What Are You Looking For?

A teen story that brings together debating, a first crush and a disagreement at home, with Phoebe facing the challenge of speaking up for herself as well as in competition.

A family’s car journey becomes a story about how racial prejudice changes the sisters’ experience of a trip they had anticipated with pride and excitement.

A layered teen mystery combines the search for truth about Roberta’s mother with questions about racism, media, politics and standing up for oneself.

This is an intense, visually symbolic story about shame, identity and survival. Its painful experiences are balanced by friendship and a hopeful possibility of acceptance, without suggesting that every difficulty has been resolved.

This is a lively historical novel about sisters navigating an emotionally distant mother while encountering Black Panther community work and racial injustice. Its strongest offering is the combination of distinct girl characters, family complexity and a child’s perspective on a changing society.

Expect an unusual war fantasy where friendship and chosen family matter amid occupation, bodily vulnerability and shifting loyalties. Its experimental form may reward patient readers, but the story’s violence and sexual exploitation are substantial.

A historical account of four African American women mathematicians whose work contributed to aircraft and spacecraft research, while explaining segregation, wartime aviation, NASA’s origins and the space race.

This novel follows a mixed-heritage teenager negotiating family ties, cultural belonging and other people’s expectations. It offers a story about identity that places personal uncertainty alongside racial prejudice and changing relationships.

This offers a supernatural murder mystery rooted in Prohibition-era New York, alongside folklore, occult ideas, jazz-club life and vivid secondary storylines. Its horror is central rather than incidental.

This is a mystery about discovering and confronting organised racism in a new community. It offers suspense, a young investigator and questions about how prejudice can be spread through technology and social networks.

This is a family-and-community story about cultural identity, belonging and resilience. Its period details, family interactions and humour sit alongside racism, economic pressure and the difficult work of translating between languages and expectations.

This is an emotionally intense, socially engaged story of young people facing bereavement, family instability, discrimination and addiction. Its perspective shifts and layered histories invite sustained attention, while compassion, accountability, faith and hope remain important strands.

A stranger arrives by sea and is confined, mistreated and expelled as the islanders’ fear becomes hatred. Their final wall leaves a bleak image of exclusion rather than reconciliation.

This is an adventure-led historical novel centred on Deaf community, sign language and human dignity, while exploring how inherited prejudice shapes relationships between communities.

This offers imaginative fantasy alongside sustained questions about Black identity, friendship, prejudice and self-determination. Its dual perspective gives Tavia and Effie distinct forms of identity exploration, though the opening may feel slow before the action intensifies.

This is a symbolic story about colours whose town becomes divided after one colour claims superiority. Friendship, mixing and cooperation challenge exclusion, making the book particularly useful for starting conversations about racism and belonging.

Expect lively, performative poems alongside serious real-world concerns. The collection can invite laughter, close attention to word choice and discussion about fairness, nature, animal treatment and how poetry communicates ideas.

This is an adventurous, emotionally charged fantasy combining dragons with Cold War intrigue. It follows danger, friendship, romance and hope while confronting racism, bereavement, political violence and the destructive consequences of power.

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

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.

This is a high-stakes coming-of-age story about trying to become a K-pop star while navigating outsider status, friendship, romance and an industry that demands perfection. Its setting offers a close look at training culture and the pressures surrounding public success.

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 socially engaged coming-of-age story about belonging, prejudice and resistance. Its emotional centre is Zara’s effort to protect her family and future while remaining true to her identity and connected to people who support her.

A dark, atmospheric Dracula retelling centred on two sisters, captivity and resistance. Its strongest offering is the way female relationships, Traveller identity and collective courage reshape a familiar vampire story.

This is a character-led story about a Deaf teenager using graffiti and art to express herself while navigating exclusion, friendship and the expectations of hearing people.

This is a socially engaged Manchester story about three Black teenagers whose lives become connected after a stabbing. Its central interest lies in contrasting viewpoints, unequal experiences and the friendships formed in the aftermath.

A warm, issue-rich coming-of-age romance about being seen honestly within family, faith and school life. Its humour and friendships sit alongside serious questions about racism, homophobia and cultural ownership.

A coming-of-age story about identity, belonging and disclosure, balancing painful social pressures with friendship, family love and romantic possibility. It offers a queer Mexican American protagonist whose choices are shaped by school, faith and immigration-related family separation.

A suspenseful historical coming-of-age story about friendship, fear and noticing injustice. Its child’s-eye investigation opens onto difficult adult realities, while humour, community details and emotional relationships give the darker subject matter human texture.

A clue-heavy ensemble mystery for readers who enjoy solving puzzles alongside characters. Its appeal lies in twists, red herrings, humour and changing partnerships, while its many characters and social tensions may require patient attention.

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.

This is a migration and coming-of-age story about Leonard, who leaves Jamaica for Britain and learns to live with separation, racism and questions of belonging. It also brings the Windrush generation’s history and later injustice into a personal story.

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 tense contemporary story about a Muslim teenager responding to terror, Islamophobia and school bullying. Its central interest is how identity, friendship and collective action can challenge prejudice without making the surrounding hostility feel trivial.

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.

A high-stakes fantasy about two young people facing an oppressive society, dangerous magic and threats to their families. Its strongest focus is courage joined with cultural pride and resistance to injustice.

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.

This is a socially focused YA novel about racism, Muslim identity and belonging, balancing painful conflict with family, friendship, faith and Somali community. Its central movement is from enforced quietness towards speaking up.

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 faith-centred sports story about entering unfamiliar surroundings while facing racism, social pressure and difficult choices. Its strongest focus appears to be how Perry understands identity, belonging and responsibility through a Christian lens.

This is an adventurous historical mystery built around Green Knowe’s layered past. Its strongest thread is the friendship between Susan and Jacob, alongside danger, hidden jewels, escape, fire and links between generations.

This is an identity-and-belonging story in which changing place does not resolve Rico’s outsider feelings. It offers a serious exploration of race, friendship, family strain and the search for home.

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 family-centred historical novel about Black children growing up amid racism and hardship. Its conflicts involve a death sentence, racial identity, land ownership, voting rights, work, community pressure and the effort to preserve dignity.