Recommended Reads
It's Christmas-time in the Stanton family house: presents, carol singing, good cheer. But for eleven-year-old Will Stanton, something sinister has begun, inching round his subconscious, shouting silent warnings he can't decipher. Then on Midwinter Day, Will wakes up to a different world: silent, covered in snow and ancient forest, a world of another time. A world where evil lurks. Because Will is not the ordinary boy he always thought he was. He is the last of the Old Ones and the power to vanquish the evil magic of the Dark lies within him. |
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Kevin and Sadie just want to be together, but it's not that simple. Things are bad in Belfast. Soldiers walk the streets and the city is divided. No Catholic boy and Protestant girl can go out together - not without dangerous consequences... |
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Auggie wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things - eating ice cream, playing on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside. But ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids aren't stared at wherever they go. Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all? |
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A thrilling futuristic novel set at the end of the 22nd century. The government is cloning new people and has manufactured a 1940s wartime family who are unaware that nothing they know is real. Our hero is sent to monitor these 'Reborns' and gradually becomes aware of a horrible underlying secret. A brilliant plot twist at the end turns the book on its head. An exciting sci-fi novel which will appeal especially to boy readers, with the topical subject of cloning. |
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The novel begins in an alternate world that is similar to Earth. Lyra Belacqua, a young girl who has been given shelter by the scholars at Jordan College at Oxford University, and her “daemon,” Pantalaimon, hide in an off-limits wardrobe in the Headmaster’s rooms. (In Lyra’s world, daemons are the external forms of people’s souls.) Lyra and Pantalaimon learn that Lord Asriel, Lyra’s uncle, is about to be poisoned by the Headmaster for mysterious reasons. They warn Lord Asriel in time to save his life. Later, they overhear Lord Asriel telling the scholars at Jordan about a strange substance he is researching called “Dust.” Lord Asriel is able to convince the scholars to fund his further explorations of Dust, which require him to travel to the northernmost reaches of the globe. All of this greatly excites Lyra’s curiosity about Dust. |
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Cassy lives with her granny, until the night that she hears strange footsteps coming into their flat. The next morning, she is packed off to her mum's - a squat in London that her beautiful, simple mother shares with a couple of actors. Cassy does her best to throw herself into her mother's life, even agreeing to take part in their travelling show called 'Wolf'. But she can't ever get rid of the feeling that something is following her, and something bad is going to happen. Her fear grows as time passes, until Cassy knows she must face up to her past: who her father is, why he left and where he has gone. What she doesn't know is that some questions are better left unanswered... |
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Twelve-year-old Matthew is trapped in his bedroom by crippling OCD, spending most of his time staring out of his window as the inhabitants of Chestnut Close go about their business. Until the day he is the last person to see his next door neighbour's toddler, Teddy, before he goes missing. Matthew must turn detective and unravel the mystery of Teddy's disappearance - with the help of a brilliant cast of supporting characters. Page-turning, heartbreaking, but ultimately life-affirming, this story is perfect for fans of Can You See Me, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Wonder. |
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Budi's plan is simple. He's going to be a star. Budi's going to play for the greatest team on earth, instead of sweating over each stitch he sews, each football boot he makes. But one unlucky kick brings Budi's world crashing down. Now he owes the Dragon, the most dangerous man in Jakarta. Soon it isn't only Budi's dreams at stake, but his life. A story about dreaming big, about hope and heroes, and never letting anything stand in your way. |
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An action-packed and pacey story about a boy's experience of slavery in Britain. Nathaniel doesn't want to move to England with his master's family, leaving behind his mother and sister on the Jamaican plantation. But then he remembers what his mother told him: once a slave sets foot on English soil, they're free. Perhaps he can earn his fortune and buy his family's freedom, too. |