Diversity and inclusion

A pair of slug brothers travel the roads until their peace is interrupted by a crow who asks where their home is. Embarrassed, the younger slug makes himself a home he can carry on his back and starts to call himself a snail. The brothers grow apart until they meet with the crow once more and begin to realise how alike they are after all.

This rockin’ book takes us into the town of Watterson, where Mac seems destined for a career in rock music. While he loves playing the guitar in a school band, Mac is also a secret musical lover. He keeps this to himself, however, as his mother is a rocker and wants to see him become a guitar legend. But when Mac discovers an underground musical society in his town and when his school is threatened with cuts to their music and arts programmes, he and his new friend Flynn decide to put on a musical of their very own!

How do you come of age in a body that is old before its time? After a sudden onset and long adjustment period, Ven is answering that question day by day, living with the dynamic complications of chronic illness, and reckoning with the loss of her ability to dance. Luckily, she has other passions. Bossing her A level music group into peak performance, finding gorgeous second hand boots (all the better for bossing in), and the way the new boy’s hair falls just so …

In this engaging and inspirational story, a young teenage girl living in rural India defies the expectations of caste and custom to resist being sold into a sex trafficking ring. Heera’s family see no options. They are shunned by the village, they are in debt to criminals who are protected by the authorities, and this has always been the fate of girls from their class. Until the day Heera discovers Kung Fu. Through the mental and physical discipline of martial art, Heera learns to value herself physically and spiritually and brings about lasting change in her community.

Chiamaka and Devon are seniors in the exclusive Niveus High school, and they are both striving to be the best that they can be and get the college places they’re working so hard for. When someone starts posting their most intimate secrets online, they know that not only are their dreams going up in smoke, but their entire futures are jeopardised. Who or what is Aces, the mysterious persona behind these sinister messages, how can they know so much, and why have they targeted Chiamaka and Devon?

When you’re a tween all you want is to be ‘just like everyone else’, preferring not to stand out. This interesting coming-of-age story for older kids and teens explores this feeling, looking at issues such as identity, family, difference, and self-acceptance. The award-winning author Sarah Hagger-Holt,has twice been nominated for the Carnegie Medal and in her latest novel also deals sensitively with the topic of surrogacy.

Cinder, despite her difficult homelife with her stepmother and brothers, dreams of Princess Ella, while Ella’s family seek to find her a husband and prince. Does Ella want a prince? Will Cinder and Ella have the chance to meet and fall in love? A beautiful story accompanied by eye-catching illustrations that delivers a joyous celebration of the fairytale Cinderella and of LGBTQ+ love and lives