What Are You Looking For?

This is a visually powerful book about how an apparently luxurious purchase can be connected to exploitation and inequality. Its sparse words place substantial interpretive weight on sombre, confronting charcoal images and the reader’s response.

A lively circus setting frames a story about a penguin choosing a different role. Poppy’s change from performer to organiser offers a reassuring alternative to following a family tradition.

Expect fast-moving fantasy adventure: Emily and her friends train, discover powers and attempt a dangerous rescue while war approaches. Family tensions and questions of trust sit alongside battles and emotional uncertainty.

An upbeat, personal introduction to farming that follows a working year and explains sheep care alongside stories, humour and reflections on the realities of farm life.

A warm, illustration-rich story about rebuilding a neglected hotel through practical work, creative problem-solving and cooperation. Its main tension comes from whether Anna and her team can meet an inspector’s challenge.

This is an action-led coming-of-age story about a troubled child entering an extraordinary spy-training organisation. It offers perseverance, teamwork and personal change alongside danger, bereavement, coercion and language some families may wish to discuss.

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.

A spooky Cornwall adventure with a mystery at its centre, this book brings together a young conservation-minded protagonist, an unusual dog, family members and a new friend against a curse that poisons and destroys the land.

A classic-style children’s adventure built around a coastal mystery, teamwork and discovery. Expect suspense from dangerous rocks, suspicious night-time signals, local wrongdoing and the children’s determination to investigate without adult direction.

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.

This offers an atmospheric historical fantasy with a strong emotional centre: a grieving girl is drawn into a dangerous magical bargain while working in her family’s sweet shop and seeking a way to repair the past.

This is a clue-led historical mystery with an active young protagonist, a strong seaside setting and a family crisis at its centre. It offers atmosphere, teamwork and a determined character whose limb difference is part of her life, not the whole plot.

This is a focused contemporary family story about children’s privacy online. It offers a plot-led way to consider sharenting, consent and the consequences when a parent’s public identity depends on children’s visibility.

A football-focused sequel about ambition under pressure, balancing a possible professional opportunity with family work, social relationships and disruptive encounters. It may suit a reader who enjoys sport-centred stories with setbacks.

A football-centred story about pressure, responsibility and learning to co-operate, with Roy juggling his place in the team, college, family duties and coaching. It offers both match-focused excitement and everyday-life concerns.

This is a socially aware family story with a determined child protagonist. It combines motel life, immigrant family pressures and Mia’s writing ambitions, while presenting difficult injustices alongside friendship, support and attempts to help others.

A good fit for readers drawn to eerie fairy-tale retellings, magical quests, mysteries and determined protagonists. Its central journey carries genuine danger, while its romantic thread and unresolved ending may shape the reading experience.

This is a fantasy adventure combining K-pop performance culture, martial-arts action and supernatural danger. Its emotional centre is a friendship group learning to work together while facing fears that affect them and others.

This is a multi-viewpoint historical romance about four young Black women balancing love, work, family expectations and social change in 1910 Chicago. It offers ambitious characters and a setting shaped by racial inequality and restricted opportunities for women.

This is an adventurous wartime mystery centred on Mary’s language work, secret assignments and shifting loyalties. Its suspense comes from the uncertainty surrounding her operation.

A festive, clue-led murder mystery for readers who enjoy solving puzzles alongside a team. Its emotional centre is a group of five neurodivergent children combining different strengths while trying to protect their out-of-school club.

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 humorous adventure about a reluctant child facing unfamiliar activities, social pressure and team expectations. Tim’s practical idea in a challenge suggests that contribution need not depend on sporting ability.

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.

A lively child-led detective adventure: Emil responds to theft by following the suspected criminal through Berlin and working with other children. Its appeal lies in pursuit, teamwork and the contrast between a small town and a large, exciting city.

This is an emotionally focused adventure about grief, family distance and a boy’s risky search for release. Its rainforest setting broadens the story towards environmental and human-rights concerns, while the expedition introduces danger and survival elements.

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.

A seasonal collection follows Beti through birthday events, a journey to a waterfall, berry picking with Mam, a storm, and winter responsibilities. Friendship, family reassurance, practical problem-solving and living alongside nature shape the book’s gentle world.

This is a compact, serious story about two migrant workers pursuing work and a shared dream. Its strongest elements are loyalty, loneliness and the pressures placed on vulnerable people when hopes collide with harsh circumstances.

This is a character-led YA story about finding confidence without abandoning family ties. Drama, friendship and a possible romance develop alongside questions about privilege, work, opportunity and whose needs receive priority.

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.

This is a historical family story about rebuilding after hardship. Ellie’s practical courage, connection with nature and willingness to help others sit alongside grief, difficult choices and uncertainty about what people have experienced.

This is an energetic eco-adventure combining world travel, time travel, friendship and environmental questions. It may suit readers who enjoy quest-driven stories, imaginative devices and child protagonists facing mysteries with animals alongside them.

Expect a fast-moving, imaginative adventure in which time travel connects family relationships, grief and responsibility. The story also makes room for humour, friendship and emotional growth, with Al facing both practical dangers and difficult choices.

This is a brisk, fantastical adventure about determination, danger and becoming a firework-maker. Lila’s journey combines perilous tests, a family predicament and a spectacular public performance, with illustrations contributing to the imagined world.

Expect a fast-moving school adventure set in 2507, combining pirate training, a mysterious newcomer and danger in the academy. Friendship and cooperation sit alongside sailing, knots, swords and an escalating enemy threat.

Expect a quest-led fantasy centred on bravery, friendship and teamwork. Magical creatures create danger, while the conflict is framed as a struggle against an evil wizard’s spell rather than realistic wrongdoing.

This is a comic political adventure about an ordinary boy whose public speech propels him into national leadership. Its appeal comes from absurd ideas, fast-changing circumstances and the contrast between childhood imagination and adult political power.

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.

This is a relationship-led story that moves from romance into pregnancy, competing beliefs and practical responsibility. Its Belfast setting gives the characters’ abortion-related conflict a specific legal and social context, while humour remains present alongside loneliness.

A playful fantasy adventure combines a damaged family business, an apologetic young ogre and a kingdom facing an attempted takeover. Its pleasures include imaginative names, chocolate-cake humour and characters working together to repair harm and restore stability.

A sweeping fantasy adventure centred on two young people, a hidden magical world and the struggle to preserve disappearing magic. Expect imaginative creatures, perilous quests and emotionally significant losses alongside companionship, ingenuity and moral responsibility.

Expect a pirate-school adventure involving lessons, frightening situations and a rescue. The story’s central movement is from first impressions of Patagonia to a more sympathetic understanding.