What Are You Looking For?

A child’s excitement about joining a baseball team meets the challenge of sharing it with a bully. The story sets up a practical question about what good teammates do when team life is difficult.

A lively fantasy adventure combines school settings, friendship, humour, magic and imaginative creatures. Felix and Betony must use their wits across conflicts involving Rhino, a djinn and the Japegrins, while the story builds towards a threat affecting two worlds.

A historical adventure about starting again after disaster, building friendships and trying to protect a new home from moving sand. Expect family upheaval, school conflict and an ending whose precise emotional shape is unclear.

A straightforward mystery with a teenage investigator, a friendship that supports the enquiry, boxing as a recurring motif, and danger that increases as questions are asked. It offers clues, action and school intrigue rather than an unusually experimental structure.

This is a mission-driven seafaring adventure in which a crew pursues a former rival who has become a pirate and slave trader. Friendship, courage and restored honour shape the action.

Choose this for a young reader who enjoys fast-moving fantasy but may also value a story that gives anxiety, friendship and practical coping methods a central role.

This is a comic dystopian adventure about pupils navigating bullying, cliques, shortages and an unsafe society while trying to use intelligence and teamwork. Expect absurdity alongside ominous circumstances, including bombs, danger, spiders and threatened schoolmates.

This is an animal fantasy adventure with an ecological crisis at its centre. It offers family bonds, difficult belonging and questions about how communities respond when food and habitat become scarce.

This is a relationship-focused school and family story about donor conception, confidence, friendship and adapting to change. It offers two children’s perspectives as they move from resentment towards working together, though the final resolution is unclear.

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.

A lively choice for readers who enjoy school settings, eccentric threats and exaggerated comedy.

Choose this for a reader who enjoys high-action horror, suspense, twists and science-fiction menace, and who may also appreciate friendship, teamwork and witty dialogue. It is designed to be creepy and exciting rather than calm.

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.

A brisk environmental adventure about a reluctant visit becoming a relationship with a grandad, a local stream and its wildlife. Kyle’s growing responsibility gives the story an encouraging focus on courage, care and standing up for a place.

This is a character-led coming-of-age novel about identity, secrecy, family and finding community. Its emotional centre is Amir’s attempt to reconcile his Muslim family life, sexuality, fear and desire for freedom.

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 an imaginative story about making a world that reflects one person’s ideas. Its main appeal is the inventive detail: Wesley turns a plant into resources, culture and communication, then sees others respond.

A school mystery about a child under social pressure, with a new friendship helping him investigate an accusation. Humour sits alongside bullying, prejudice, moral choices and family conversations about religion and values.

A school community is shown dealing with bullying, harassment, exclusion, hostile online posts and damage to a library. The central uncertainty is whether the harm can be repaired.

A school-spirit story turns towards the consequences of a prank and repeated online nastiness, while Zoey’s friendships, creativity and blog become ways to consider responding to harm.