About Neil MacGregor: Neil MacGregor was Director of the National Gallery, London from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015, and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin from 2015 to 2018. His previous books include A History of the World in 100 Objects, Shakespeare's Restless World and Germany: Memories of a Nation, all available in Penguin and now between them translated into more than a dozen languages. In 2010, he was made a member of the Order of Merit, the UK's highest civil honour. In 2015 he was awarded the Goethe Medal and the German National Prize. In 2018 the radio series Living with the Gods received the Sandford Saint Martin Award for Religious Broadcasting.

Neil MacGregor

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Malorie Blackman

'The Noughts & Crosses series are still my favourite books of all time and showed me just how amazing story-telling could be' - Stormzy 
 
Sephy is a Cross: she lives a life of privilege and power. Callum is a nought: he's considered to be less than nothing - a blanker, there to serve Crosses. 
 
They've been friends since they were children, and they both know that's as far as it can ever go. Noughts and Crosses are fated to be bitter enemies - love is out of the question. Then - in spite of a world that is fiercely against them - these star-crossed lovers choose each other. But this is love story that will lead both of them into terrible danger . . . and which will have shocking repercussions for generations to come.

Noughts & Crosses

A powerful short story featuring Sephy and Callum, stars of the original dystopian bestseller, Noughts and Crosses. First released exclusively for World Book Day 2012.

Callum: A Noughts and Crosses Short Story

Patricia Maclachlan

Journey refuses to believe his mother will not come back. Seeking evidence of happier times, he tries to piece together the pictures she tore up before she went away. And he studies the photographs his grandfather now takes as the older man attempts to provide the boy with a family and a past. In the process, Journey finds that the camera is a means of seeing things the naked eye has missed - things such as the inevitability of his mother's departure and the love that still binds his family together.

Journey

Philip Pullman

‘Without this child, we shall all die.’ 
 
Lyra Belacqua lives half-wild and carefree among the scholars of Jordan College, with her daemon, Pantalaimon, always by her side. 
 
But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle – a struggle born of stolen children, witch clans and armoured bears. 
 
As she hurtles towards danger in the cold far North, Lyra never suspects the shocking truth: she alone is destined to win, or to lose, the biggest battle imaginable.

Northern Lights: His Dark Materials 1

now a major BBC TV series

'Devastatingly powerful' Guardian 
 
No one could begin to guess at the depth of the hatred I held for Sephy Hadley. Everything began with her and my brother. And that’s how it would end. 
 
Where there has been love, now there is hate. 
 
Two families have been shattered by the divided and violent society they live in. 
 
Sephy Hadley – a Cross, supposedly powerful and privileged – has bound herself forever to her nought lover Callum McGregor’s family. 
 
But Jude McGregor blames Sephy for all the tragedies his family has suffered. And he is determined to force her to take sides, and destroy her life . . . just like she destroyed his. . . 
 
Voted as one of the UK's best-loved books, Malorie Blackman's Noughts &amp; Crosses series is a seminal piece of YA fiction; a true modern classic. 
 
'Moving and thought-provoking' Observer

Knife Edge

Eve Bunting

Jesse Harmon will never forget the night his sixteen-year-old younger brother, Bry, was killed by a drunk hit-and-run driver. Jesse himself jumped to safety and, if he had been quicker, maybe he could have saved his brother too. Tortured by guilt, a guilt made worse by his growing love for Chloe, Bry's girl, Jesse begins a search for the murderer... with shocking and unexpected results.

A Sudden Silence

'Another emotional hard-hitter' Sunday Times 
 
My name is Callie Rose. 
My mum is a Cross – one of the so-called ruling elite. 
My dad was a Nought. My dad was a murderer. My dad was a terrorist. 
These facts are the only things that are mine and real. So I don’t mind so much that I’m leaving it all behind. There’s nothing here worth holding onto. 
 
Sixteen years have passed since Sephy Hadley first met Callum McGregor. For Callie Rose, growing up mixed race in a world where bitter prejudice divides Noughts and Crosses has meant she’s an outsider wherever she turns. 
 
Enter Jude McGregor. Jude teaches Callie about her real family history, and the more she learns the more he persuades her where her loyalties really lie. 
 
But soon Callie is caught in a trap she can’t get out of – one which will have deadly consequences. 
 
Voted as one of the UK's best-loved books, Malorie Blackman's Noughts &amp; Crosses series is a seminal piece of YA fiction; a true modern classic. 
 
‘Dramatic, intensely moving’ Carousel

Checkmate

'Blackman "gets" people . . . she "gets" humanity as a whole, too' Guardian 
 
Just this once. Just this once and no more, I promise. 
Please let me get away with it just this once . . . 
 
Tobey wants a better life – for him and for Callie Rose. He wants nothing to do with the violent gangs that rule the world he lives in. But when he's offered the chance to earn some extra money, how much could it hurt to just this once say 'yes'? 
 
Callie Rose knows all about the danger of saying ‘yes’. She knows about terrible mistakes, and violence and family feuds, and the fierce divide between Noughts and Crosses. 
 
And knowing so much about the past makes her afraid for her future. 
 
Because sometimes, one little bad decision can change everything . . . 
 
'Powerful' 
Sunday Times

Double Cross

Aidan Chambers

Jacob, aged 17, is abroad on his own for the time, visiting his grandfather's grave at the commemoration of the Second World War Battle of Arnhem in Holland. Jacob's life-changing experiences are interwoven with the extraordinary wartime story of passion and treachery that he learns from Geertrui, whose family is linked to Jacob's in a way he never suspected. 
 
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.

Postcards from No Man's Land

From the world of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. 
 
‘We’re going to the land of the dead and we’re going to come back.’ 
 
Will and Lyra, whose fates are bound together by powers beyond their own worlds, have been violently separated. 
 
But they must find each other, for ahead of them lies the greatest war that has ever been – and a journey to a dark place from which no one has ever returned . . .

The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials 3

Gavriel Savit

Anna and the Swallow Man is a stunning, literary, and wholly original debut novel that tells a new WW2 story. 
 
Kraków, 1939, is no place to grow up. There are a million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. And Anna Lania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father and suddenly, she’s alone. 
 
 Then she meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall. And like Anna's missing father, he has a gift for languages: Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish, even Bird. When he summons a bright, beautiful swallow down to his hand to stop her from crying, Anna is entranced. 
 
 Over the course of their travels together, Anna and the Swallow Man will dodge bombs, tame soldiers, and even, despite their better judgement, make a friend. But in a world gone mad, everything can prove dangerous . . .

Anna and the Swallow Man

Bali Rai

MANNY WANTS TO BE A FOOTBALLER. OR A POP STAR. OR WRITE A BESTSELLER. HE DOESN'T WANT TO GET MARRIED... 
 
'Harry and Ranjit were waiting for me - waiting to take me to Derby, to a wedding. My wedding. A wedding that I hadn't asked for, that I didn't want. To a girl who I didn't know... If they had bothered to open their eyes, they would have seen me: seventeen, angry, upset but determined - determined to do my own thing, to choose my own path in life...' 
 
Set partly in the UK and partly in the Punjab region of India, this is a fresh, bitingly perceptive and totally up-to-the-minute look at one young man's fight to free himself from family expectations and to be himself, free to dance to his own tune.

(Un)arranged Marriage

From the world of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. 
 
She had asked: What is he? A friend or an enemy? 
The alethiometer answered: He is a murderer. 
When she saw the answer, she relaxed at once. 
 
Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld – Cittàgazze, where soul-eating Spectres stalk the streets and wingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky. 
 
But she is not without allies: twelve-year-old Will Parry, fleeing for his life after taking another's, has also stumbled into this strange new realm. 
 
On a perilous journey from world to world, Lyra and Will uncover a deadly secret: an object of extraordinary and devastating power. 
 
And with every step, they move closer to an even greater threat – and the shattering truth of their own destiny.

The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials 2

Jan Mark

Charlotte has always thought there's something not right about living in Compton Rosehay (aka Stalemate). Perhaps it's the plastic families, the identical rows of houses, or the girls who only talk about diets.When she meets Elaine, Charlotte sees there is life outside her stifling neighbourhood. Together they spot the cracks in the town's exterior, to discover the hidden world of Stalemate.

They Do Things Differently There

Theresa Tomlinson

'They tell you that most lumps are nothing. ' Mum's voice wobbled. 'But mine is cancerous . . . . oh dear. Its a bit of a shock, it really is!' And so Ellen and her family must learn with the reality of her mum's breast cancer. Ellen finds solace in her dancing and coupled with an unexpected discovery in the school grounds, she is able to face the difficult times ahead . . .

Dancing Through The Shadows

John Lucas

SOMETIMES A NIGHT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE: Carl knows this, because it happened to him. 
And he's decided to start again. Soon he's free from his gang, free from the violence and theft, free to make a new start. 
 
But it's not that easy. 
As he heads towards the date of the London riots, Carl discovers that it's just not that easy to stay out of trouble. It's not easy to do what's right. 
 
A gripping and compelling short story - only available online - featuring characters from John Lucas's critically-acclaimed debut novel TURF.

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