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A family faces bereavement, a makeshift home and difficulty getting enough to eat. Alongside those hardships, the children find fun in nature and the family grows closer to its new home.

Victor’s search for work becomes a struggle to survive, shaped by his responsibility to his family and his friendship with Rico. The journey brings him into contact with smugglers and the risks of crossing the border.

A fantasy adventure follows Pong, marked as a fugitive after escaping prison, and Nok, who sets out to capture him. Their paths raise questions about inequality and whether law is always just.

Expect a high-action fantasy about survival, loyalty and choosing what sort of person to become, rather than a romance-led story. Aina’s assassin role and the consequences of her choices are prominent.

A family story about Floss’s choice to live with her father, whose failing café brings financial strain and upheaval. School friendships add another thread, and the ending is open rather than fully settled.

This is a historical story of a divided society and a personal return to danger, with Darnay’s choices set against injustice and revolution in France.

At its heart, this is a story of an unlikely friendship sustained through hardship, with music and Christian faith connected to a movement from despair towards hope.

A folk-tale adventure combines a family’s financial hardship with a haunted-house challenge. Thomas’s kindness to a stranger and his encounter with a frightening ghost are central to his attempt to find treasure.

The boys’ choice is not simply about money: they consider whether a possible way to meet personal needs could also send cocaine back into their neighbourhood.

A short social story combines a child’s discoveries in Varanasi with a serious encounter involving an abandoned newborn. Stylised black-and-white illustrations are mentioned.

A brisk, playful fairy-tale mash-up centres on a resourceful girl whose petty theft has consequences. Expect magic, mischief, action and uncertainty about which characters can be trusted.

This is a high-stakes historical adventure about a teenager caught between hopes of wealth and the violence surrounding diamond mining. It offers sustained emotional intensity alongside questions about family, freedom, exploitation and recovery.

This is an adventurous historical novel that places two vulnerable siblings amid harsh nineteenth-century poverty. Its fast-changing journey offers suspense, vivid Manchester settings and questions about family, survival and social change.

This is a fast-moving Tudor adventure centred on loyalty, injustice and a child’s effort to protect his father. It offers contrasting views of courtly wealth and London poverty, alongside historical detail about power and religious change.

A brisk, atmospheric historical adventure: William searches London for John Diamond while confronting a troubling family secret.

This is a gritty coming-of-age novel about Manny’s family, identity and desire for respect. It combines hardship with affection, humour and tenderness, using striking language to portray a Mexican-American teenager’s world.

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.

A playful premise drives a story about wishes producing unexpected results.

A reflective coming-of-age story about discovering family roots and negotiating more than one sense of home. Its strongest elements are relationships, vivid place-writing, cultural encounter and questions of identity.

A reflective picture-book story about Eva’s connection to Ethiopia after adoption. It contrasts difficult access to water and food with practical comforts in her new home, while holding memory, loss and belonging together.

A warm, episodic family story in which each child encounters a different mishap or opportunity. It combines humour and adventure with working life, financial constraint and the affection holding a large family together.

A coming-of-age story about choosing one’s own direction when sport, family and community expectations pull strongly. Its remote landscape and hockey culture provide an intense setting for questions about loyalty and independence.

A stark historical journey about a young woman claiming an independent life, while discovering that escape does not remove poverty, danger or responsibility. Its restrained style and unsettled emotional relationships may reward readers who prefer serious, atmospheric fiction over easy comfort.

This offers an accessible introduction to a pioneering doctor and inventor, combining a poetic life story with scientific and historical detail. Its strongest appeal is the connection between personal ambition, medical discovery and wider questions of equality.

A coming-of-age novel combining stage magic and family strain with serious mental-health, financial and bereavement themes. Ellie’s efforts to help her father create a fast-moving story, while the subject matter can become emotionally heavy.

This is a suspenseful historical fantasy combining Victorian London, faerie politics, street survival and a contested magical object. It offers a determined heroine, an improvised family and frequent crises, though some readers may find events implausible or the plot difficult to follow.

This is a character-led friendship story about two girls confronting assumptions shaped by place, money and family life. It offers gradual mutual understanding across sharply contrasting circumstances.

A fast-moving historical crime novel with alternating viewpoints, moral uncertainty and romantic tension. Caitlin’s determination drives a search through sharply unequal New York, while William’s divided loyalties complicate ideas of justice and personal change.

A warm football adventure uses Pickles’s humorous viewpoint to explore a family trying to stay together while money problems and housing insecurity affect everyday life.

A lively, first-person school story combines farcical problem-solving and slow-burn romance with serious family instability. Its emotional centre is Aideen’s habit of helping others while struggling to address her own circumstances.

A thoughtful migration story combines everyday hardship with magical realism. Leelu’s loneliness, her brother’s difficulties and the family’s uncertainty make belonging feel complicated rather than instantly solved.

This is a serious memoir about a child navigating poverty, school exclusion, racism and violent home relationships. Alongside distressing experiences, it includes friendship, sibling joy, Abuela’s influence and moments of perseverance.

A tense, twist-led survival mystery for readers who enjoy competing viewpoints, dangerous games and uncertainty about whom to trust. Its strongest pull is the combination of personal desperation and escalating threat.

A sweeping fantasy sequel about friends divided by danger and prejudice, with witches, magic, political responsibility and a developing romance. It offers an immersive world, tense escapes and battles, while leaving parts of the journey open for a later book.

A fast-moving dystopian adventure combines a family search with uncertain alliances, a lottery camp and an environmental mystery. Its central pull is whether belonging means escaping Earth or helping protect it.

This is a coming-of-age story about what money appears to make possible, and what it may cost. Penny’s circumstances invite attention to poverty, social treatment, identity and the difference between happiness and wealth.

A lively, high-concept eco-adventure: inventive technology, racing and space-bound rubbish drive a race against time, while contrasting communities give the story social and environmental weight.

A dark, energetic mystery about an unusual group protecting overlooked children. Its strongest offering is a determined heroine, an ensemble built around difference and friendship, and a vividly grim historical setting.

A thoughtful time-slip adventure about two boys separated by centuries but connected by hardship. Its mystery framework brings contemporary housing insecurity and Victorian workhouse life together, while the boys’ friendship gives the story an emotionally hopeful centre.

A historically rooted survival and migration story, centred on siblings whose loyalty persists through violence, poverty, separation and an unfamiliar culture. It offers substantial scope for thinking about belonging and family responsibility.

This is an emotionally intense historical romance about love across class and national divisions, set against famine and poverty. Its verse form may make the reading flow quickly while concentrating strong feelings.

This is a socially focused story about a child whose poverty makes him feel visibly different. Its central movement is from feeling conspicuous and socially different towards confidence, friendship and empathy.

Expect an imaginative factory adventure centred on five children, with comic fantasy, moral contrasts and a strong focus on Charlie’s honesty. The story also includes poverty, rule-breaking and punishments that may prompt differing reactions.

This is a serious, emotionally intense survival story about two boys whose very different family circumstances bring them into the same vulnerable community. Friendship and mutual dependence are central, alongside stark social hardship.

A football-centred adventure that places Budi’s ambitions beside poverty, exploitative work and criminal pressure. Friendship and family support offer warmth, but the story also asks readers to confront limited choices and difficult social conditions.