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Expect a football-centred childhood story rather than an account of Burglar Bill. Its unofficial team, friendships and setbacks provide comic energy, while the reflective voice gives the book a poignant, nostalgic dimension.

This is a richly imagined sequel where magical danger carries emotional consequences. Alongside romance and wonder, the story examines whether compassion, memory and mercy can interrupt cycles of violence and inherited fear.

A ghostly quest combines danger, memory and moral choices. Riley’s efforts to free her friends and other spirits give the story an emphasis on understanding rather than defeating pain by force.

This is a supernatural mystery with a strongly suspenseful premise: a murdered teenager’s spirit seeks answers.

A poetic, emotionally serious story about two traumatised teenagers seeking connection and truth. Its unusual voices and recurring poems offer rich interpretation, while difficult experiences and contested ideas about healing require thoughtful engagement.

This is a visually rich wartime memoir about service, segregation, friendship and artistic persistence.

This is a serious, emotionally charged story about a boy seeking acceptance and a grandmother carrying painful memories. Its Zimbabwean settings and two connected personal histories foreground prejudice, fear, guilt and forgiveness.

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 tense, politically charged dystopian novel about a Muslim teenager resisting confinement and discrimination. Its emphasis falls on moral courage, collective action and the human consequences of Islamophobia, alongside disturbing scenes of coercion and violence.

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.

This offers a tense journey story alongside a close account of sibling care. Clem’s storytelling, memories and uncertain perspective add emotional depth, while the political setting invites reflection on belonging, surveillance, displacement and how families preserve hope under pressure.

This is a cricket-centred story about belonging and persistence. Kerry-Ann’s love of the game, family connection to Jamaica and grandfather’s history sit alongside a conflict over who is welcomed at the club.

This is a short, poetic remembrance of a childhood home where prominent Black cultural and political figures gathered. Its words are spare, while the paintings make the people, rooms and atmosphere expansive.

This is a family-centred historical novel balancing lively summer activities and affectionate extended-family life with secrecy, bereavement, divided loyalties, and prejudice connected to wartime Italian American experience.

A dark historical story about a servant who may survive a hanging, told through her trapped thoughts and a medical student's dawning suspicion during a dissection.

A school time-capsule discovery turns into a contained mystery when a vintage doll is missing. Nancy Drew and friends investigate whether someone took it before the capsule was opened, but the eventual explanation is unclear.

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.