What Are You Looking For?

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.

An imaginative, action-led science-fiction adventure built around odd powers, unusual companions and a dangerous quest. Its elaborate world and mysteries may appeal to persistent readers, though the journey is deliberately expansive.

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 a dark, suspenseful Viking voyage to Vinland, blending historical detail, mythology, magic and monsters. Peer and Hilde face deceptive adults, secrets and danger, while the story explores truth, responsibility, maturity, love, loss and longing.

This is a fantasy story about a girl pursuing knightly training in a setting where some people oppose female participation. Its underdog premise sits alongside bullying, training injuries, conflict, war, kidnapping, death and a brief reference to suicide.

A tense futuristic fantasy about training, arena combat and revenge, with an imaginative vocabulary and a young protagonist confronting a powerful enemy. Its opening may require patience, and the ending leaves major questions open.

A lively story about a wronged schoolgirl choosing increasingly risky ways to recover her future. Its strongest discussion point is the gap between understanding Bernetta’s predicament and approving of her solution.

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.

A visually presented life story linking football, military leadership and racial unfairness.

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.

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 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.

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.

A historical adventure rooted in the early-20th-century Philippines, following Amihan and Mariposa as they respond to official policy and try to return to Culion. Its emotional centre is family love and friendship.

A suspenseful mystery about a child pursuing truth while separated from her family. Its science-fiction ideas sit alongside friendship, courage and self-discovery, with a hopeful emotional thread reported alongside danger and uncertainty.

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.

This is a coming-of-age story in which Scout and Jem encounter racism, inequality and adult moral choices. Its child’s-eye perspective presents these difficult social realities, but does not make its language or events gentle.

This is a supernatural romance built around powerful attraction, danger and the tension between protection and control. Its strongest discussion point is whether intense devotion can coexist with equality and respect.

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 fast-moving fantasy adventure built around three young characters with different goals. It offers magical creatures, peril and hidden truths about the island and the beliefs surrounding its beasts.

A gentle story about a child’s strong attachment to a treasured toy, the upset caused by losing it, and the difficulty of getting it back after it is bought at a fair.

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 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 is a mystery about belonging, memory and fairness: a newcomer follows a disturbing clue, questions the story a community tells about Wil, and becomes involved in putting a past wrong into perspective.

This is a high-stakes fantasy conclusion about Eragon and Saphira confronting a powerful ruler. It combines adventure, battles and moral stakes with loss, hope and the difficult question of what restoring justice may require.