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Children's reading lists

19 must-read crime and mystery books for children

20 Powerful First Lines To Get You Hooked On A Story

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18 powerful first lines to get you hooked on a story

In the Nick of Time

A brilliantly atmospheric and chilling thriller from the master storyteller and multi-award-winner, Robert Swindells.

Short chapters, clear, punchy writing and clever yse of cliffhangers are the hallmarks of Swindell's writing, here used to powerful effect to create a gripping, fast-paced read

Swindells helps the suspension of disbelief with a careful leavening of information about the 1950s and enough action to keep the story moving along

Definitely not to be missed, there is much to think about in this one

Robert Swindells writes the kinds of books that are so scary you're afraid to turn the page

ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list. In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer. 
 
RUBY TANYA won the Salford Children's Book Award 2005. 
 
'Plots which grip the reader from the opening paragraph' THE SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Robert Swindells writes the kinds of books that are so scary you're afraid to turn the page' YOUNG TELEGRAPH

Charlotte is out in the woods on her own one day when something mysterious happens - she walks along a row of stones laid like stepping stones on the forest floor . . . and finds herself in another age. She has somehow slipped back to 1955, and is now, in the same woods, on the site of a very unique school, an open-air school for sick city children. No one believes her tales of the world she's come from, her mobile doesn't work and she can't see how on earth she's going to get back. A friendship with another pupil proves the key - is Jack more than he seems?

Abomination

A powerful, disturbing thriller reissued in The Originals series of classic teenage fiction. 
 
Martha is twelve - and very different from other kids, because of her parents. Strict members of a religious group - the Brethren - their rules dominate Martha's life. And one rule is the most important of all: she must never ever invite anyone home. If she does, their shameful secret - Abomination - could be revealed. But as Martha makes her first real friend in Scott, a new boy at school, she begins to wonder. Is she doing the right thing by helping to keep Abomination a secret? And just how far will her parents go to prevent the truth from being known? 
 
The Originals are the pioneers of fiction for young adults. From political awakening, war and unrequited love to addiction, teenage pregnancy and nuclear holocaust, The Originals confront big issues and articulate difficult truths

Robert Swindells was born in Bradford in 1939 and continues to live in Yorkshire.  He left school at 15 and worked in a variety of jobs, including primary school teaching, before becoming a full-time writer. His widely acclaimed novels often reflect his political passions, such as BROTHER IN THE LAND, which is set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. He has won the Red House Children's Book Prize several times and in 1993 he won the prestigious Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD, a young adult novel about homelessness.

Martha is twelve - and very different from other kids, because of her parents. Strict members of a religious group - the Brethren - their rules dominate Martha's life. And one rule is the most important of all: she must never ever invite anyone home. If she does, their shameful secret - Abomination - could be revealed. But as Martha makes her first real friend in Scott, a new boy at school, she begins to wonder. Is she doing the right thing by helping to keep Abomination a secret? And just how far will her parents go to prevent the truth from being known?

Stone Cold

Stone Cold is a Carnegie Medal-winning thriller by Robert Swindells. It is one of The Originals from Penguin - iconic, outspoken, first. 
 
A tense thriller plot is combined with a perceptive and harrowing portrait of life on the streets as a serial killer preys on the young and vulnerable homeless. Link, aged 17, is distrustful of people until he pairs up with Deb, another homeless youngster. But what Deb doesn't tell him is that she's an ambitious young journalist on a self-imposed assignment to track down the killer and she's prepared to use herself as bait ... 
 
The Originals are the pioneers of fiction for young adults. From political awakening, war and unrequited love to addiction, teenage pregnancy and nuclear holocaust, The Originals confront big issues and articulate difficult truths. The collection includes: The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton, I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith, Postcards from No Man's Land - Aidan Chambers, After the First Death - Robert Cormier, Dear Nobody - Berlie Doherty, The Endless Steppe - Esther Hautzig, Buddy - Nigel Hinton, Across the Barricades - Joan Lingard, The Twelfth Day of July - Joan Lingard, No Turning Back - Beverley Naidoo, Z for Zachariah - Richard C. O'Brien, The Wave - Morton Rhue, The Red Pony - John Steinbeck, The Pearl - John Steinbeck, Stone Cold - Robert Swindells.

A tense, exciting thriller combined with a perceptive and harrowing portrait of life on the streets as a serial killer preys on the young and vulnerable homeless. 17-year-old Link is distrustful of people until he pairs up with Deb, homeless like him. But what Deb doesn't tell him is that she's an ambitious young journalist on a self-imposed assignment to track down the killer and that she's prepared to use herself as bait ... 
 
Winner of the Carnegie Medal

The Shade of Hettie Daynes

Robert Swindells leaves nothing to chance in this most entertaining ghost story. They didn't have books for children like this when I was a nipper!

Gripping, spooky tale that is full of suspense

If you expect to see a ghost, you see a ghost... 
That's what Bethan tells herself when her brother Harry takes her to see the ghost at the old reservoir. But she really can see it: a pale figure floating over the water, one finger pointing downwards. 
 
Local legend says that the ghost is Hettie Daynes, an ancestor of their family, who vanished over a hundred years ago. 
 
If so, what does she want? And why is she appearing now? 
 
Harry and Bethan and their friends Rob and Alison are determined to find out! 
 
A deliciously shivery ghost tale from multi award-winning author Robert Swindells.

Inside The Worm

Reissue of a dramatic and gripping adventure from an award-winning author

Robert Swindells knows how to make readers horripilate

Short, finely-paced chapters, action without melodrama, chill with garish theatricality . . .

A fascinating tale and genuinely frightening in places. Timing is the essence of a thriller and the brief chapters push the story forward relentlessly

Simply told but missing no opportunity to turn the screw of suspense

ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper.  At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher.  Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list.  In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer.

The worm was close now. So close Fliss could smell the putrid stench of its breath. Its slavering jaws gaped to engulf her... 
Everyone in Elsworth knows the local legend about the monstrous worm - or dragon - that once terrorised the village. But it never really happened. Or did it? For when Fliss and her friends are chosen to re-enact the legend for the village Festival, the four who are to play the part of the worm dance as one across the ground. They are the worm. And Fliss begins to feel real fear. Somehow the worm itself is returning - with a thousand-year hunger in its belly, and a burning desire for vengeance...

Jacqueline Hyde

A gripping thriller from master storyteller Robert Swindells.

Robert Swindells, perhaps more than any other contemporary author, narrates modern-day fables which not only reflect present-day society but also peoples them with living breathing characters. Jacqueline Hyde adds to his soaring reputation as a master story-teller in the Dickensian tradition

A surprisingly dark allegory about the dangers of "stuff that comes in bottles"

Children who are starting to rebel will find lots to identify with

ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list. In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer. 
 
'Plots which grip the reader from the opening paragraph' THE SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Robert Swindells writes the kinds of books that are so scary you're afraid to turn the page' YOUNG TELEGRAPH

When Jacqueline Hyde finds the little glass bottle in Grandma's attic her life suddenly changes. Goodbye clean, good Jacqueline. Hello cheeky, loud Jacqueline Bad. 
 
It's fun at first. Exciting. But then Jacqueline Bad gets into serious trouble. And although she keeps trying to be her old self, the bad side just won't let go... 
 
A darkly addictive fable, truly absorbing.

A Skull in Shadows Lane

Another tense, gripping wartime story from award-winning author Robert Swindells.

It's beautifully-written, short and to the point, with sparkling, pithy dialogue and a tense plot . . . Although this story engages with serious and frightening themes, it's also incredibly uplifting

ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. He went on to become the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list, and in 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD.

The war has just ended in the tiny village of Coney Cley, and Josh and his gang are desperate for some excitement. When they head for the eerie, abandoned Shadows Lane to explore a deserted house, they find more than they bargained for - a human tooth. Then a creepy, skeletal face appears at a dark window . . . 
 
Believing there's a skeleton haunting Shadows Lane, the children are shocked to learn the truth about 'Boney' - he's an escaped prisoner of war. But someone else is also hiding in the village - someone much more dangerous. 
 
Tense and chilling, this is another fantastically gripping tale from the award-winning author of Room 13 and Stone Cold.

Blackout

Another gripping World War Two drama from the master storyteller and multi-award-winner, Robert Swindells.

ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list. In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer. RUBY TANYA won the Salford Children's Book Award 2005.

Another gripping World War Two drama from the master storyteller and multi-award-winner, Robert Swindells. 
 
Life in a small village is boring now the war is over, there is still rationing and bomb damage and war losses. But when a group of children hear of some treasure kept locked in the village, things look at bit more interesting. And then two strangers turn up in the village - and they've heard of the treasure too . . .

Shrapnel

A gripping World War Two drama from the master storyteller and multi-award-winner, Robert Swindells.

Masterfully, Swindells combines considerable psychological depth with a page-turning plot, delivered in manageable bites

A short but highly accomplished piece of writing from this rightly celebrated author. Full of convincing and illuminating period detail, including authentic and entertaining vernacular speech, this novel is fast paced and exciting to read

This is an exciting, atmospheric story which really draws you in - you can almost hear the bombs dropping

Robert Swindells and World War II are once again a powerful, dramatic combination. It's a setting which fires his imagination - a setting he brings thrillingly alive. Shrapnel is his latest foray into the war, and it's another cracker, directly, engagingly written, with plenty of pace and consistently intriguing

A gripping story about what it is that truly makes a hero - with short and punchy chapters - Swindells expertly combines story with informative snippets of what life was like on the Home Front

It's the height of World War Two. Britain is being ravaged by bombs and most young men are off fighting. Gordon wishes he was too. Maybe then he wouldn't get bullied for having a cowardly family . . . Gordon's dad didn't serve in World War One, and now his older brother Raymond isn't serving in World War Two - he's gone missing. When Gordon finds a revolver hidden in his house, he tracks Raymond down, but ends up involved in more than he'd bargined for. Raymond enlists Gordon's help to deliver and collect some 'packages'. But is the work actually for the government? And will it have terrible consequences?

Timesnatch

A gripping thriller about time travel - from a Carnegie Medal-winning author.

Plots which grip the reader from the opening paragraph

A fast-moving, readable thriller which will provoke considerable questioning and thought

Spellbinding plot . . . an unstoppable pace . . . a stirring achievement, certain to absorb and provoke a wide audience

Once a creature is extinct, it's gone for ever, isn't it? 
 
Not any more - as a butterfly from the past proves. The physicist mother of Kizzy Rye and Fraser Rye has invented an amazing time machine that can travel back into the past, snatch a plant or animal now extinct and bring it back into the present. 
 
It's a wonderful achievement, a real scientific breakthrough. But the machine - 'Rye's Apparatus' - has a horrifying potential. Suddenly Kizzy and Fraser find themselves caught up in a terrifying spiral of events - events that lead finally to a monstrous demand from a sinister and violent organization... 
 
WINNER OF THE 1995 EARTHWORM AWARD, 7-11 YEAR-OLD CATEGORY

Blitzed

A gripping drama involving a timeslip to the time of London in the Blitz.

Grips the reader from the opening paragraph

Robert Swindells writes the kind of books that are so scary you're afraid to turn the page

Classic war fiction which will stick in you mind forever

George is fascinated by World War Two. Bombers, Nazis, doodlebugs. But he discovers the reality is very different from how he had imagined it when a school trip to a World War Two museum leads to a timeslip - and George is in London at the time of the Blitz! He joins up with a group of other homeless children, struggling to survive. And then they suspect someone they know of being a German spy...

Nightmare Stairs

A terrifying tale from the master-storyteller, Robert Swindells

Carefully and cleverly put together. Psychologically perceptive and not nasty . . . Funny as well as gripping . . . Swindell's tight hold on suspense makes this a particularly good choice for reluctant readers

Robert Swindells writes the kind of books that are so scary, you're afraid to turn the page

I'm falling - falling down steep, narrow stairs - if I hit the bottom asleep, I know I'll never wake. Every night Kirsty wakes up screaming. Every night she has the same terrible nightmare - of falling downstairs. But does she fall? Or is she pushed? Then Kirsty discovers that her grandma died falling downstairs and she begins to wonder: is the dream hinting at a dark secret in her family? She has to know the truth. But tracking a murderer is a dangerous game, and as she delves into the past, Kirsty uncovers a secret more terrible than anything she can imagine. 
 
A terrifying read from one of today's master storytellers. 
 
WINNER OF THE SHEFFIELD CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD FOR BEST SHORTER NOVEL 
 
'Cleverly put together - funny as well as gripping' The Sunday Times

Room 13 And Inside The Worm

Two fabulous thrillers from the master of suspense, Robert Swindells

If you enjoy being scared out of your wits then this is the book for you . . .

A satisfying story, simply told but missing no opportunity to turn the screw of suspense. There is a nice mixture of humour and creeping horror, and the eventual triumph of good over evil comes in a thrilling climax

The School Librarian on "Inside the Worm"

ROOM 13 
Somebody was in there. Somebody - or some thing. 
There is no room thirteen in the creepy Crow's Nest Hotel, where Fliss and her friends are staying on a school trip. Or is there? For at the stroke of midnight, something peculiar happens to the door of the linen cupboard next to room twelve. And something is happening to Ellie-May Sunderland, too - something very sinister. 
 
INSIDE THE WORM 
The worm was close now. So close Fliss could smell the putrid stench of its breath. Its slavering jaws gaped to engulf her. 
 
Everyone in Elsworth knows the local legend about the monstrous worm - or dragon - that once terrorised the village. But it never really happened. Or did it? For when Fliss and her friends are chosen to re-enact the legend for the village Festival, the four who are to play the part of the worm dance as one across the ground. They are the worm. And Fliss begins to feel real fear. Somehow the worm itself is returning - with a thousand-year hunger in its belly, and a burning desire for vengeance.

Ruby Tanya

A highly topical and thoroughly entertaining thriller about tolerance and hate.

Provides a gently persuasive argument for doing the right thing even if that leads you into conflict with your family

The book opens with an explosion and maintains its pace throughout

The subject is very relevant today and Swindell's approach for younger readers is superbly formed

The plot moves quickly, building to a gripping and frightening climax . . . An interesting read

Is a challenging story of friendship set against difficult and topical subject matter

This is a brave and successful attempt to help readers understand a complex, topical situation in our real world

Thought-provoking book with sensitivity, wit and warmth . . . Its admirable message comes wrapped in a fast-paced and exciting adventure story populated with well-rounded characters

This is a contemporary tale about two friends - one of whom, Asra, is an asylum seeker from an unnamed Eastern European country. The other, Ruby Tanya, is the daughter of a local man who is campaigning against the presence of asylum seekers in his community. During a dramatic explosion at the girls' school, a young teacher is killed. The asylum seekers at the local camp are blamed, and local people begin to argue that they should be deported. A branch of the National Front gets involved and demos are planned. Asra and her parents are due to be deported, but Asra runs away at the last minute so her parents have to return without her. She hides in a nearby derelict building and is helped by Ruby Tanya.

Daz 4 Zoe

It is the year 2051 and Britain is a divided country, deliberately divided by economic and education strategies. Half the population shelters in fortified suburbs (Newtown); the other half resentfully smoulders in sealed-off ghettoes. This is the story of privileged Zoe and Daz, the semi-literate ghetto dweller, whose brother was executed for raiding with the underground resistance movement. When Zoe and her friends go slumming one day, she meets Daz - and it's Romeo and Juliet all over again. But their impossible relationship has far-reaching consequences ...

A Wish For Wings

A gripping thriller from a Carnegie Medal-winning author.

Long may Swindells continue producing books as good as this

'I'LL FLY,' JENNA WHISPERED TO HERSELF. 'I'LL FLY, WHATEVER NED SAYS. WHATEVER ANYBODY SAYS...' 
 
Jenna is thirteen - and has suddenly realized what she wants to do with her life. She wants to fly. Like Grandad's heroine, Amy Johnson... But Jenna's wish for wings has to be put on hold when something awful happens: Grandad's souvenir of his wartime service - a loaded gun - goes missing. And Jenna is almost certain that her brother Ned has taken it...

Invisible!

A gripping new adventure - about invisibility - from a Carnegie Medal winning author

Vigorously paced adventures and a grand cliffhanging finale

ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list. In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer. 
 
'Plots which grip the reader from the opening paragraph' THE SUNDAY TIMES 
 
'Robert Swindells writes the kinds of books that are so scary you're afraid to turn the page' YOUNG TELEGRAPH

Now you see them, now you don't... 
 
What would you do if you could become invisible? Creep around, unseen? Listen in to other people's conversations? Twins Carrie and Conrad, and their friends Peter and Charlotte do all these things, and much more, when a new girl at school - Rosie - shows them her secret: how to make yourself invisible. 
 
It's exciting, and it's fun. It can also be frightening... and dangerous. Especially when Rosie's dad becomes a suspect in a local crime and the gang go invisible to find the real crooks...

Hydra

It was sick and hungry and a long, long way from home...

The explosive denouement of the story is a satisfying conclusion that leaves no loose ends

ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list. In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer. 
RUBY TANYA won the Salford Children's Book Award 2005.

It was sick and hungry and a long, long way from home... 
 
Something is causing mysterious circles to appear in the cornfields of Cansfield Farm. And someone, or something, has obviously terrified Barry Cansfield, the farmer's bullying son. But when friends Ben and Midge sneak out to the farm to investigate, they discover a secret more terrifying than they could possible have imagined - a truly monstrous horror that simply must be stopped...

World-Eater

A nailbiting thriller from master storyteller, Robert Swindells, winner of the 1993 Carnagie Medal.

'There's something in the sky... something terrible!' 
 
On the night of the great storm, a mysterious new planet suddently appears in the sky. Orbiting the sun between Mercury and Venus, the huge blue-grey sphere has scientists baffled as probes reveal its surface to be flat and bare and its interior liquid. 
 
Eleven-year-old Orville, absorbed in witing for his favourite pigeon to hatch her first eggs, is the first to suspect the true nature of the planet. But will anyone listen to his theory? And, if they do, can they avert disaster? For if Orville is right, the world is doomed . . .

The Thousand Eyes Of Night

A dramatic and scary tale from an award-winning author.

The skeleton lay on its back. The jaws gaped and one arm lay across the chest as through flung there to ward off a blow . . . 
 
The Tangle is a long, narrow stretch of derelict land, a wilderness of weeds and rubbish with an old railway tunnel yawning blackly at one end. No-one - not even bullying Gary Deacon - dares venture far into its sooty darkness. But it is here that twelve-year-old Tan and his friends make a grisly discovery - a discovery that is to plunge them into a terrifying adventure as the tunnel slowly unfolds its sinister secret . . .

Robert Swindells

An 'After-the-Bomb' story told by teenage Danny, one of the survivors - one of the unlucky ones. Set in Shipley, an ordinary town in the north of England, this is a powerful portrayal of a world that has broken down. Danny not only has to cope in a world of lawlessness and gang warfare, but he has to protect and look after his little brother, Ben, and a girl called Kim. Is there any hope left for a new world?

Robert Swindells

Books by Robert Swindells

Articles featuring Robert Swindells

19 must-read crime and mystery books for children

18 powerful first lines to get you hooked on a story

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