Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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Sue Townsend

At thirteen years old, Adrian Mole has more than his fair share of problems - spots, ill-health, parents threatening to divorce, rejection of his poetry and much more - all recorded with brilliant humour in his diary.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾

Anne Fine

Nobody wants Tulip in their gang. She skives off school, cheeks the teachers and makes herself unpopular with her classmates by telling awful lies. None of this matters to Natalie who finds Tulip exciting. At first she doesn't care that other people are upset and unnerved by Tulip's bizarre games, but as the games become increasingly sinister and dangerous, Natalie realises that Tulip is going too far, much too far, racing, in fact, to the novel's shocking ending.

The Tulip Touch

S E Hinton

Greasers, Rockers, different place, different name - but wherever they are, they're outsiders; the rough, tough, long-haired boys from the other side of town, with little hope of flash cars, fine madras shirts and the good things of American life in the Sixties. Their story is told by Ponyboy, a Greaser with good reason to fear the Socs, the rich kids in Mustangs who come looking for trouble, and witness to the savage baiting that drives his best friend to manslaughter. More than a story of hatred and violence, this is also a story of loyalty and friendship as teenagers of the urban slums search for personal dignity and a place in the world.

The Outsiders

Siobhan Dowd

After Shell's mother dies, her obsessively religious father descends into alcoholic mourning and Shell is left to care for her younger brother and sister. Her only release from the harshness of everyday life comes from her budding spiritual friendship with a naive young priest, and most importantly, her developing relationship with childhood friend, Declan, charming, eloquent and persuasive. But when Declan suddenly leaves Ireland to seek his fortune in America, Shell finds herself pregnant and the centre of a scandal that rocks the small community in which she lives, with repercussions across the whole country. The lives of those immediately around her will never be the same again.

A Swift Pure Cry

Robert C. O'Brien

Nuclear war has devastated America, except for the valley where Ann Burden has been living alone for over a year - until Loomis, a scientist in a radiation-proof suit, arrives. She hopes they will be companions but his behaviour towards her becomes increasingly threatening as he attacks her and then cuts off her food supply and tries to bring her under his control. Although there may be no one else alive, Ann steals his suit and leaves the valley in search of humanity. Z for Zachariah is a modern sci-fi classic for young adults.

Z For Zachariah

John Christopher

Matt Jones

Nobody knows how long it has been since the Tripods came. Nobody remembers life on Earth before they enslaved it. Humans live in scattered farms and villages, kept quiet and obedient by the mind-controlling Caps implanted when they reach their teens. 
 
Will Parker's time is fast approaching - but a chance encounter with a madman convinces him that it may still be possible to resist the alien masters. So begins a terrifying story of survival and defiance - and Will's journey to the White Mountains.

Tripods: The White Mountains: Book 1

Robert Cormier

On the outskirts of a small American town, a bus-load of young children is being held hostage. The hijackers are a cold and ruthless group, opposed to the secret government agency Inner Delta. At the centre of the battle are three teenagers. Miro is the terrorist with no past and no emotions. Kate is the bus driver, caught up in the nightmare, and Ben is the General's son who must act as a go-between. After the First Death is a tense hostage drama, which will appeal to all fans of thrillers, especially YA readers.

After the First Death

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?

Brother in the Land

Joan Lingard

Sadie is Protestant, Kevin is Catholic - and on the tense streets of Belfast their lives collide. It starts with a dare - kids fooling around - but soon becomes something dangerous. Getting to know Sadie Jackson will change Kevin's life forever. But will the world around them change too? The first of Joan Lingard's influential Kevin and Sadie books.

The Twelfth Day of July

A Kevin and Sadie Story

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 . . . 
 
The second of Joan Lingard's ground-breaking Kevin and Sadie books

Across the Barricades

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

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

Stone Cold

Beverley Naidoo

NO TURNING BACK is the powerful and moving story of Sipho and his struggle to survive on the city streets of South Africa in the 1990s. Society is on the brink of a huge change but will it make any difference to the tough life of Sipho and the other street kids? When Sipho is befriended by a white shopkeeper and his daughter it feels as though his luck might be about to change but is he really safe?

No Turning Back

Berlie Doherty

The moving and very real story of two teenagers and an unplanned pregnancy. It is told from two viewpoints - that of Helen as she writes her thoughts in a series of letters to the unborn baby, the Dear Nobody of the title, and of her boyfriend Chris as he reads the letters.  This Carnegie Medal-winning novel is now part of the Originals - Penguin's ground-breaking modern classics for young adults.

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