Mental health and wellbeing

In the not-so-distant future, the world has finally recognised the threat posed by climate change. When Rory, an adventurous and nature-loving, girl isolated from her schoolmates by family circumstance is granted the opportunity to explore a re-wilded far north, she's thrilled.

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart, a timely exploration of toxic masculinity, is structured around two time loops: the loop in which the narrator, Spence, is forced to repeat the same day over and over again until he learns something about himself and his milieu; and the loop of grief in which he and his father have been stuck since the sudden death of his mother exactly one year ago.

Eighteen year old Salama volunteers as a nurse at her local hospital in Syria. For fifty years, the country has been under dictatorship, and the Free Syrian Army has taken to the streets to protect civilians.

Noor and Sal live in the desert town of Juniper, California. As part of the tiny Muslim community, they are treated as outsiders in school. Their lives have been filled with trouble and tragedy, but they have grown up almost as brother and sister under the loving eye of Sal’s mother Misbah. It is the voices of these three complex and wonderfully-developed characters that narrate this engrossing YA title.

This is the second collection of poetry by Gambian British poet Sophia Thakur. Through her strong narrative voice and arresting language, this collection explores Sophia’s expressed need to understand how the women in her life became so ‘compassionate, fierce, gentle and powerful.’ Loosely grouped into themes, the collection covers a broad range of subjects, woven through with common threads of love, God, and the formidable influence of her family and friends. Her poems resonate with a powerful rhythm.

The Last Storyteller opens with a promise of a new adventure for Petra. Petra and her family are amongst a select group of people chosen to travel to a new planet to start a new life, as a comet is on track to destroy Earth. However, this journey is not what Petra is expecting. The many twists and turns in the plot will keep the reader engaged and the pages turning.

The little town of Cowslip Grove seems to be safe and orderly, full of neat gardens and tidy streets. That is, until two mismatched friends, Levi and Kat, discover a dark and terrifying secret beneath the surface: children are going missing, and nobody even realises it. Everyone—their family, their teachers, their friends—has forgotten they even existed!

Alex Dunne has created a sense of mystery and suspense in her debut novel, The Book of Secrets. Her descriptive language paints a clear picture of the town of Clonbridge, which comes alive at night when the fairies seamlessly drift into town to prepare for a celebration which coincides with Halloween. Then, night turns to day and with daylight the reader is cast back into the human world where we are introduced to the main character, Cat.

Callie, Billy and Ted are the three protagonists of the narrative and each have their own worries to contend with: Callie experiences peer pressure and the heavy impact of secrets, Billy tries to understand his changing family dynamics, and Ted faces the reality of bullying and changing friendship dynamics.