, trauma, grief, strained romances and the effort required to reconnect after conflict.

This is a friendship-centred mystery shaped by rap, ambition and grief. Its energy comes alongside serious material: murdered characters, gang involvement, crack dealing, police violence, drinking, explicit language and sexual-consent discussions.

Expect an energetic fantasy quest combining Caribbean-inspired folklore, spirits, gemstones and magical battles with a warm friendship story. The central characters face fear, grief, abandonment and morally difficult decisions while trying to protect their island.

This is a richly illustrated journey through British myth and landscape, balancing magical stories with explanations of their historical and cultural context rather than presenting them as straightforward history.

This is an information-led pirate book with jokes and colourful illustrations, rather than a sustained fictional adventure. It offers accessible facts about ships, sailing, pirate life and historical figures through a playful guidebook voice.