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A witty, humane fantasy about growing into responsibility while facing fear, prejudice and loss. Tiffany’s work as a witch centres on caring for people, while the story also brings darker threats and emotionally difficult relationships.

This is a historical diary about a family trying to remain together amid Gold Rush hardship. It offers domestic perspective as well as danger, grief and ethical choices, with a generally bleak atmosphere and attention to friendship over sudden wealth.

This is a grim historical adventure about unjust punishment, endurance and friendship. Its atmosphere is bleak, but Tom and Midgely’s imagination gives the story a counterweight of resourcefulness and hope.

This is a historical coming-of-age story about how proximity to power can distort a child’s judgement, while friendship, conscience and resistance remain possible responses to injustice.

A perception-bending mystery with a vulnerable teenage protagonist, combining science-fiction ideas with questions about identity, reality and innocence. Its emotional centre appears weightier than its adventure premise, particularly around mental health, fear, anxiety, loss and grief.

This is an emotionally serious but often humorous story about a child trying to solve an illness he cannot control. Its interest lies in Colin’s urgency, bold schemes and changing understanding of help, responsibility and loss.

A lively fantasy mystery for readers who enjoy hidden worlds, supernatural beings, competition and surprises. Its emotional centre is Amari’s search for her brother and her movement from feeling like an outsider towards recognising her strengths.

Expect a fast-moving, twisty mystery shaped by creepy folklore, family conflict and uncertainty about what Ava can trust. Its strongest features are atmosphere, suspense and clues that invite readers to solve the case alongside her.

A fast-paced adventure follows Ollie into The Haven, a child-run refuge and investigation network. The story combines criminal danger, missing children, bereavement and a threat to London, with friendship developing between Ollie and Dodge.

This is a fast-moving teen mystery that treats investigation as a social experience, not merely a puzzle. Missing-person anxiety, grief, online attention and community suspicion make the story emotionally weightier than a cosy whodunit.

This is a serious story about racial injustice, bereavement and responsibility. Its supernatural viewpoint lets Jerome observe the consequences of his death while the historical connection to Emmett Till broadens the story beyond one family.

This is a personal investigation into relatives who vanished during the Holocaust. Rosen follows clues, disappointments and discoveries, while poems and family materials give emotional and historical shape to what happened.

Expect an intense crime thriller about grief, anger and the pursuit of revenge. The brothers face secrecy, hostility and danger while investigating their sister’s death, with an unsettling atmosphere and a strongly action-driven climax.

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.

This is a grief-focused family story told through Jamie’s limited understanding. It combines painful circumstances with comic moments, friendship and movement towards hope, while showing how adults’ responses to loss affect children.

A supernatural friendship story follows Suzy as she lives with bereavement, self-consciousness and uncertainty about Rhiannon. Its emotional centre is the possibility of reconnecting with life while learning that friendship can change.

A serious, emotionally intense story about finding a voice after witnessing fatal police violence. Its family bonds, friendship and activism sit alongside grief, racial injustice, threats, strong language, sexual references, substance use and disturbing violence.

A dark supernatural mystery combines witchcraft, ghosts, grief and romance. Viola’s investigation is supported by friendships and a search for justice, while the story also builds suspense through murder, dangerous spirits and unsettling deaths.

Expect an imaginative underwater adventure with a determined heroine, a strong sibling bond, unusual creatures and a richly developed river community. The story combines quest tension with questions about trust, belonging and changing long-held assumptions.

This is an emotionally heavy story about loss and its aftermath, combining a dead girl’s perspective with the family’s attempts to cope. Its strongest appeal may be its focus on love, hope and change after trauma.

This is a survival adventure that places a frightened, newly blind boy in prolonged dependence on Timothy. Its strongest material concerns trust, practical resilience and the painful unlearning of racial prejudice.

Expect a compact, poetic story with two narrative voices, intense emotions and significant moral and social issues. Its short verse sections may aid momentum, while the subject matter can remain deeply affecting.

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 a contemporary YA novel about students resisting school book bans. It combines activism and community conflict with Noor’s relocation, family strain, Muslim identity, friendship, grief and tentative romantic feelings.

A moving historical war story about Stephen and Danny, whose growing love unfolds amid trench warfare, bereavement and hostility towards gay men. Expect both tense action and quieter attention to vulnerability, friendship, identity and the emotional costs of conflict.

A suspenseful fantasy about discovering identity and belonging, with a resourceful protagonist, dragon lore and a friendship shaped by loneliness. It offers emotional themes alongside danger, loss and a history of conflict between humans and dragons.

Expect an expansive superhero adventure centred on competing ideas of justice and vengeance. The story combines secret identities, combat, bereavement, romance and moral uncertainty rather than presenting a simple hero-versus-villain conflict.

This is a tense, character-led mystery about returning to a traumatised community, carrying family shame and questioning an accepted version of events. Grief, harassment, cultural identity and a developing romance sit alongside the investigation.

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.

This is an action-led coming-of-age story about grief, courage and belonging. Siki challenges expected gender roles while training as a warrior, and her personal questions connect with the wider struggle to protect Apache land and community.

This is an ambitious story about music, courage and human connection across several historical settings. It offers mystery, fantasy and emotionally serious struggles, with separate children's stories eventually shown to be interwoven.

This appears to be a coming-of-age story about feeling different, family history and emerging feelings.

A determined girl challenges unfair access to school football while adjusting to bereavement, remarriage, a new home and difficult relationships. Her campaign sits alongside rebellion and a mystery involving adults around her.