Shortlist

When a mysterious gunman takes a class hostage, the rest of Mia's school is evacuated. But Mia is determined to stay behind. She knows it's a life or death situation but there's something she fears more than dying. Mia thinks she might know who the gunman is, and, if she's right, she may be the only one who can save her schoolmates.

When Mike and his friends decide to go for a day's cruising around the coast of Scotland, they are surprised to come across a mysterious barren island that doesn't show up on any map or satellite image. Determined to explore it, they make some chilling discoveries.

Taken from their home in Pakistan to work in the Persian Gulf, eight-year-old Rashid and his little brother Shari cling to each other. Then they are separated and forced to become jockeys in the lucrative camel-racing business. Rashid is starved and worked to exhaustion by harsh supervisors - but he has a talent for racing and quickly becomes his stable's star jockey. Soon he begins to forget what life was like when he had a proper home. He almost begins to forget about Shari . . .

Everyone's heard the rumours. Call Tall Jake and he'll take you to Malice, a world that exists inside a horrifying comic book. A place most kids never leave. Seth and Kady think it's all a silly myth. But then their friend disappears, and suddenly the rumours don't seem so silly.

'The Pickle King' stars a gang of friends in the town of Elbow, famous for its chilli pickle and rain. Bored, they hope that something will turn up but what none of them expects is a real-life dead body with a missing eyeball! Soon, the mystery of who killed Herman, owner of the giant pickle factory, becomes a crazy adventure.

There's something about a storm in the middle of the night that gathers a family close. It's as if nothing else exists outside that huddle of love in a blacked-out room which, try as it might, the storm cannot overwhelm. The storm that Liddy faces is the storm of AIDS, that is attacking their small African community.