What Are You Looking For?

This is an intense historical coming-of-age novel about Nora’s attempt to find a future while danger surrounds her home and neighbourhood. Its period detail, family conflict and social history offer substantial material for discussion.

A dark, intense revenge fantasy about a teenager confronting sexual violence, seeking to save someone important to her and using magic that comes at a stated price. Expect horror, suspense and graphic imagery.

This is a tense survival adventure built around separation, environmental danger and competing attempts to reach safety. Its strongest through-line is how young characters organise, protect more vulnerable people and respond to threats.

Expect an adventure fantasy built around exile, disputed inheritance and supernatural threats. Its strongest distinctive feature is Jessa: a young woman presented as the focal and strongest character while loyalty and friendship shape the struggle.

This is an adventure-led environmental story in which children respond to pollution, encounter wildlife and learn about protecting habitats.

A fast-moving supernatural thriller about friendship, belonging and resisting pressure, with a frightening bodily transformation at its centre. The plot combines school conflict, investigation and action.

This is a high-action fantasy that combines a village threatened by shadow spirits with political marriage, demons, magical technology and a quest. Its strongest appeal is likely its spectacle and dramatic movement rather than sustained inner development.

This is a mystery about discovering and confronting organised racism in a new community. It offers suspense, a young investigator and questions about how prejudice can be spread through technology and social networks.

This is a serious, emotionally intense story about bereavement, abuse and recovery, balanced by friendship, romantic connection and the possibility of accepting help. Tyler’s choices drive the movement towards a different future.

A suspenseful children’s adventure about siblings investigating unsettling circumstances in a guarded Cornish house. Expect secrets, danger, teamwork and a wartime political backdrop, alongside melodrama and an intentionally improbable child-led challenge to adults.

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 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 hopeful environmental story in which small actions become more effective through cooperation. Its imaginative ocean encounter gives practical choices—such as reducing plastic and reusing bottles—a narrative setting.

An accessible introduction to plastic’s environmental effects, balancing explanations of pollution with practical actions and examples of children contributing ideas, projects and solutions.

This is a fast-moving wartime escape story combining orphanhood, sibling loyalty and espionage. Its child characters repeatedly make difficult choices while trying to survive danger, loss and separation.

A dark, fast-moving faerie adventure that combines monsters, romance and town danger with more reflective questions about self-invention, family secrets, community complicity and whether apparent gifts or beauty can conceal coercion.

A serious, emotionally charged story about a bereaved child facing prejudice, instability and threats to her bond with Joe. It may invite empathy, but its portrayal of rescue and belonging appears partly sentimentalised.

A socially engaged coming-of-age story about disability, access and self-determination, with Sam’s campaign creating opportunities for friendship while exposing barriers in school and daily life.

A dark, atmospheric story for readers who enjoy ghosts, folklore, natural magic and narratives that connect across time. Three girls face danger and loss while their stories gradually converge around a threatening presence in the woods.

This is an atmospheric picture-book journey in which a child navigates an intimidating city and offers practical-sounding advice about danger, warmth and food. Its central emotional effect comes from seeing a small person try to make sense of a large world.

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.

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.

A strongly atmospheric folk-horror story about a community’s inherited bargain with a river. Its central appeal is the tension between belonging and personal choice, while its gruesome supernatural danger may make it an intense read.

A formally varied, emotionally serious story about friendship and recovery. Its urban green space, ravens, artwork and shifting voices give the characters’ grief, exclusion and difficult choices a layered setting.

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 team-centred science-fiction adventure about young people confronting the organisation responsible for transforming one of them. Expect secret missions, superhuman and alien abilities, technology, fights and an urgent threat affecting millions.

This is a lively historical mystery built around a disabled heroine, a group heist and strong friendship. It combines perilous secrets, inventive problem-solving and questions about how disabled children are treated, while keeping the adventure playful and suspenseful.

A collaborative, idea-led picture book about children imagining and planning a better world. It offers hopeful prompts around kindness, environmental responsibility, safety and inclusion, while inviting children’s own ideas into the conversation.

A magical, atmospheric fairytale retelling centred on Red’s curiosity, a threatened relationship between village and woodland, and questions about who is treated as dangerous. It combines mystery, grief, disability representation and collective strength.

An animal adventure about friendship, community and a contested development. Its conflict places Drina and her friends against a plan involving the village, landscape and the possible use of her lion as a theme-park attraction.

This is a dark survival fantasy about young people managing hunger, danger and power without adults. Its central pressures are scarcity, conflict between powered and unpowered children, murderous behaviour, and influence from a threatening supernatural presence.

This is a fantasy adventure about a teenager discovering a dangerous inherited role. Dragons, training, teamwork and a search for another Slayer drive the central conflict, with urgency created by hatching eggs and approaching maturity.

A serious coming-of-age story about divided identity, anger and self-command. Sonny’s boxing offers a way to contain “the monster”, while New York brings danger and a demanding encounter with Alfred Brooks.

A school-set story about a reluctant student encountering boxing, a new community and a threat to her school. Tessa’s changing relationship with New Directions appears to drive the book.

This is a satirical story about teenagers turning consumer choice into organised dissent. Its central appeal lies in the collision between youthful collective power, commercial persuasion and adult claims to authority.

This is a high-stakes science-fiction story about young people confronting attack, separation and competing expectations. Personal relationships matter alongside survival, leadership and the future of two space communities.