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Robert Westall

Is there a barrier that divides the dark unknown from the everyday world around us? 
 
If so, is it broken sometimes by the dead returning, by the undead, or by alien creatures? 
 
What else could account for the chance meeting (or was it?) between a young student and hitch-hiker who turns out to be so much stranger than she seems? Why else should three successive crews flying a Second World War bomber - Blackham's Wimpey - be driven to madness, despair, even to death, though the plane returns from each mission without a scratch? Who are Fred, Alice and Aunty Lou; the figments of Peter's imagination that become a real life nightmare for Roger and Biddy? 
 
There is St Austin Friars, too: a church without a congregation - until a burial service, oddly arranged a month ahead, is attended by a sinister assortment of the living and the dead. And Sergeant Nice, an ordinary policeman in an ordinary seaside town faced with a series of quite extraordinary thefts; the work surely, of no human hand. 
 
Chilling, but often humorous as well, these stories creep up on you and take you by surprise.

Break Of Dark

Linda Newbery

When Samuel Godwin, a young and naive art tutor, accepts a job with the Farrow family at Fourwinds, their majestic home, little does he expect to come across such a web of secrets and lies. His two tutees are as different as chalk and cheese - the beautiful younger sister Marianne, full of flightiness and nervous imagination, and Juliana, controlled and sad. With their governess, Charlotte Agnew, Samuel begins to uncover slowly the horrifying truth behind Juliana's sadness and Marianne's emotional fragility. Their discoveries change their perception of life at Fourwinds for ever and none of their lives will ever be the same again. 
 
With her usual brilliance and ease, Linda Newbery has written a haunting and faultlessly plotted novel with characters that leap of the page and stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Set in Stone

Anthony McGowan

From the Carnegie Medal winning author of Lark, comes Henry Tumour - winner of the 2006 BookTrust Teenage Prize. 
 
It wasn't my choice: Henry was in charge. 
 
As if school bullies and his mum's tofu sandwiches weren't enough for Hector Brunty, he now has another dilemma: a talking brain tumour. 
 
Henry Tumour turns out to be the perfect alter-ego, advising Hector on haircuts, high-fashion, and tactics for snogging the best-looking girl in school, Uma Upshaw. Controlling his speech and brain chemicals is one thing, but soon Henry Tumour is trying to make more decisions about Hector's life than he'd like. 
 
Can Hector overpower his tumour in order to get what he really wants . . . before they both go under the knife?

Henry Tumour

Tabitha Suzuma

Life as a student is good for Flynn. As one of the top pianists at the Royal College of Music, he has been put forward for an important concert, the opportunity of a lifetime.But beneath the surface, things are changing. On a good day he feels full of energy and life, but on a bad day being alive is worse than being dead. Sometimes he wants to compose and practise all night, at other times he can't get out of bed. His flatmate Harry tries to understand but is increasingly confused by Flynn's erratic mood swings. His friend Jennah tries to help, but Flynn finds it difficult to be around her as he struggles to control his feelings and behaviour. With the pressure of the forthcoming concert and the growing concern of his family and friends, emotions come to a head. Sometimes things can only get worse before they get better.

A Note Of Madness

Andy Mulligan

NOW A MAJOR FILM BY STEPHEN DALDRY AND RICHARD CURTIS 
 
Raphael is a dumpsite boy. He spends his days wading through mountains of steaming trash, sifting it, sorting it, breathing it, sleeping next to it. 
 
Then one unlucky-lucky day, Raphael's world turns upside down. A small leather bag falls into his hands. It's a bag of clues. It's a bag of hope. It's a bag that will change everything. 
 
Soon Raphael and his friends Gardo and Rat are running for their lives. Wanted by the police, it takes all their quick-thinking and fast-talking to stay ahead. As the net tightens, they uncover a dead man's mission to put right a terrible wrong. 
 
And now it's three street boys against the world...

Trash

John Boyne

The story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give some clues about the book on the cover, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about. 
 
If you do start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old boy called Bruno. And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence. 
 
We hope you never have to cross such a fence.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Anthony McGowan is the Carnegie Medal 2020 winning author of Lark. 
Sent to Hell for typical teenage misdemeanours, Conor is surprised to find that it's not all pitchforks and leaping flames. But an eternity in a fusty cave full of philosophy books and obscure classical music is actually worse. 
Then Conor realizes that his personal version of Hell might be someone else's idea of Heaven - and vice versa. He sets out on a filthy, funny and forbidden journey to search for his opposite number, accompanied by his repulsive pet dog, a depressed cross-dressing Viking and a stumpy devil called Clarence. What he sees is disgusting and what he discovers is shocking, but oddly enough Conor learns a hell of a lot about life - now that he's dead!

Hellbent

Adèle Geras

The Tower Room: Loosely based on Rapunzel, this is the story of a sudden, unexpected, passionate relationship and the unforessen yet inevitable results of defying convention. When Megan glimpses Simon from her tower room, their worlds are changed forever. 
 
Watching the Roses: A modern version of Sleeping Beauty, this is a haunting tale of treachery and betrayal. An ill-wishing has been placed on Alice, and it seems to be coming true. 
 
Pictures of the Night: A retelling of the Snow White fairytale, this is a thirlling story of jealousy and enchantment. Is Bella's stepmother really as wicked as she believes?

Happy Ever After

3 book bind-up

Jack Gantos

Sixteen-year-old Walker has accidentally discvered that two female classmates are lovers. When a rabid evangelical preacher arrives in their town, a witch-hunt is launched against gay students and Walker, for some reason, is the prime target. Walker knows the quickest way to divert the attention would be to give away the girls' secret - but should he sacrifice their peace of mind for his? A powerful, unusual and thought-provoking read from an award-winning author.

Desire Lines

Anthony McGowan is the Carnegie Medal 2020 winning author of Lark. 
 
He is coming to kill me. 
Now would be a good time to run. 
I cannot run. 
I am too afraid to run. 
 
Paul Varderman could be at any normal school - bullies, girls and annoying teachers are just a part of life. Unfortunately 'normal' doesn't apply when it comes to the school's most evil bully, Roth, a twisted and threatening thug with an agenda quite unlike anyone else. When Paul ends up delivering a message from Roth to the leader of a gang at a nearby school, it fuels a rivalry with immediate consequences. Paul attempts to distance himself from the feud, but when Roth hands him a knife it both empowers him and scares him at the same time . . . 
 
This thought-provoking and original novel highlights the terrible consequences of peer pressure and violence, and casts a spotlight on the worrying rise in knife crime among teenagers.

The Knife That Killed Me

Gareth Thompson

Fifteen-year-old Samson Ashburner has always felt like an outsider - even before the accident that left his face scarred and his confidence shattered. With the jeers and taunts of the local children and his mother ringing in his ears, Samson malingers like a dark cloud over the Cumbrian landscape. His only refuge is his ancestor's charcoal-burning hut deep in the nearby woods and it is here that he encounters Angel Obscura, a gypsy girl who teachers Samson that not everybody takes him at face value. But Angel is not all that she seems, and Samson is drawn into a web of deceit and shady dealings with an explosive outcome.

The Anarchist's Angel

Siobhan Dowd

Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she's been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him - his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what, a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls. 
 
Bog Child is an astonishing novel exploring the sacrifices made in the name of peace, and the unflinching strength of the human spirit.

Bog Child

Glenn Jackson is thirteen and has moved with his father from Burnley to Torbeck in the Lake District. His Mum has not come with them and Glenn's father is avoiding Glenn's questions. From the moment Glenn meets Laura, quiet and overshadowed by her vindictive adoptive sister, he is bewitched. 
 
Harlequin is a seven-foot eighteen-year-old living rough in an abandoned shack, disguising himself behind clown's make-up and an old felt hat and hiding in terror whenever the fighter jets have practice runs over Torbeck. When Harlequin rescues Glenn from falling into the old slate mine the two form an unusual friendship and Glenn comes closer to discovering the secret that Harlequin is running away from.

The Great Harlequin Grim

Aidan Chambers

In Breaktime, Ditto challenges Morgan to prove that literature is crap and triggers off a chain of events to alter his outlook of life forever. Ditto faces a series of charges from Morgan against literature: that all fiction is Done. Finished. Dead; a sham and a pretence. He undertakes faithfully to record a life in the week of Ditto - with all the chaos of reality thrown in - and his literary creation reveals more about himself than he originally bargained for. 
 
In Dance on My Grave, life in his seaside town is uneventful for Hal Robinson, nothing unusual, exciting or odd ever happens to him - until now that is. Until the summer of his 16th birthday when he reaches a crossroads of choices in life. He foolishly takes a friend's boat for a day's sailing, gets into difficulty and is rescued by Barry Gorman. Their ensuing relationship results in a tumultous summer for Hal as he experiences the intense emotions of his first teenage love.

Breaktime & Dance on My Grave

Markus Zusak

SPECIAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION with exclusive extra behind-the-scenes material from the author 
 
It is 1939. In Nazi Germany, the country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier - and will become busier still. 
 
By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed forever when she picks up a single object, abandoned in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, and this is her first act of book thievery. So begins Liesel's love affair with books and words, and soon she is stealing from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library . . . wherever there are books to be found. 
 
But these are dangerous times, and when Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, nothing will ever be the same again. 
 
In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. 
 
Now a major film from Twentieth-Century Fox starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.

The Book Thief

Film Tie-in Enhanced Edition

Subtitled The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn this is the story of Cordelia from the time she is 15 until she is 20. She is pregnant and plans to give this account to her daughter on her 16th birthday so that they can share their youth together. She chooses the old and famous Japanese book, 'The Pillow Book' by Sei Shonagon, as a model in order to include all kinds of things she has already written as well as the episodes and thoughts she has now as she compiles her book. 
 
She tells of her mother (who died when Cordelia was 5) of her father and her aunt Doris (who marry when she is 16), of her love for William Blacklin, the boy with whom she chooses to have her first sex - and with whom she falls deeply in love. She writes about Julie Martin her teacher who helps her spiritually, describes her love affair with an older married man and her terrifying sexual experience with an unbalanced young man who is obsessed with her. The book includes thoughts on being a women, on poetry, music, reading and writing, on being pregnant and finally of her marriage to William. 
 
This Is All is an anthology, written in six 'books' of Cordelia's adolescent life, by turns funny, poignant, sad, exciting, fascinating ironic and truthful about topics that parents often do not tell their children. It is a richly entertaining and challenging read.

This Is All

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

Trevor Colgan

Luke is fed up. Just as his football team has made it to the semi-finals of the All Ireland Schoolboys' League, his mother has decided to move him to Dun Laoghaire. For her it means a new job - perhaps a new man. But for Luke it means the loss of his footballing dream and struggling to fit into a new school. Whom can he trust? Cecilia whose bullying boyfriend wants to beat him to a pulp? Ella the quiet Man City Fan he sits next to? And will he be able to create a half-decent football team in Dun Laoghaire?

The Stretford Enders

Faiza Guéne

Fifteen-year-old Doria isn't in a good place. Or to be precise: she's in the sadly misnamed Paradise Estate on the outskirts of Paris. Her father has gone off back Morocco to find a wife who can give him a boy, and her illiterate, non French-speaking mother is having to fend for herself with a cleaning job in a grim motel. What's more, her favourite soap star has turned out to be gay and it looks like the only school that is going to accept Doria is the one for future hairdressers. Still, it could be worse: Doria could be like Samra, the girl in the flat above, whose father doesn't let her out, or Youssef who has been banged up for a year for dealing in drugs and stolen cars. At least Hamoudi - twenty-eight and the coolest guy on the estate - is her friend. And at least she gets a free weekly session with psychologist Mrs Burland, who is about the only person who listens, even if she doesn't quite understand... 
 
In this fabulous first novel, Faiza Guene has created an unforgettable voice. Doria is both clued up and innocent, acutely aware of what's in store for her and powerless to change it. She is funny, clever and tragically trapped. But in the end, her dogged determination not to be down-trodden and humiliated wins through and it looks like things can only get better.

Just Like Tomorrow

Karl, aged seventeen, is hopelessly in love. But the object of his affections, Firella, demands proof, and poses him a series of questions regarding his attitude to the many sides of love. But Karl is dyslexic, and convinced that if Firella finds out, she will think he is stupid, and unworthy of her, and leave him. 
So Karl asks a local writer to help him construct his replies - and an unlikely, but extremely touching, friendship develops between the two men. They both come to learn a great deal about about life from a very different perspective, and when an act of violence shatters their calm, they find their respective appraisal of life shifting in profound ways.

Dying to Know You

Keith Gray

In 1699 William Milmullen took his six pupils to the lakeside but only he returned after a creature rose up from the water and devoured the six boys right before his eyes. The whole town was shocked and terrified by the tragedy. Many were now too frightened to go out on the lake to fish, and the town's economy was under threat. William Milmullen recovered from the shock of what he'd seen. He named the creature 'The Mourn', and declared himself 'Mourner'. He took upon himself the responsibility to appease the creature by feeding livestock into the lake and vowed his family would forever be responsible for the safety of the town, and that every Milmullen son would take the mantle of Mourner at the age of 16. 
 
This novel is set in the present day, and nobody believes in monsters anymore. These days the town is somewhat embarrassed about its monster stories and to many the Milmullen family is a bit of a joke. The family, however, have held onto their duty, believing that if they forsake the creature it will rise from the lake again. Tim Milmullen turns 16 in a week's time. On his birthday he will become the 13th Mourner. But Tim doesn't know if he wants the role. For one thing all the kids at school tease him, calling his father crazy, saying Old William back in 1699 killed the schoolboys himself and made up the story. And Tim's biggest problem is that he doesn't know if he believes in the legend or not. How can he dedicate his whole life to something he has never seen?

The Fearful

Memories of Mum are the only thing that make Holly Hogan happy. She hates her foster family with their too-nice ways and their false sympathy. And she hates her life, her stupid school and the way everyone is always on at her. Then she finds the wig, and everything changes. Wearing the long, flowing blonde locks she feels transformed. She's not Holly any more, she's Solace: the girl with the slinkster walk and the super-sharp talk. She's older, more confident - the kind of girl who can walk right out of her humdrum life, hitch to Ireland and find her mum. The kind of girl who can face the world head on. 
 
So begins a bittersweet, and sometimes hilarious journey as Solace swaggers and Holly tiptoes across England and through memory, discovering her true self, and unlocking the secrets of her past. Holly's story will leave a lasting impression on all who travel with her.

Solace of the Road

Chloe Rayban

Justine Duval has modest goals in life: to attain celebrity status, earn stacks of cash, be drop dead gorgeous and find pure, unadulterated love. Simple. By achieving her ambitions of fame, money, beauty and a bloke, Justine will cunningly evade ever becoming Grown-Up-and-Past-It. And a bizarre meeting with her future self - ten years older and ten years wiser - gives Justine the chance to really get to grips with her ultimate destiny...in more ways than one.

Wild Child

Raven is a deeply disturbed teenager, who, after witnessing the death of his mother, is placed in foster care. The Russells do their best to earn his trust, but only little Ella manages to get through to him. 
Meanwhile, at school, bullies are making his life a living hell. An unexpected companion comes in the form of Lotte, a classmate bored by her 'ordinary' friends. Together, they track down Raven's mum's killer, with the goal of exposing him to the police. But their carefully crafted plan goes dangerously wrong and suddenly nothing is as it seems. Everything is falling apart and, ultimately, there is only one, final way out.

From Where I Stand

At the age of nine Andrew Kindness witnesses the horrific death of a father and son who are sucked into quicksand on the shores of Millom's estuary in Cumbria. Unable to help at the time, Andy grows haunted by the guilt and memory of this terrible event. When his granddad shows him the art of cross-breeding daffodils some years later, Andy finds solace in the beauty of the flowers, but he keeps his hobby secret from the prying eyes of the village. 
 
That is until Angie Hutchinson, the cleverest and prettiest girl in the school, needs Andy's help to produce a radio show to commemorate the anniversary of Wordsworth's famous Daffodils poem. Their growing friendship gives Andy the strength he needs to let go of the past and face up to his dad's illness. 
 
A moving novel that explores both the beauty and bleakness of life and the effect that the past can have on shaping the future - beautifully written in Gareth Thompson's fresh prose.

Sunshine to the Sunless

K M Peyton

Clara has been left a widow, pregnant with another man's child, and it seems as if things could not get worse. But soon her pretty and reckless youngest sister, Ellen, is harshly sentenced to deportation to the newly-discovered land of Australia, alongside many other convicts. And back in Norfolk, Clara becomes the victim of blackmail that puts her in the clutches of the wicked Nat Grover in more ways than one . . . Will her pure love for Prosper Mayes ever survive? 
 
Spanning from the gritty county of Norfolk to the wilds of Australia in the early nineteenth century, the Garlands face huge obstacles in their struggle to survive as a family. Yet, they remain as inimitable and courageous as ever.

Greater Gains

My name’s Cameron Wolfe. I have a little bit of sense. I don’t have much sense. My older brother Ruben gets me into plenty of trouble. I get Rube into as much trouble as he gets me into. I have a family, yes, that doesn’t really function without tomato sauce. That’s me. 
 
Cameron and Ruben Wolfe are brothers. They spend most of their time throwing one-handed boxing matches (they only have the one pair of gloves) and plotting to rob the local dentists. But what Cameron really wants is to meet a girl – a real girl, not like the ones in the lingerie magazines. But who could ever love an underdog like Cameron Wolfe?

The Underdog

Judith Fathallah

"You've eaten too much, you fat pig." 
 
When Jessica was thirteen years old, she met the Monkey. 
 
The Monkey lived inside her: a driving, fiery voice telling her that thinness was the only way. The only way to be safe, to be good, to be acceptable and above all, to escape from the cold, looming threat of approaching adulthood. Jessica listened to the Monkey, and it consumed her. 
 
This is the illuminating story of a teenage girl's wanderings in darkness: the spiral down into madness, the terrible realities of an adolescent psychiatric unit, and the stark choice that she must either tame her monster - or die. 
 
Through memory, reflection, and enduring black humour, Jessica makes a tenuous peace with the world and with her emerging adult self.

Monkey Taming

Margo Lanagan

RED SPIKES - ten stabs to the heart. 
 
Ten tales to jab and poke - at your darkest fears, your secret desires. 
 
Margo Lanagan's short stories take place in worlds not quite our own, and yet each one illuminates what it is to be human. They are stories of yearning for more, and learning to live with what you have. Stories that show the imprint love leaves on us all. 
 
For anyone who likes to be surprised, touched, unsettled, intrigued, or scared, prepare to be dazzled by what a master storyteller can do in a few short pages.

Red Spikes

Following the success of The Shell House, Linda Newbery again demonstrates her brilliance at weaving thought-provoking subjects into a wholly satisfying and sensitively drawn novel. 
 
Hilly's German grandmother, HeidiGran, comes to live with her family after she gets Alzheimer's disease; but as her mind becomes more muddled, secrets from her memories of life during the Second World War start to emerge. 
 
Why does HeidiGran keep talking about a girl called Rachel? And why does she make racist remarks about Hilly's friend, Reuben? As Hilly struggles to cope with revelations about her family's past, she encounters racism and prejudice for herself when a friend becomes the victim of a mindless attack. She also falls in love for the first time. 
 
This is a wonderfully evocative novel exploring the recurring prejudices that affect every generation.

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