What Are You Looking For?

This is a magical, fairy-tale adventure in which two girls help fairy friends after a theft disrupts familiar stories. Its appeal may lie in seeing storybook worlds become tangled.

Expect a playful contrast between Jack’s modern concerns and a darker fairy-tale adventure, with the story framing old tales as warnings rather than romantic escapism.

A child’s situation with a frightening babysitter frames fairy tales that pause at bleak moments before later resuming.

A collection of eight animal-centred twists on familiar fairy tales, including a frog’s unusual dance career. Its premise may appeal to readers who enjoy seeing well-known stories remixed.

This is an imaginative fairy-tale adventure about family, friendship and finding missing people, combining modern Virginia with an older magical world. Its shifting settings, time structure and recognisable story figures may appeal to readers who enjoy elaborate retellings.

A folklore-infused fantasy about a cursed princess undertaking dangerous trials to save her brothers. Its strongest threads are family loyalty, courage, sacrifice and repairing harm, while its trials include physical danger, death and bereavement.

This is an intense, image-rich poetry collection that turns familiar tales inside out. Its poems confront damaging expectations while making room for anger, humour, self-questioning and resistance.

This is literary fantasy rather than a gentle fairy tale: a refuge formed after abuse becomes a setting for examining protection, secrecy and the daughters’ developing agency. Expect symbolic transformation, vivid bodily imagery and abrupt movement between beauty, humour and brutality.

A familiar fairy tale is reworked through penguin characters, comic courtly illustrations, penguin-related puns and scenes of the couple enjoying chess, music, dancing and shadow puppets.

This is a literary mystery built around reconstruction rather than straightforward answers. Its fractured voice, fairy-tale patterns and shifting interpretations invite close attention to what Cadence notices, misunderstands or cannot remember.

This is a brisk, storybook-style fantasy that combines a magical quest with a developing romance. Its main interest lies less in elaborate world-building than in Tristran’s changing understanding of desire, devotion and adulthood.

A feminist and LGBTQ retelling in which Sophia challenges a kingdom built around compulsory marriage and rigid social control. It offers a brisk adventure, romance and resistance, while drawing on real-world patterns of misogyny, homophobia and authoritarian rule.

A sombre, imaginative story about sisters, a sleeping princess and a dreamworld shaped by inner struggles. Expect more emotional and psychological exploration than fast-moving adventure, with fairy-tale wonder alongside painful material.

A fast-moving fantasy adventure combines fairy-tale reworking, coding, futuristic inventions and family emotion. Amber’s ordered life is disrupted by a rescue mission, while her father’s past adds a more serious strand.

This offers a collection of less familiar fairy tales from around the world, with heroines who solve problems through wit, courage and resourcefulness rather than needing rescue.

A brisk, humorous rescue adventure in which Dulcinea uses her wits to confront a witch and navigate enchanted obstacles, with illustrations that contrast her calm manner with the witch’s theatricality.

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 offers a lively introduction to Welsh folklore through brief, retold stories with magical, humorous and emotionally resonant elements. It may particularly suit shared reading or readers curious about Wales, names and traditional tales.

A lively, mischievous retelling of a familiar fairy tale, told by the wolf himself. Its central pleasure is uncertainty: readers must weigh his explanations rather than simply accept the version they already know.

A child navigating a new life, missing family and friendship encounters a magical garden whose promises lead towards adventure and a darker fairy-tale atmosphere.

Expect a tense, psychologically charged story about a teenager confronting withheld family truths. Its interest lies in fear, responsibility and changing interpretations of danger, rather than simply solving a sequence of clues.

Rumaysa’s search for her parents leads into a magical adventure involving a queen, traditional fairy-tale figures and unusual creatures. The story combines danger, humour and a heroine who takes an active, compassionate role.

Expect a visually rich, participatory chase through Three Little Pigs, Hansel and Gretel, and Sleeping Beauty settings. The child hides behind layered flaps and cut-outs before confronting the monsters rather than continuing to run.

A lively fact-checking book that uses well-known fairy tales to prompt scientific questions. Its humour, detailed artwork and practical games make investigation feel playful rather than like a lesson.

Expect a lively collection of recognisable fairy-tale rewritings rather than one continuous plot. Characters and stories overlap, while page furniture, typography and illustrations become comic parts of the storytelling.

Expect a fast-moving fairy-tale adventure involving illness, magic, strange creatures, rival pursuers and travel through unsettling settings. Red’s fear, friendship with Goldie and changing understanding of others drive the story.

A playful, allusive fantasy adventure for readers who enjoy familiar tales being remixed. Its energy comes from pursuit, magical danger and comic invention, though the story also uses frightening threats and uncertainty around loss rather than keeping everything comfortably reassuring.

This is a bittersweet, unusual coming-of-age novel about connection after loss. Parker’s silence, Zelda’s mystery and the stories he writes create a reflective blend of romance, humour, grief and questions about mortality.

This is a return-to-a-familiar-world adventure built around a family rescue. Its strongest promise is imaginative fairy-tale danger, with the twins facing a frightening change and making their own way towards their mother.

This is a strange, fairy-tale-inflected escape adventure about a child discovering a wider world after a highly restrictive upbringing. Its appeal lies in Liberty’s unusual circumstances, imaginative discoveries and search for a personally meaningful future.

This is a lively, imaginative collection built around two very young superhero brothers. Expect repeated problem-solving adventures, comic absurdity and genre-hopping, with stories involving villains, magic, science fiction and literary or mythological ideas.