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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.

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 gentle environmental story about a small, quiet character whose observations are initially overlooked. Whisper’s eventual advocacy involves friends, creativity and persuasion rather than simply becoming louder.

This is a lively shared-reading book centred on noticing who lives in a building, what each neighbour enjoys and how separate activities become a collective celebration.

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 lively school-election story about finding allies, challenging unfairness and turning strong feelings into action. Its campaign plot combines humour, friendship and political participation with a developing lesson about listening and working constructively with opponents.

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.

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.

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 an adventurous nature-centred novel about Orla’s investigation into a disease damaging plants and harming people. It combines magical plant knowledge, travel, friendship and questions about how people can work towards a common good.

Expect a gently comic adventure in which a boy, a dragon and St George confront expectations about what dragons and heroes should be. The story makes room for poetry, friendship and a staged solution rather than presenting fighting as the only answer.

This is a fast-moving fantasy about survival, theft, vengeance and shifting loyalties. Kyra’s independence and uncertainty about her identity sit alongside Tristam’s grief-driven mission, while their partnership complicates both their goals.

A playful fantasy adventure centres on friendship, magical mishaps and a heroine learning to manage a changing identity. Its appeal appears to come from comic characters, imaginative creatures and a purposeful journey.

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.

A seaside horse-riding holiday shifts from excitement to mystery and possible danger. Caitlin’s feelings about her mother’s absence sit alongside friendship, adventure and a shared effort to avert an unspecified disaster.

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.

This is a supernatural mystery-adventure built around lost identity, eerie local rumours and missing children. Its strongest offer is a forward-moving search: Christopher must recover his memories while uncovering what is happening in the community.