Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Age Group: KS3 (Ages 11-14)

Little Rebels Children’s Book Award

Awarded by the Alliance of Radical Booksellers, the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award recognises radical fiction published in the UK and aimed at children aged 0-12.

The impressive shortlist for this year’s award features titles that appear throughout our booklists, including Mayowa and the Sea of Words which is on our 2025 Summer Reads list, and Keedie, which is among our 50 Recommended Reads for Year 6. This year’s winning title is The Fights that Make Us by Sarah Hagger-Holt.

For more information about the Little Rebels Children’s Book Award click here, or check out the full 2025 shortlist below!

Jhalak Children’s and YA Prize

Awarded annually since 2020, the Jhalak Children’s and YA Prize celebrates books by writers of colour int he UK and Ireland.

This year’s shortlist showcases six impressive books for children and young adults. Among these are BooksForTopics favourites Supa Nova and My Name is Samim, both of which have previously featured in our Books of the Month, as well has being recommended in our National Year of Reading booklist.

For more information about the Jhalak Children’s and YA Prize click here, or check out the full shortlist below!

YA Book Prize

The YA Book Prize launched in 2014 to celebrate great fiction for teenagers and young adults. The prize aims to get more teens reading and the ten books featured in this year’s shortlist are sure to lure lapsed readers back in! From the winning title, Moira Buffini’s gripping, post-apocalyptic Songlight, to Margaret McDonald’s contemporary, character-driven Glasgow Boys and Sarah Crossan’s historical love story Where the Heart Should Be, there is huge variety in this impressive list.

For more information about the YA Book Prize click here, or check out the full shortlist below!

Young Quills Award for Historical Fiction

Run annually by The Historical Association, Young Quills celebrates historical fiction for children and young adults. Longlisted titles are sent to selected schools where children and young people review the books, with these reviews forming the basis of the shortlisting process.

This year’s shortlist is full of BooksForTopics favourites, including several titles that have featured in our Recommended Reads and our National Year of Reading Booklist, such as Christina Balit’s The Boy Who Became Queen (5-8 Years), Jenny Pearson’s Shrapnel Boys (8-11 Years), Dance of Resistance (8-11 Years) and Under a Fire-Red Sky (11-13 Years).

For more information about the Young Quills Award click here, or check out the full shortlist below!

Here to Slay

Radhika Sanghani

Chapter book

Kali has a lot to deal with. Her crush doesn’t notice her, her parents love her cousin more, and a big family wedding is overshadowing her 16th birthday. So, she really did NOT need a demon appearing in her bedroom and for the fate of the world to rest in her hands.

It turns out that all girls named after the Indian demon-fighting goddess Kali are imbued with special powers, and are destined to fight demons. At least she’s not alone in this mess – she’s got the very cool, very confident K to teach her how to be a demon slayer. Now, if only she could also figure out how to slay at life…

Harry Dickson: Mysterion

Doug Headline & Luana Vergari

Graphic novel

Famous investigator Harry Dickson is just back in London after some well-deserved holidays, and already Scotland Yard are seeking his help again, for there are very strange events afoot. A famous heiress and writer, Delphina Cruikshank, has vanished from a locked house. The corpse of an executed murderer has disappeared.. while the doctor who was autopsying him was murdered. And Mysterion, Miss Cruikshank’s new character, may not be entirely fictional!

Hirayasumi, Vol. 1

Keigo Shinzo

Graphic novel

With a carefree outlook on life, Hiroto knows better than anyone that slowing down is sometimes the best way to move forward.

At 29 years old, carefree Hiroto Ikuta doesn’t have a girlfriend, a full-time job, or a plan for the future—and he couldn’t be happier. Hiroto’s breezy attitude isn’t easy for everyone to understand, though. In a world filled with anxiety, confusion, and grief, Hiroto and the people who surround him are all just doing their best to figure out this thing called life.

After developing an unlikely friendship with the grouchy old woman who lives in his neighborhood, Hiroto suddenly finds himself inheriting not just her house but some rather difficult emotions as well. His 18-year-old cousin, Natsumi, moves in with him, but as a struggling art student, she has her own troubles to deal with and may just put Hiroto’s easygoing lifestyle to the test.

The Thread That Connects Us

Ayaan Mohamud

Chapter book

A story of shared blood and bad blood, endings and beginnings.

Safiya has struggled to pick up the pieces of her family since her dad left them and moved to Somalia. She refuses to trust in love, despite wishing she could fall for boy-next-door Yusuf. And then her dad moves back to town with his new family, shattering her life all over again.

Halima doesn’t want to move to England. She resents her stepdad for dropping her in a strange new life with a new language to learn, replacing her friends with bullies who set out to shame her.

When the girls are thrown together at school, it’s hate at first sight. But as they uncover life-changing secrets from their parents’ past, they begin to realize – What if the key to all their problems lies in their sisterhood?

Mission: Arctic

Christian Schneider & Katharina Weiss-Tuider

Non-fiction

For kids 8 to 13, join the largest Arctic expedition ever undertaken—and discover the secrets hidden deep in the ice that reveal how one of the world’s crucial ecosystems is changing.

The Arctic is changing—fast. The once-frozen landscape is melting before our eyes, and the effects can be felt around the world. But the Arctic is also the region we know the least about. Thick ice, extreme cold, and total darkness have always prevented scientists from uncovering its secrets. Until now.

This science-based guide for middle readers follows the 2019 MOSAiC expedition on the largest expedition to the Arctic ever undertaken. On board the Polarstern, a powerful ice-breaker research vessel, more than five hundred scientists from all over the world turned their attention to this mysterious region. Their mission? To let their vessel freeze in the sea ice and drift towards the North Pole in order to study how the Arctic is changing, and how these changes will affect our world.

Mission: Arctic features:

Filled with photographs from the expedition
Thrilling facts, illustrations, diagrams, and fact bars about the polar region
The dangerous conditions the scientists endured, from freezing temperatures to terrifying storms and polar bears
The important discoveries made on the mission
Through this thrilling book, readers will discover the Arctic ice is not as permanent as we thought, and what happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic. The knowledge gathered on the Polarstern has the power to determine our planet’s future—if only we pay attention.

How to Survive a Horror Movie

Scarlett Dunmore

Chapter book

Horror movie enthusiast Charley is determined to keep a low profile when she’s enrolled at a girls’ boarding school on a remote island. That is, until someone starts killing off her senior class! From elaborate scare tactics to severed heads in fridges, Charley has found herself at the centre of a teen horror movie. And that’s not the only alarming thing that’s happening – she’s now seeing the ghosts of her former classmates!?

Haunted by her peers, and with everyone beginning to suspect her, Charley decides to do something about it. She and her only best friend Olive are going to solve the murders and find out who’s killing off the class before graduation. Charley just needs those pesky ghosts to shut up and give her a hand.

A fast-paced tongue-in-cheek YA novel about two friends trying to survive senior year – literally! Perfect for fans of Fear Street, The Midnight Club and the SCREAM franchise.