Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels
A very grumpy toddler; poems for the planet; ancient demons unleashed; and a moving YA trafficking tale
Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue review – exquisite imagining of Anne Lister’s first love
The Room author evokes a touching relationship between the lesbian diarist Anne Lister and her boarding school lover Eliza Raine
Imperial Island by Charlotte Lydia Riley review – cruel Britannia
Empire proves a distorting lens through which to view Britain’s fraught history of race relations
Prophet by Helen Macdonald and Sin Blaché review – fun, high-octane sci-fi thriller
Happy memories are weaponised with lethal consequences in the H Is for Hawk author’s stylish co-written techno-thriller
O Brother by John Niven review – a blistering memoir of sibling grief
Black humour mingles with vulnerability in the novelist and screenwriter’s moving account of his brother’s life and death
The Wolf Hunt by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen review – efficient, effective crime drama
This tense novel about an Israeli-American mother investigating whether her son has killed a Black schoolboy would make a great film
The First Slam Dunk review – basketball is the universe in resplendent hit anime
Takehiko Inoue’s classic manga spinoff has magnificent on-court scenes, but doesn’t quite sink the backstory
Nothing Ever Just Disappears review – fascinating journeys into LGBTQ+ courage
Diarmuid Hester’s travelogue celebrates the history of queer spaces in 20th century subculture, from Josephine Baker’s Paris to EM Forster’s Cambridge
In brief: Belonging; Nowhere to Run; The Book of Fire – reviews
A thoughtful rural Scottish memoir, a comic yarn of football ownership and a tale of trauma and redemption built on embers
Children’s and teens roundup – the best new chapter books
TV presenter Alice Roberts explores the world of ice age hunter-gatherers, Katherine Rundell brings fantastic beasts to life and Simon Packham tackles classroom anxiety with a thumping plot twist
Backbone of the Nation by Robert Gildea review – the final throes of industrial Britain
Nearly 40 years after the miners’ strike, this history based on the oral testimonies of 100 miners and their families should serve as a warning for future generations
Anam by André Dao review – a profound meditation on forgiveness and forgetting
Dao’s extraordinary debut novel combines fiction and history to chronicle his Vietnamese grandparents’ traumatic life
A Purposeful Life by Dawn Butler review – hard truths and irrepressible energy
The Labour MP tells her rich personal and political story with galvanising confidence – and candour about the treatment of powerful black women
O Brother by John Niven review – a searing study of siblings who go separate ways
The novelist brings skill and hard-won wisdom to a meditation on the contrast between his life and his brother’s struggles and early death
The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright review – a supple, spellbinding scrutiny of familial relationships
A dead poet’s daughter and granddaughter must come to terms with his troubling legacy in the Booker winner’s bravura new novel about language and connection