| Divergent Veronica Roth | In the future there is no war. Humanity is divided up into factions, each serving others through knowledge, truth, selflessness, protection or peace. Tris does not fit into any faction, she is Divergent. | 11+ |
| Mortal Instruments Cassandra Clare | When Clary heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York, she witnesses a murder by three teenagers brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. | 12+ |
| The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins | 12 boys and 12 girls are forced to appear in a live TV show called the Hunger Games. The one rule is: kill or be killed. Katniss Everdeen is used to surviving in the wild and she’s not giving up. | 13+ |
| C.H.E.R.U.B Robert Muchamore | James is often in trouble at school. When his mother dies, James is sent to a children’s home, but here he is recruited into the ranks of CHERUB – a secret organisation which trains children as spies. | 11+ |
| Maze Runner James Dashner | When the doors of the lift open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his name. But he’s not alone. He’s surrounded by boys in a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. | 12+ |
| The Enemy Charlie Higson | When the sickness came, those under 14 were unaffected. The adults all became ill. The lucky ones died but many mutated into deformed monsters, with an insatiable appetite – for children. | 11+ |
| GONE Michael Grant | In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California. Cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and theres no help on the way. | 12+ |
| Harry Potter J.K. Rowling | After life with his ghastly aunt and uncle, Harry is delighted to embark on a new life at the Hogwart’s School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. Learning about magic and making new friends, he has the chance to solve many mysteries. | 10+ |
| Lorien Legacies Pittacus Lore | They killed Number One in Malaysia. Number Two in England. And Number Three in Kenya. John is Number Four. He knows that he is next. | 12+ |
| Skulduggery Pleasant Derek Landy | Meet the great Skulduggery Pleasant: wise-cracking detective, powerful magician, master of dirty tricks and burglary (in the name of the greater good, of course). Oh yeah. And dead. | 11+ |
| Inkheart Cordelia Funke | One night, Meggie’s father reads aloud from a book and an evil ruler escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly, Meggie is smack in the middle of her own adventure. | 10+ |
| Alex Rider Anthony Horowitz | Alex finds his life turned upside down on discovering that his uncle wasn’t a mild-mannered banker, but instead a field agent for MI6. He too is then dragged into the world of espionage. | 12+ |
| Chaos Walking Patrick Ness | The story begins in a small town where women have been banished and only men remain. Due to a virus, everyone can hear each others thoughts, which they call ‘Noise’. | 12+ |
| Percy Jackson and the Olympians Rick Riordan | 12-year-old Percy Jackson discovers that the Greek gods of Olympus are alive and living in modern-day New York, and that his true father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. | 10+ |
| Artemis Fowl Eoin Colfer | Artemis, an ingenious criminal mastermind, plans to hold a leprechaun to ransom. But he’s taking on more than he bargained for when he kidnaps Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Unit). | 11+ |
| His Dark Materials Phillip Pullman | Lyra lives a carefree life amongst the scholars of Jordan College. Yet the destiny that awaits her will take her to the magical frozen lands of the Arctic, amongst the witch-clans and ice-bears. | 10+ |
| Warrior Cats Erin Hunter | When Rusty strays into the forest beyond his garden and is ambushed by a wild cat, life as he knows it is over. After a brave fight, he is invited to join Thunderclan to train as a warrior. | 11+ |
| Uglies Scott Westerfeld | Tally can’t wait to turn sixteen and transform from a repellent Ugly enter into the Pretty world. But Tally soon learns about a whole new side of the Pretty world – and it isn’t very pretty. | 11+ |
| Red Queen Victoria Aveyard | This is a world divided by blood – red or silver. The Reds are poor, ruled by a Silver elite with god-like powers. Things change for Mare, a Red girl, when she begins work in the Silver Palace and discovers that she possesses a deadly power of her own. | 13+ |
| The Bourne Series Robert Ludlum | He has no past. And he may not have a future. He was dragged from the sea, his body riddled with bullets. Now he is running for his life, the target of assassins and at the heart of a deadly puzzle. | 14+ |
| OrangeboyPatrice Lawrence | Sixteen-year-old Marlon has made his mum a promise – he’ll never follow his big brother down the wrong path. So far, it’s been easy, but when a date ends in tragedy, Marlon finds himself hunted. | 13+ |
| Liccle Bit Alex Wheatle | Venetia King is the hottest girl at school. Too bad Lemar is the second shortest guy in his year. Everyone calls him Liccle Bit and says he has no chance with girls. Liccle Bit wishes he could do something – anything! to make life better. | 12+ |
| How to Read the AirDinaw Mengestu | Yosef and Mariam, young Ethiopians set off on a road trip in search of an identity as an American couple. Thirty years later, Yosef has died, and the couple’s son, Jonas, is desperate to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. | 15+ |
| The Silent StrikerPete Kalu | Marcus is the best player in his football team. He’s so good that he might be signed by Man United. But when he discovers he may be losing his hearing, his world falls to pieces and must put them back together on his own. | 13+ |
| The Hate U GiveAngie Thomas | 16-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was raised and her posh high school. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the shooting of her best friend by a police officer. | 14+ |
| The Kite RunnerKhaled Hosseini | Afghanistan, 1975: 12-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that shatters their lives. | 16+ |
| Nina is Not OKShappi Khorsandi | Nina does not have a drinking problem. She likes a drink, sure. But what 17-year-old doesnt? But one Sunday morning, even her friends can’t help piece together Saturday night. All Nina feels is a sense that something very bad has happened to her. | 15+ |
| Black Mamba BoyNafida Mohamed | Aden,1935; a city vibrant, alive. And home to Jama, a 10 year-old boy. But when Jamas mother dies unexpectedly he finds himself alone in the world, forced to return to his native Somalia, where war is on the horizon. | 14+ |
| Web of LiesBeverley Naidoo | Having fled Nigeria and resettled in London, Femi and Sade thought they would finally be safe. While Sade is dealing with her mother’s death, Femi is getting increasingly involved with a street gang. It isn’t long before their resilience as individuals and as a family are once again put to the test. | 11+ |
| Secrets of the Henna GirlSufiya Ahmed | Zeba Khan is like any other sixteen-year-old girl: enjoying herself, waiting for exam results , and dreaming of the day she’ll meet her one true love. Except her parents have other plans. In Pakistan for the summer, Zeba’s world is shattered. | 11+ |
| The Bone ReadersJacob Ross | When Michael Digson is recruited into a new plain clothes squad in the small Caribbean island of Camaho he brings his own mission – to discover who amongst a renegade police squad killed his mother in a political demonstration. | 15+ |
| Chasing the StarsMalorie Blackman | Olivia and Nathan are heading in opposite directions in space, both having survived attacks that have killed most of their crews. When their lives unexpectedly collide, Nathan and Olivia are instantly attracted to each other. | 14+ |
| We Need New NamesNoViolet Bulawayo | 10-year old Darling has a choice: its down, or out. In a shanty called Paradise, Darling and her friends play and sing Lady Gaga and dream of escape, a dream that comes true for Darling. But her new life in America is far from what she imagined. | 13+ |
| The Girl of Ink & StarsKiran Millwood Hargrave | Forbidden to leave her island, Isabella dreams of the faraway lands her father once mapped. When her friend disappears, she volunteers to guide the search. Following her map, her heart and an ancient myth, Isabella discovers the true end of her journey: to save the island itself. | 11+ |
| The Boy Who Harnessed the WindWilliam Kamkwamba | When William Kamkwamba was just 14 years old his parents told him that he must leave school and work on the family farm as they could no longer afford to $80 a year tuition fees. This is the story of his refusal to give up on learning and reading. | 11+ |
| Ghana Must GoTaiye Selasi | Meet the Sais, a Nigerian-Ghanaian family living in the US. A family prospering until the day father is victim of a grave injustice. Ashamed, he abandons his wife and their little boys and girls, causing the family to fracture and spiral out into the wold. | 11+ |
| Freak the Mighty Rodman Philbrick | Kevin and Max are both accustomed to ridicule: Kevin because he is small and disabled and Max because he is huge and perceived to be stupid. When fate throws this seemingly mismatched pair together the result is awesome: Freak the Mighty. | 11+ |
| Thirteen Reasons Why Jay Asher | Clay finds a series of cassette tapes recorded by Hannah – his classmate and first love -who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice explains there are 13 reasons why she did what she did – and Clay is one of them. | 14+ |
| Feather Boy Nicky Singer | Robert is a boy who can do anything – or so Edith at the nursing home tells him. Robert doesn’t think so but something compels him to do what Edith asks – to visit a house where a boy once fell to his death, to confront his fears and find some answers. | 11+ |
| Bad Girls Jacqueline Wilson | Shy, mild Mandy has been bullied at school for as long as she can remember. That’s why she is delighted when cheeky, daring, Tanya picks her as a friend. Her Mum isn’t happy – she thinks Tanya’s a BAD GIRL, but Mandy doesn’t agree. | 11+ |
| Wonder R.J Palacio | Born with a facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled his whole life. Now, he’s being sent to a real school – and all he wants is to be accepted – but can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, underneath it all? | 11+ |
| Girlhood Cat Clarke | Harper has tried to forget the past and fit in at expensive boarding school. Her new group of friends are tight and have her back. But Harper can’t escape the guilt of her twin sister’s Jenna’s death, and her own part in it. | 12+ |
| Seven Days Eve Ainsworth | School should be a safe place for Jess, a refuge from her difficult home life – but thanks to Kez, it’s everything she dreads. Despite being popular, Kez’s life isn’t any sweeter. She clings to the fact she is better off than Jess – or so she thinks. . . | 13+ |
| A Monster Calls Patrick Ness | Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, and started the treatments that don’t seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there’s a visitor at his window. It’s an ancient force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. | 12+ |
| Vicious True Stories about Bullying | The stories about bullying address every form of bullying: physical, verbal, relational, and cyber. Unmistakably real, these stories are at times painful, yet admirable and compelling for the resilience they reveal. | 13+ |
| Blubber Judy Blume | When Linda reads out her class project, everyone finds it funny. Linda can’t help it if she’s fat, but what starts as a joke leads to sustained and cruel humiliation. Jill knows she should defend Linda, but is scared, and when she finally does she becomes their next victim. | 11+ |
| Butter Erin Lange | A lonely obese boy everyone calls “Butter” is about to make history. He is going to eat himself to death-live on the Internet. His announcement receives encouragement, which begins to feel a lot like popularity. | 12+ |
| Lord of the Flies William Golding | A plane crashes on a desert island and the only survivors, a group of school boys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. | 12+ |
| Holes Louis Sachar | Stanley’s family has a history of bad luck, so he is not surprised when he ends up in a Juvenile Detention Centre. His daily labour is to dig holes, which the warden says is character building, but this is a lie and Stanley must dig up the truth. | 11+ |
| Lucas Kevin Brooks | Caitlin’s life changes from the moment she sees Lucas. He is the strangest, most beautiful boy she has ever seen. But to others, he quickly becomes an object of jealousy, prejudice and hatred. | 11+ |
| The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini | Afghanistan, 1975: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what will happen to Hassan that afternoon. | 16+ |
| Different Seasons (The Body) Stephen King | After a boy from their town disappears and is presumed dead, Gordie and his three friends set out to find his body after telling their parents they will be camping out. During the course of their journey, the boys, who all come from abusive or dysfunctional families, come to grips with some of the harsh truths of growing up in a small town that does not seem to offer much in the way of a future. | 13+ |
| 1984 George Orwell | Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in. | 14+ |
| To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee | Set in Alabama in the 1930s, lawyer Atticus Finch defends a black man accused of a terrible crime, confronting the prejudice that exists in the town that they live. | 12+ |
| Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte | Jane Eyre is a courageous heroine who is orphaned and forced to battle against a cruel aunt, a difficult time at boarding school and a rigid social order. Events lead her to take the position of governess to the daughter of the mysterious Mr Rochester. | 13+ |
| The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams | It’s an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and his best friend has just announced that he’s an alien. | 12+ |
| Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte | Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and dark love between Catherine and Heathcliff, a boy adopted by Catherine’s father. | 13+ |
| Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck | Drifters in search of work, George and Lennie, have nothing in the world except a dream that one day they will have land of their own. They find work on a ranch where their hopes are put to the test. | 13+ |
| Little Women Louisa May Alcott | The novel follows the lives of four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—detailing their passage from childhood to womanhood. | 10+ |
| Animal Farm George Orwell | When the animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master and take over the farm themselves, they imagine a life of equality. But gradually a ruthless élite starts to take control and the animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought. | 12+ |
| Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen | The love story between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy is also a novel about the search for happiness and self-knowledge in a world of strict social rules, where a woman must marry well to survive. | 12+ |
| The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett | After the death of her parents, Mary is sent to live with her uncle in Yorkshire. Alone and unhappy, Mary spends her time in the grounds where she discovers a secret garden that will change her life. | 13+ |
| The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle | Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the case of a hellish hound that stalks the moors and threatens the new heirs of the Baskerville residence. | 11+ |
| The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald | Nick introduces the reader to the glittering world of Long Island in the 1920s, which includes his cousin Daisy, her wealthy husband Tom, Jay Gatsby and the mystery that surrounds him. | 14+ |
| The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling | Set in Central India, Mowgli is raised by a pack of wolves, and along the way he encounters the foreboding tiger Shere Kahn, Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear. | 10+ |
| Oliver Twist Charles Dickens | In the dark, dangerous streets of Victorian London Oliver enters a world of people so desperate that they will take any risk and know no mercy. | 13+ |
| Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson | Jim Hawkins outwits a gang of murderous pirates led by the unforgettable Long John Silver. | 11+ |
| Lord of the Flies William Golding | A plane crashes on a desert island and the only survivors, a group of school boys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. | 12+ |
| Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell | Set during the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell’s magnificent historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. | 13+ |
| Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier | Rebecca tells the story of a young woman who meets a handsome, older gentleman in Monte Carlo, who has a tragic past. | 13+ |
| The Woman in Black Susan Hill | Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to Eel Marsh house, unaware of the tragic secrets which lie behind the shuttered windows. | 12+ |
| Great Expectations Charles Dickens | A series of events change orphaned Pip’s life forever, as he abandons his humble beginnings to begin a new life as a gentleman. | 12+ |
| The Outsiders S.E. Hinton | No one ever said life was easy. Ponyboy knows that he can count on his brothers and on his friends, and not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids. | 12+ |
| The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath | A shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about Esther Greenwood, a woman falling into the grip of depression and insanity. | 16+ |
| The Fellowship of the Ring J.R.R. Tolkein | Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered all the Rings of Power to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks is the One Ring, which has been entrusted to a young hobbit called Frodo, who must leave the sleep Shire to make a perilous journey across Middle-earth. | 12+ |
| The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson | A story of Dr Jekyll’s infernal alter ego, and of a hunt throughout the nocturnal streets of London that culminates in some dreadful revelations. | 12+ |
| The Catcher in the Rye J.D Salinger | Holden Caulfield is a seventeen who has just been kicked out of his fourth school. Navigating his way through the challenges of growing up, Holden dissects the ‘phony’ aspects of society. | 13+ |
| The Thirty-Nine Steps John Buchan | Richard is bored with London life, until a murder is committed in his flat, just days after the victim had warned him of an assassination attempt. | 12+ |
| Breakfast at Tiffany’s Truman Capote | It’s New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany’s. This is Truman Capote’s timeless portrait of tragicomic cultural icon Holly Golightly. | 13+ |
| The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis | Deep in the bewitched land of Narnia, the children set out on the most exciting and enchanted adventure ever written. | 8+ |
| Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll | Alice follows a White Rabbit down a hole and falls into Wonderland, a fantastical place where animals talk, nonsensical characters confuse, Mad Hatters throw tea parties and the Queen plays croquet. | 9+ |
| On the Road Jack Kerouac | Sal and Dean set off on a journey down Route 66 on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. | 16+ |
| One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey | Tyrannical nurse Ratched rules her ward in the Oregan State mental hospital with a strict and unbending regime, until the arrival of McMurphy. | 17+ |
| The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood | The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire. | 16+ |
| Looking for JJ Anne Cassidy | Looking for JJ explores the circumstances behind the murder of a child by her friend. Six years later, JJ has been released, and has a new identity. But is there any way that she can lead a “normal” life? | 13+ |
| Murder Most Unladylike Robin Stevens | When Daisy and Hazel set up their very own secret detective agency they struggle to find any truly exciting mysteries to investigate. Then Hazel discovers Miss Bell, lying dead in the Gym. | 11+ |
| The Ruby in the Smoke Philip Pullman | Soon after Sally Lockhart’s father drowns at sea, she receives an anonymous letter. Determined to discover the truth about her father’s death, Sally is plunged into the dark heart of Victorian London. | 12+ |
| Girl, Missing Sophie McKenzie | Lauren, who is adopted, she discovers she may have been snatched from a family as a baby. How can she find her biological parents? And are her parents really responsible for kidnapping her? | 11+ |
| Theodore Boone John Grisham | Theo dreams of being a great trial lawyer. But he finds himself in court much sooner than he expected, when he is suddenly dragged into the middle of a sensational murder trial. | 11+ |
| The Naturals Jennifer Lynn Barnes | Cassie Hobbes is not like most teenagers. Most teenagers can’t tell who you are, and how you’re likely to behave within moments of meeting you. And most teenagers aren’t recruited by the FBI. | 14+ |
| We were liars E. Lockhart | We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken. A tale of love and romance. A tale of tragedy. Which are lies? Which are truth? You decide. | 13+ |
| Pretty Little Liars Sara Shepard | Aria, Emily, Spencer, Hanna and Alison are best friends, and they all confide their secrets to Alison. When Alison goes missing the girls assume their secrets have disappeared too. | 15+ |
| Anna Dressed in Blood Kendare Blake | Cas hunts dead people like Anna, a murderous ghost entangled in curses and rage. As her tragic past is revealed, he starts to understand why Anna has killed everyone who’s entered her home. | 13+ |
| Orangeboy Patrice Lawrence | Sixteen-year-old Marlon has made his mum a promise – he’ll never follow his big brother down the wrong path. So far, it’s been easy, but when a date ends in tragedy, Marlon finds himself hunted. | 13+ |
| Murder on the Orient Express Agatha Christie | A snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks, and by the morning an American tycoon lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. | 12+ |
| The London Eye Mystery Siobhan Dowd | 11.32am. Ted and Kat watch their cousin Salim get on board the London Eye, the pod rises into the air. 12.02am. The pod lands and the doors open. Everyone exits – everyone but Salim. | 11+ |
| The Hound of the Baskervilles Arthur Conan Doyle | The Baskerville family is haunted by a phantom beast which roams the moors around Baskerville Hall on Dartmoor. Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate this chilling case. | 11+ |
| Hacker Malorie Blackman | When Vicky’s father is arrested on a charge of stealing a million pounds from the bank where he works, she is determined to prove his innocence, by hacking into the bank’s computer system. | 11+ |
| The One Memory of Flora Banks Emily Barr | Flora has anterograde amnesia. She can’t remember anything day-to-day. Then she kisses someone she shouldn’t, and the next day she remembers it. It’s the first time since she was ten. | 13+ |
| Silverfin Charlie Higson | It’s James Bond’s first day at Eton, and he’s already met his first enemy. This is the start of an journey that will take him from the school playing fields to the remote shores of Loch Silverfin. | 11+ |
| Artemis Fowl Eoin Colfer | Artemis, a criminal mastermind, plans to hold a LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Unit) to ransom. But he’s taking on more than he bargained for when he kidnaps Captain Holly Short. | 11+ |
| The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon | A murder mystery where the detective is Christopher Boone, who is fifteen and has Asperger’s Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. | 11+ |
| The Road of the Dead Kevin Brooks | Late one night, two brothers learn that their sister has been strangled, hundreds of miles from home. Together they set out to find their own answers and retrace Rachel’s final journey. | 12+ |
| Moriarty Anthony Horowitz | Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom, agent Frederick Chase arrives from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind. | 14+ |
| The Knife of Never Letting Go Patrick Ness | The story begins in a small town where women have been banished and only men remain. Due to a virus, everyone can hear each other’s thoughts, which they call ‘Noise’. | 12+ |
| The Maze Runner James Dashner | When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he’s not alone. He’s surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade – a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. | 13+ |
| 1984 George Orwell | Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in. | 14+ |
| The Road Cormac McCarthy | The Road is the story of a father and son walking alone through burned America, heading through the ravaged landscape to the coast. | 16+ |
| I Am Number Four Pittacus Lore | ‘In the beginning we were a group of nine. Three are gone, dead…..I am Number Four. I know that I am next.’ The Nine are sole survivors from the planet Lorien who fled to earth when hostile Mogadarians invaded. They try to live unnoticed, constantly moving, adopting new identities. | 12+ |
| The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood | The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire. | 16+ |
| Gone Michael Grant | In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California. Cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and there’s no help on the way. | 12+ |
| Floodland Marcus Sedgewick | Imagine that a few years from now England is covered by water, and Norwich is an island. Zoe, left behind in the confusion when her parents escaped, survives there as best she can. | 11+ |
| Matched Ally Condie | On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia meets her Match. Society dictates he is her perfect partner for life. Except he’s not. In Cassia’s society, Officials decide who people love. How many children they have. Where they work. When they die. | 13+ |
| Divergent Veronica Roth | In the future there is no war. Humanity is divided up into factions, each serving others through knowledge, truth, selflessness, protection or peace. Tris does not fit into any faction, she is Divergent. | 13+ |
| The Declaration Gemma Malley | Sixteen-year-old Anna should not have been born. It is the year 2140 and people can live for ever. No one wants another mouth to feed, so she lives in a Surplus Hall, where unwanted children go. | 12+ |
| The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins | From each District, one female and one male Tribute are forcibly selected for a terrifying reality TV game-show in which contestants fight to the death. But Katniss Everdeen is no ordinary Tribute: she’s used to surviving in the wild and in the unpredictable, hostile arena, she’s not giving up. | 12+ |
| Uglies Scott Westerfield | Tally can’t wait to turn sixteen and transform from a repellent Ugly into a stunningly attractive Pretty, and enter a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. But Tally soon learns about a whole new side of the Pretty world – and it isn’t very pretty. | 11+ |
| Brave New World Aldous Huxley | Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. | 14+ |
| Fahrenheit 451 Raymond Bradbury | The novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and Specialist Firemen burn any that are found. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns. | 13+ |
| Time Machine H.G. Wells | An innovative scientist pilots a time machine and finds a world utterly changed, and in which the Time Traveller finds himself an alien on his own planet. | 11+ |
| Mortal Engines Philip Reeve | London is on the move again: the traction city trawls the world on wheels, capturing and eating smaller towns. But when he is thrown off the city by his childhood hero Valentine, young hero Tom joins forces with the mysterious Hester, and is soon forced to reassess life as he knows it. | 11+ |
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone J.K. Rowling | Harry Potter has never heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat. Then Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. | 11+ |
| Northern Lights Philip Pullman | Lyra lives a carefree life amongst the scholars of Jordan College. Yet the destiny that awaits her will take her to the magical frozen lands of the Arctic, amongst the witch-clans and ice-bears. | 12+ |
| The Knife of Never Letting Go Patrick Ness | The story begins in a small town where women have been banished and only men remain. Due to a virus, everyone can hear each other’s thoughts, which they call ‘Noise’. | 12+ |
| Hobbit J.R.R Tolkien | Bilbo Baggins enjoys a quiet life, until one day the wizard Gandalf and a band of dwarves arrive and enlist his services on a dangerous expedition to raid the treasure-hoard of Smaug the dragon. | 10+ |
| The Lord of the Rings J.R.R Tolkien | Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered all the Rings of Power to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks is the One Ring, which has been entrusted to a young hobbit called Frodo, who must leave the sleep Shire to make a perilous journey across Middle-earth. | 12+ |
| Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief Rick Riordan | Half boy. Half God. All Hero. I was just a normal kid, going to school, playing basketball, the usual. Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher. Now I spend my time battling monsters and generally trying to stay alive. | 11+ |
| Artemis Fowl Eoin Colfer | Artemis, an ingenious criminal mastermind, plans to hold a leprechaun to ransom. But he’s taking on more than he bargained for when he kidnaps Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance Unit). | 11+ |
| Eragon Christopher Paolini | When Eragon finds a polished stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. | 11+ |
| Inkheart Cornelia Funke | One night, Meggie’s father reads aloud from a book and an evil ruler escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly, Meggie is smack in the middle of her own adventure. | 10+ |
| Wolf Brother Michelle Paver | Thousands of years ago, the land is one dark forest. Its people are hunter-gatherers, who know every tree and herb and how to survive in a time of powerful magic. Until a force conjures a demon so evil that it can be contained only in the body of a ferocious bear, and only one boy can stop it. | 11+ |
| Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Ransom Riggs | A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. A horrific family tragedy sets Jacob journeying to a remote island, where he discovers the ruins of Miss Peregrine s Home for Peculiar Children. | 11+ |
| The Chronicles of Narnia C.S. Lewis | Deep in the bewitched land of Narnia, the children set out on the most exciting and enchanted adventure ever written. | 8+ |
| The Mortal Instruments Cassandra Clare | When Clary heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York, she witnesses a murder by three teenagers brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. | 12+ |
| Game of Thrones George R.R Martin | In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the North of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. | 16+ |
| Mister Monday Garth Nix | Seven days. Seven keys. Seven virtues. Seven sins. One mysterious house is the doorway to a very mysterious world – where one boy is about to venture and unlock a number of fantastical secrets. Arthur is not supposed to be a hero. He is supposed to die an early death. But his life is saved by a key shaped like the minute hand of a clock. | 10+ |
| Skulduggery Pleasant Derek Landy | Meet the great Skulduggery Pleasant: wise-cracking detective, powerful magician, master of dirty tricks and burglary (in the name of the greater good, of course). Oh yeah. And dead. | 11+ |
| Lies we tell ourselves Robin Talley | In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths how they feel about one another. | 13+ |
| Will Grayson, Will Grayson David Levithan and John Green | One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, Will Grayson crosses paths with… Will Grayson. Two guys with the same name, running in two very different circles, suddenly find their lives going in new and unexpected directions. | 14+ |
| Every Day David Levithan | Each morning, A wakes up in a different body. There’s never any warning about who it will be, but A is used to that. Never get too attached. Until A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Rhiannon, who he wants to be with. Every day. | 13+ |
| The Art of Being Normal Lisa Williamson | David has always been an outsider. Only his two best friends know the real truth – he wants to be a girl. Leo couldn’t have less in common with David, but when he ends up standing up for Leo in a fight, an unlikely friendship begins to develop. | 14+ |
| Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens’ Agenda Becky Albertalli | Simon is falling in love with someone he has never seen, ‘Blue’, a boy he met online. The boys are able to discuss their deepest fears and greatest hopes, until Simon is blackmailed. | 14+ |
| This book is Gay Juno Dawson | A funny and pertinent book about being lesbian, bisexual, gay, queer, transgender or just curious – for everybody, no matter their gender or sexuality. | 13+ |
| Beautiful Music for Ugly Children Kristin Cronn-Mills | Gabe has always identified as a boy, but he was born with a girl’s body. Gabe struggles with romance, friendships, parents, his radio show and trying to come out as transgendered. | 12+ |
| Oranges are not the only fruit Jeanette Winterson | This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God’s elect. She seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts. | 14+ |
| Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Benjamin Alire Saenz | Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. As the two loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special kind of friendship–the kind of friendship that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. | 14+ |
| The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky | Charlie is a shy, introspective teenager, but he can’t remain a ‘wallflower’ forever. From first dates to family dramas, new friends to experimenting with sex and drugs, Charlie’s journey of self-discovery is both funny and deeply moving. | 14+ |
| Kiss Jacqueline Wilson | Sylvie and Carl have grown up together. Throughout their friendship, Sylvie’s expectation has been that they will marry. However Carl’s growing friendship with Paul, and Sylvie’s with the extrovert Miranda, cause a rift. | 11+ |
| We are All Made of Molecules Susin Nielsen | Intellectually high-functioning, socially floundering Stewart meets socially superior, painfully insecure Ashley. Their utterly distinctive voices alternate as they negotiate difficult relationships. | 12+ |
| Boy Meets Boy David Levithan | Paul is a sophomore at a high school where the cheerleaders ride Harleys; the trans homecoming queen, Infinite Darlene, is also the star quarterback; and the local Boy Scouts have renamed themselves the ‘Joy Scouts’ after renouncing the organisation’s gay-unfriendly policies. Paul meets a boy, Noah, and falls in love. | 13+ |
| Ash Malinda Lo | Circumnavigating the traditional Cinderella story of a girl and a handsome prince, this beautifullywritten re-interpretation instead focuses on two young women falling in love. Full of magic and enchantment, novel is a sophisticated fairy-tale. | 12+ |
| The Colour Purple Alice Walker | Set in the American South, Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation is raped, has her children taken away from her and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker – a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. | 15+ |
| Why we took the car Wolfgang Herrndorf | At fourteen, Mike has a dysfunctional family life, no friends and an unrequited crush on his classmate. He is reluctantly drawn into friendship with the new pupil Tschik, another misfit at school. During the summer vacation they take off in a ‘borrowed’ Lada to find Tschik’s mythical roots in the south. | 11+ |
| History is all you left me Adam Silvera | Griffin has lost his first love, Theo, in a drowning accident. Now, reeling from grief and worsening OCD, Griffin turns to an unexpected person for help. Theo’s new boyfriend. | 12+ |
| Luna Julie Ann Peters | Through the eyes of his sixteen-year-old sister Regan, struggling with her own adolescence, we witness Liam resolve to stop hiding in his basement bedroom, and become Luna to the outside world. | 12+ |
| Beyond Magenta Transgender Teens Speak Out Susan Kuklin | Susan Kuklin interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and has represented them using portraits and photographs during their personal acknowledgment of gender identity. | 14+ |
| Ask the Passengers A.S King | Astrid copes with her secret by sending love to the airplanes flying overhead. Maybe they’ll know what to do with it. The people in her town would never allow her to love the person she really wants to. | 11+ |
| Rethinking Normal Katie Rain Hill | Katie realised very young that she was a girl who had been born in the body of a boy. After being several failed suicide attempts, she understood that the girl trapped within her—wanted to live. | 14+ |
| Unspeakable Abbie Rushton | Megan doesn’t speak. She hasn’t spoken in months. There are things locked inside Megan’s head that she cannot let out. Then Jasmine starts at school and life starts to look a bit brighter. | 12+ |
| I am J Cris Beam | J spun. His stomach clenched hard. It was just his neighbour. J couldn’t muster a hello back; he didn’t care that she’d tell his mother he’d been rude. Nobody calls me Jeni anymore. | 15+ |
| Proud Gareth Thomas | Rugby gave him everything, except the freedom to be himself. This is the inspiring story of how he gathered the courage as the world’s most prominent athlete to come out as a gay man. | 14+ |
| Two Boys Kissing David Levithan | A group of boys take part in a kissing marathon, hoping to set the world record for the longest kiss. As the marathon progresses, the boys evaluate the changing nature of feelings, behaviour and love. | 13+ |
| Pretty Things Sara Manning | This is a story about kissing people you shouldn’t, breaking hearts because there’s nothing to watch on telly, falling in love and off your heels. | 11+ |
| This is not a love story Keren David | Kitty moves to Amsterdam where she meets moody, unpredictable Ethan, and clever, troubled Theo. Two enigmatic boys, who each harbour their own secrets. | 12+ |
| I’ll give you the sun Jandy Nelson | Jude and her twin Noah are barely speaking. Each of them has only half the story and if they can just find their way back to one another, they have a chance to remake their world. | 13+ |
| The Miseducation of Cameron Post Emily M. Danforth | Cameron Post feels a mix of guilt and relief when her parents die in a car accident. Their deaths mean they will never learn the truth that she’s gay. | 14+ |
| The Upside of Unrequited Becky Albertalli | Molly knows all about unrequited love. Despite her twin’s encouragement, she can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. It all changes when she meets her twin sister’s girlfriend and friends. | 14+ |
| Being Jazz Jazz Jennings | At the age of five, Jazz transitioned to life as a girl. In her memoir, Jazz reflects on her public experiences and how they have helped shape the attitude toward the transgender community. | 12+ |
| Sugar Rush Julie Burchill | When Kim starts her new school she meets Sugar. As Kim falls under her spell, and trades her goodgirl past for excitement, she asks herself if she has she fallen in love with her best friend. | 13+ |
| George Alex Gino | When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she’s a girl. George thinks she’ll keep this a secret forever. Until she wants to try out for the part of Charlotte in the school play. | 11+ |
| Forward Abby Wambach | At age seven she was put on the boys’ soccer team. At age thirty-five she would become the highest goal scorer–male or female–in the history of soccer. | 11+ |
| You Know Me Well Nina LaCour & David Levithan | Kate is lost, after running away from a girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark is in love with his best friend Ryan. When Kate and Mark cross paths they share their precious secrets with each other. | 14+ |
| Honor Girl Maggie Thrash | A memoir which shows the emotional struggle that Maggie Thrash dealt with when she was 15 years old and fell in love with her camp counsellor, Erin. | 14+ |
| Alex as well Alyssa Brugman | Alex was born with both male and female reproductive organs. For fourteen years his parents raised Alex as a boy, dressed him in boys clothes, and gave him medication to help regulate his hormones. But Alex made an announcement, three words that would change everything: ‘I’m a girl.’ | 14+ |
| The Enemy Charlie Higson | When the sickness came, those under 14 were unaffected. The adults all became ill. The lucky ones died but many mutated into deformed monsters, with an insatiable appetite – for children. | 11+ |
| Goosebumps Night of the Living Dummy R.L. Stine | When twins Lindy and Kris find a ventriloquist’s dummy in a skip, Lindy decides to rescue it and name it Slappy. But then things begin to happen. Nasty things. Evil things. | 9+ |
| Cuckoo Song Frances Hardinge | When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; her sister and parents are scared of her She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. | 12+ |
| Mister Creecher Chris Priestley | Billy is a street urchin. Mister Creecher is a monstrous giant of a man. A bond develops between these two misfits as their bloody journey takes them closer to Victor Frankenstein. | 12+ |
| Horowitz Horror Anthony Horowitz | It’s a world where the weird, the sinister and the truly terrifying are lurking just out of sight. Like an ordinary-looking camera with evil powers and a bus ride home that turns into your worst nightmare. | 10+ |
| Pet Sematary Stephen King | Behind the house lay a carefully cleared path up into the woods where generations of local children have taken their dear departed pets for burial. Surely a safe place. Not a place to seep into your dreams, to wake you, sweating with fear. | 14+ |
| The Nest Kenneth Oppel | The baby is sick, his parents are sad. And all Steve has to do is say, “Yes” to fix everything. But yes is a dangerous word. And the wasps’ nest is growing, and the ‘angel’ keeps visiting Steve in the night. | 11+ |
| Say Her Name James Dawson | Bobbie does not believe in ghosts. But when she takes part in a Halloween dare to summon the ghost of Bloody Mary, this changes forever. | 14+ |
| The Woman in Black Susan Hill | Arthur Kipps is summoned to a funeral at Eel Marsh House, which stands wreathed in fog and mystery. When he glimpses a young woman, dressed in black, a sense of unease begins to take hold. | 13+ |
| Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase Jonathon Stroud | In London ghosts, haunts, spirits, and specters are appearing and they aren’t exactly friendly. Only young people have the psychic abilities required to see-and eradicate-these supernatural foes. | 11+ |
| Silver Chris Wooding | When strange insects assault a remote boarding school in England, biting the humans and turning them into deadly silver attackers, the kids barricade the school and try to save the day. | 12+ |
| The Company of Ghosts Berlie Doherty | Ellie is excited to be going with Morag’s family to their beautiful island, but when she finds herself abandoned there, things begin to change. Ellie becomes aware that she is not really on her own. | 11+ |
| Anna Dressed in Blood Kendare Blake | Cas hunts dead people like Anna, A murderous ghost entangled in curses and rage. As her tragic past is revealed, he starts to understand why Anna has killed everyone who’s entered her home. | 13+ |
| Ways to see a Ghost Emily Diamond | Isis can see ghosts. When a terrifying creature escapes from the dark place, Isis realises that it puts everyone she cares about in danger. Will her powers be enough to protect them all? | 12+ |
| Cirque de Freak Darren Shan | Darren goes to a banned gothic freak show where weird, frightening half human/half animals interact with the audience. Darren finds himself having to make a bargain with a creature of the night. | 10+ |
| Thirteen Chairs Dave Shelton | Jack debates whether to open the door to the room in the old, dark house. A room lit only by candles. Thirteen chairs, one empty. Twelve ghostly storytellers, waiting to begin. Come in! Take your place. We have been expecting you. | 12+ |
| Beautiful Dead Erin Hunter | Phoenix is the fourth teenager to die within a year in strange and sudden circumstances. Rumours of ghosts rip through the small community as it comes to terms with shock and loss. | 13+ |
| Coraline Neil Gaiman | Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own. But the other mother and father want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her forever. | 10+ |
| The Last Vampire Christopher Pike | Alisa is the last vampire. For five thousand years she has been living among humans. Beautiful and brilliant, she hunts alone. But someone is stalking her. Someone wants her dead. | 14+ |
| The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Holly Black | Tana lives in a world where quarantined monsters and humans live in a bloody mix of predator and prey. It’s an eternal party, live on TV, but once you enter Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave… | 13+ |
| Kite Spirit Sita Brahmachari | When Kite’s friend commits suicide, her world falls apart. Overwhelmed by grief she leaves London, but after six weeks in the Lake District she feels vulnerable and disorientated. Then she meets Garth, who seems to understand her pain. | 11+ |
| Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot Horatio Clare | Aubrey is a rambunctious boy who tries to run before he can walk. When his father falls under a horrendous spell, Aubrey is determined to break it. A beautiful story of living with a parent suffering from depression. | 11+ |
| Looking for Alaska John Green | Miles’ life has been a non-event, and he struggles to fit in at boarding school. Then he meets gorgeous, clever, screwed up Alaska and his life is never the same again. | 14+ |
| All the Bright Places Jennifer Niven | Finch wants to take his own life. Violet is devastated by her sister’s death. They meet on the ledge of a bell tower, and so their story begins. | 12+ |
| A note of madness Tabitha Suzuma | Life as a student should be good for Flynn, but beneath the surface he’s falling apart. On a good day he feels full of energy and life, but on a bad day being alive is worse than being dead. | 12+ |
| Scarlet Ibis Gill Lewis | Scarlet looks after her severely depressed mother, and her autistic-spectrum brother Red, desperate to evade the intervention of their social worker. A fire in their flat splits the family up, until Scarlet uses her ingenuity to reunite it. | 11+ |
| Freak the Mighty Rodman Philbrick | Kevin and Max are both accustomed to ridicule: Kevin because he is small and disabled and Max because he is huge and perceived to be stupid. When fate throws this seemingly mismatched pair together the result is awesome: Freak the Mighty. | 11+ |
| Wintergirls Laurie Halse Anderson | Lia is a recovering anorexic living with her father, stepmother and adored stepsister. When Lia’s former best friend (and bulimic), Cassie, is found dead in a motel room, Lia’s delicate recovery is sent spiralling out of control. | 12+ |
| Am I Normal Yet? Holly Bourne | Evie has made a fresh start – she’s at a new college where no one knows that she has a history of OCD and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Her medication has been reduced and she is going out and making real friends. Now she wants to have a boyfriend. | 14+ |
| Thirteen Reasons Why Jay Asher | Clay finds a series of cassette tapes recorded by Hannah – his classmate and first love -who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice explains there are 13 reasons why she did what she did – and Clay is one of them. | 14+ |
| Forgive me, Leonard Peacock Matthew Quick | Leonard is turning 18 and he wants to say goodbye. To his four friends – a Humphrey Bogart-obsessed neighbour, a teenage violin virtuoso, a pastor’s daughter and a teacher. | 14+ |
| Go Ask Alice Anonymous | Being fifteen is hard, but Alice seems fine. Until she goes to a party where the drinks are spiked with LSD, and Alice is never the same again. This truelife story showcases the effect of drug abuse. | 14+ |
| The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon | The Curious Incident is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone, who is fifteen and has Asperger’s Sydrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. | 12+ |
| It’s Kind of a Funny Story Ned Vizzini | Craig is ambitious and determined to succeed, but when the pressure becomes unbearable he stops eating and nearly kills himself. | 14+ |
| A Really Awesome Mess Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin | Justin has hit rock bottom and Emmy has never fit in. Enrolled at a reform school they are forced to deal with their issues and form a group of friends who are just as broken as them. | 13+ |
| The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B Teresa Toten | Adam has OCD and his life is pretty much as normal as it can get until he meets the love of his life; Robyn Plummer. | 12+ |
| My Heart and Other Black Holes Jasmine Warga | Aysel and Roman meet online on a suicide partners forum and agree to kill themselves together in one month’s time. But a lot can change in a month. | 11+ |
| Rowan the Strange Julie Hearn | Rowan knows he is strange. But dangerous? He didn’t mean to scare his sister. In his right mind, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. But there’s a place he can go where they say they can fix his mind . . . | 12+ |
| How I live now Meg Rosoff | Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent to England to spend a summer with her unconventional cousins during WWIII. The book brilliantly tackles the topics of war, young love and anorexia. | 13+ |
| The Nest Kenneth Oppel | A dark tragedy looms over Steve’s family. The new baby is sick. His parents seem to spend all their time at the hospital. And Steve’s coping with nightmares and anxiety issues all by himself. | 11+ |
| The Bone Sparrow Zana Fraillon | Born in a refugee camp, all Subhi knows of the world is that he’s 19 fence diamonds high, the nice Jackets never stay long, and at night he dreams that the sea brings him unusual treasures. And one day it brings him Jimmie. | 11+ |
| The Unforgotten Coat Frank Cottrell Boyce | Two refugee brothers from Mongolia are determined to fit in with their Liverpool schoolmates, but bring so much of Mongolia to Bootle that their new friend and guide, Julie, is hard-pressed to know truth from fantasy. | 11+ |
| The Other Side of Truth Beverley Naidoo | This is the story of Sade and Femi who flee to Britain from Nigeria when their mother is killed. Abandoned at Victoria Station by the woman paid to bring them to England as her children, they find themselves alone in a new, hostile, environment. | 13+ |
| Jackdaw Summer David Almond | Every summer Liam and Max go to Northumberland – but this year things are different. One day a jackdaw leads the two boys into a farm house where they find a baby, wrapped in a blanket, with a scribbled note pinned to it: PLESE LOOK AFTER HER RITE. THIS IS A CHILDE OF GOD. | 13+ |
| In the Sea there are Crocodiles Fabio Geda | One night before putting him to bed, Enaiatollah’s mother tells him three things: don’t use drugs or weapons, don’t cheat, don’t steal. The next day he wakes up to find she isn’t there. Enaiatollah is left alone at the border of Pakistan to fend for himself. | 12+ |
| Alpha: Abidjan to Gare du Nord Bessora | Alpha Coulibaly is emblematic of the refugee crisis today – just one of millions on the move, at the mercy of people traffickers, endlessly frustrated, endangered and exploited as he attempts to rejoin his family, already in Europe. | 14+ |
| The Island Armin Greder | When the people of the Island discover a man and a tattered raft on the beach, they are reluctant to take him in. He doesn’t look like them. But they cannot send him back to the sea where he will perish. Instead, they put him aside. | 11+ |
| Oranges in No Man’s Land Elizabeth Laird | Since her father left Lebanon to find work and her mother died in a shell attack, Ayesha has been living in the bomb-ravaged city of Beirut with her granny and her two younger brothers. When Granny falls ill, Ayesha sets off on a terrifying journey to reach a doctor living in enemy territory. | 11+ |
| Welcome to Nowhere Elizabeth Laird | Omar was born in the beautiful city of Bosra, Syria. Omar doesn’t care about politics – all he wants is to grow up to become a successful businessman. But when his older brother gets mixed up with some young political activists, everything changes . . . | 11+ |
| Refugee Boy Benjamin Zephaniah | Alem is on holiday with his father for a few days in London. He has never been out of Ethiopia before and is very excited. Until one morning when Alem wakes up in the bed and breakfast they are staying at to find the unthinkable. His father has left him. | 12+ |
| Now is the Time for Running Michael Williams | Deo plays soccer in the dusty fields of Zimbabwe, cheered on by Deo’s older brother, Innocent. It is a day like any other… until the soldiers arrive and Deo and Innocent are forced to run for their lives. | 12+ |
| The Bombs that Brought us Together Brian Conaghan | Charlie has lived in Little Town all his life. He knows the rules: no going out after dark; no drinking; no fighting. When he meets Pavel Duda, a refugee from Old Country, the rules start to get broken. Then the bombs come and change everything. | 12+ |
| Black Mamba Boy Nafida Mohamed | Aden,1935; a city vibrant, alive. And home to Jama, a 10 year-old boy. But when Jama’s mother dies unexpectedly he finds himself alone in the world, forced to return to his native Somalia, where war is on the horizon. | 14+ |
| Children of the Revolution Dinaw Mengestu | Seventeen years after fleeing Ethiopia, Stepha is a man still caught between two existences: the one he left behind and the new life he has forged in Washington. When a white woman named Judith moves next door with her only daughter, Naomi, Sepha’s life seems on the verge of change… | 15+ |
| We Need New Names NoViolet Bulawayo | 10-year old Darling has a choice: it’s down, or out. In a shanty called Paradise, Darling and her friends play and sing Lady Gaga and dream of escape, a dream that comes true for Darling. But her new life in America is far from what she imagined. | 13+ |
| How to Read the Air Dinaw Mengestu | Yosef and Mariam, young Ethiopians set off on a road trip in search of an identity as an American couple. Thirty years later, Yosef has died, and the couple’s son, Jonas, is desperate to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. | 15+ |
| All the Bright Places Jennifer Niven | Finch wants to take his own life. Violet is devastated by her sister’s death. They meet on the ledge of a bell tower, and so their story begins. | 14+ |
| Looking for Alaska John Green | Miles’ life has been a non-event, and he struggles to fit in at boarding school. Then he meets gorgeous, clever, screwed up Alaska and his life is never the same again. | 14+ |
| We were liars E. Lockhart | We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken. A tale of love and romance. A tale of tragedy. Which are lies? Which are truth? You decide. | 13+ |
| Boy Meets Boy David Levithan | Paul is a sophomore at a high school where the cheerleaders ride Harleys and the trans homecoming queen is also the star quarterback. Paul meets a boy, Noah, and falls in love. | 13+ |
| Trouble Non Pratt | Hannah’s smart and funny … she’s also fifteen and pregnant. Aaron is new at school and doesn’t want to attract attention. So why does he offer to be the pretend dad to Hannah’s unborn baby? | 12+ |
| How Hard Can Love Be? Holly Bourne | All Amber wants is a little bit of love. Her mum has never been the caring type. And then there’s prom king Kyle, the guy all the girls want. Can he really be interested in anti-cheerleader Amber? | 13+ |
| Eleanor & Park Rainbow Rowell | Eleanor is the new girl in town. She takes the seat on the bus next to Park. Quiet, careful impossibly cool. Slowly, through late-night conversations, Eleanor and Park fall in love for the first time, the exhilarating way you do when you’re 16. | 14+ |
| Anna and the French Kiss Stephanie Perkins | Anna is less than thrilled to be shipped off to boarding school in Paris, until she meets Etienne St Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Etienne has it all… including a girlfriend. | 13+ |
| The Summer I Turned Pretty Jenny Han | Everything magical happens in the summer. With Jeremiah and Conrad, boys that Belly has known for years that have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. | 12+ |
| Me Before You Jojo Moyes | Lou knows she likes working in the teashop and that she might not love her boyfriend. Will knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. Neither of them knows they’re going to change the other for all time. | 14+ |
| Instructions for a Second-Hand Heart Tamsyn Murray | Jonny tracks down Niamh, the sister of a boy who donated his heart. He intends to find out about her brother, he doesn’t plan on falling in love. | 12+ |
| Flirty Dancing Jenny McLachlan | When a national dance competition comes to her school Bea wants to sign up. But when Ollie, who has a girlfriend, decides to enter with Bea, she has more than a fight on her hands. | 11+ |
| The Loneliest Girl in the Universe Lauren James | Romy is the only surviving member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched with a single passenger on board. A boy called J. | 13+ |
| When We Collided Emery Lord | Jonah has lived his whole life, and only one thing has ever changed: his father was alive and now he’s not. But at the start of summer, a second change rolls in: Vivi, the new girl in town. | 14+ |
| Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens’ Agenda Becky Albertalli | Simon is falling in love with someone he has never seen, ‘Blue’, a boy he met online. The boys are able to discuss their deepest fears and greatest hopes, until Simon is blackmailed. | 14+ |
| Lies we tell ourselves Robin Talley | In 1959, Sarah and Linda, two girls on opposite sides of the civil rights battle, are forced to work together on a school project. They must confront the truth about how they feel about each other. | 13+ |
| Moonlight Dreamers Siobhan Curham | Amber craves adventure. After meeting Maali, Sky and Rose, Amber soon recruits the three girls to the Moonlight Dreamers. How better to pursue your dreams than with the support of friends? | 11+ |
| Why We Broke Up Daniel Handler | Min and Ed are breaking up, so she gives Ed a letter and a box. Inside is a movie ticket, bottle caps, a box of matches, and every other item collected over the course of a heartbreaking relationship. | 11+ |
| Kiss Jacqueline Wilson | Sylvie and Carl have grown up together and Sylvie’s expectation has been that they will marry. However Carl’s growing friendship with Paul, and Sylvie’s with the extrovert Miranda, cause a rift. | 11+ |
| Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell | Set during the American Civil War, Margaret Mitchell’s magnificent historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss, of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. | 13+ |
| Cinder Melissa Meyer | Cinder, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She’s reviled by her stepmother. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen – and a dangerous temptation. | 12+ |
| The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams | It’s an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and his best friend has just announced that he’s an alien. | 12+ |
| I am Legend Richard Matheson | Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth … but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville’s blood. By day he is the hunter, and by night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. | 12+ |
| Journey to the Centre of the Earth Jules Verne | An eccentric professor acquires an ancient book, which leads him and his nephew on an adventure, where they enter an extinct volcano on a daring quest to reach the centre of the Earth. | 13+ |
| 1984 George Orwell | Hidden away in the Record Department of the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. Yet he inwardly rebels against the totalitarian world he lives in. | 14+ |
| The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins | From each District, one female and one male Tribute are forcibly selected for a terrifying reality TV game-show in which contestants fight to the death. But Katniss Everdeen is no ordinary Tribute: she’s used to surviving in the wild and in the unpredictable, hostile arena, she’s not giving up. | 12+ |
| The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham | When a freak event renders most of the Earth’s population blind, Bill is one of the few to retain his sight. But can he stop Triffids, the mobile plants with lethal stingers and carnivorous appetites? | 13+ |
| Mortal Engines Philip Reeve | London is hunting again. The great Traction City is chasing a terrified little town across the wastelands. In the attack, Tom Natsworthy is flung from the speeding city with a murderous scar-faced girl. They must run for their lives through the wreckage — and face a terrifying new weapon that threatens the future of the world. | 11+ |
| War of the Worlds H.G. Wells | No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that across the gulf of space, intellects vast and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. Then, late one night, in the middle of the English countryside, they landed. | 12+ |
| Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick | World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalks, in search of the renegade replicants who are his prey. | 11+ |
| The Player of Games Iain M Banks | The Culture has thrown up many great Game Players, the greatest is Gurgeh. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad to try their new game, a game so complex that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed and attacked, Gurgeh accepts the challenge of his life – and possibly his death. | 11+ |
| Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes | Charlie Gordon is a floor sweeper until an experiment turns him into a genius. But then Algernon, the mouse whose experimental transformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary. | 11+ |
| Maggot Moon Sally Gardner | What if the football hadn’t gone over the wall? On the other side there is a dark secret. And the devil. And the Moon Man. So when Standish makes his way to the other side of the wall, they see what the Motherland has been hiding. And it’s big… | 12+ |
| The Martian Andy Weir | Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there. | 14+ |
| William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Ian Doescher | May the verse be with you! Inspired by one of the greatest creative minds in the English language – and William Shakespeare – here is an officially licensed retelling of George Lucas’ epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. | 11+ |
| Maze Runner James Dashner | When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he’s not alone. He’s surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade – a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. | 13+ |
| Some Other War Linda Newberry | As servants at the Morland family mansion before the summer of 1914, twins Jack and Alice knew their place. When the war came, they knew their duty. As Jack fights on the front line and Alice tends to the wounded, they learn the truth. | 12+ |
| Private Peaceful Michael Morpurgo | Told in the voice of Private Tommo Peaceful, the story follows twenty-four hours at the front, and captures his memories of his family and his village life – by no means as tranquil as it appeared. | 10+ |
| Soldier Dog Sam Angus | With his older brother gone to fight in the Great War, and his father prone to sudden rages, 14year-old Stanley devotes himself to taking care of the family’s greyhound and puppies. Until the morning Stanley wakes to find the puppies gone. | 10+ |
| Stay Where You Are and Then Leave John Boyne | The day the First World War broke out, Alfie’s father promised he wouldn’t go away to fight – but he broke that promise the following day. Four years later, Alfie doesn’t know where his father is, other than that he’s away on a secret mission, but he is determined to rescue him. | 10+ |
| Stories of WW1 Tony Bradman | This collection of short stories chronicles the events of WW1 – imagining the conflicts and emotions of the people caught up in the war and its aftermath. With stories from Malorie Blackman, Geraldine McCaughrean and Oisin McGann. | 11+ |
| War Horse Michael Morpurgo | In the deadly chaos of the ww1, one horse witnesses the reality of battle from both sides of the trenches. One horse has the seen the best and the worst of humanity. The power of war and the beauty of peace. This is his story. | 10+ |
| The Foreshadowing Marcus Sedgwick | It is 1915. Sasha is the only daughter of a respected doctor. Her brothers have gone to war and Sasha has a terrible gift: she can see the future. Her premonitions show horrors on the battlefields of the Somme, and the fate that awaits them. But Sasha is helpless – no one will believe her. | 12+ |
| Valentine Joe Rebecca Stevens | Rose’s granddad takes her on a trip to Ypres to visit the graves of those who died in WW1. Rose can sense the shattered old city and it seems that it can sense her too. That night, she hears the sound of marching feet and glimpses from her window a young soldier on his way to the front line. | 10+ |
| The Secret Message John Townsend | In the attic Sam finds a diary that belonged to his great great grandfather, Freddy. As Sam begins to read it he is taken right back to WW1, and he discovers that there is much more to Freddy than meets the eye – not only heroic wartime deeds and terrible injuries, but also some very dark secrets. | 12+ |
| Line of Fire: Diary of an Unknown Soldier Barroux | One morning, Barroux was walking down a street in Paris when he made an incredible discovery: the diary of a soldier from the WW1. Barroux rescued the diary from a rubbish heap and illustrated the soldier’s words. We don’t know who the soldier is or what became of him. We just have his words. | 10+ |
| Five Children on the Western Front Kate Saunders | An incredible, heart-wrenching sequel to E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It, set on the eve of the First World War. The five children have grown up – the war will change their lives for ever. | 11+ |
| The Year it Ended Kirsty Murray | On Armistice Day 1918 Tiney turns seventeen and it feels as though her life is just beginning. Her brother and his friends are coming home from the War and her sisters are falling in love. But Tiney and her family find that building peace is far more complicated than they could ever have imagined. | 14+ |
| War Song James Riordan | The Great War is raging in France and for girls it is both a liberating and dangerous time. Dorothy risks her life working in the local munitions factory, and Florence dreams of becoming a nurse – but when she heads off to France to nurse the soldiers, she realises that her dream is actually a nightmare. | 11+ |
| My Story: Road to War Valerie Wilding | It’s 1917 when Daffy’s brother goes missing in action. She wants to do something to help win the war and soon finds herself in the mud and horror of the battlefields of France, driving an ambulance transporting the wounded of the trenches. | 10+ |
| Remembrance Theresa Breslin | Scotland, 1915. A group of teenagers meet for a picnic, but the horror of the Great War is soon to tear them away from each other, their friends and the whole village. | 12+ |
| Respect: The Walter Tull Story Michaela Morgan | The inspiring true story of Walter Tull, who overcame a tough childhood in a Children’s Home to become the first black Premier League football player and the first black infantry officer in the British Army. | 12+ |
| The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas John Boyne | Bruno knows nothing of the Holocaust when he moves to where there is no one to play with. Then he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the wire fence and who wears striped pyjamas. | 11+ |
| The Piper Danny Weston | Peter and his little sister are evacuated to an isolated farm. But who are the children dancing to the music they can hear at night? Peter starts to realise that something very sinister is going on. | 13+ |
| The Complete Maus Art Spiegelman | A brutally moving work of art – Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. | 12+ |
| Ausländer Paul Dowswell | When Peter’s parents are killed, he is sent to an orphanage. With his blond hair and blue eyes, a German family is pleased to adopt him. But Peter feels like a foreigner-an auslander-and he is forming his own ideas about what he’s told. | 11+ |
| Once Morris Gleitzman | The story of a young Jewish boy who is determined to escape the orphanage he lives in to save his Jewish parents from the Nazis in the occupied Poland of the Second World War. | 10+ |
| Duty Calls: Dunkirk James Holland | Private Johnny Hawke awakens to artillery fire. Now men and mules lay dead and dying as blood soaks the cobbled streets. But as Hawke prepares to stop the German advance, how will he survive? | 12+ |
| Carrie’s War Nina Bawden | Bombs are falling on London when Carrie and Nick are sent away to Wales where they stay with strict Mr Evans and his timid sister. When Carrie does a terrible thing, will it haunt them all forever? | 10+ |
| Hero on a Bicycle Shirley Hughes | It is 1944 and Italy is occupied by Germany. The Italian resistance has not given up hope, and neither have Paolo and Constanza. But what can two siblings do against a whole army? | 11+ |
| When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit Judith Kerr | One day Anna’s father was missing. Then she and her brother Max were being rushed by their mother, in alarming secrecy, away from everything they knew – right out of Germany. | 11+ |
| Goodnight Mister Tom Michelle Magorian | Willie Beech is evacuated to the country during WW2. A sad, deprived child, he slowly begins to flourish under the care of old Tom Oakley – but his new-found happiness is shattered by a summons from his mother back in London… | 10+ |
| Hitler’s Angel William Osborne | Otto and Leni have escaped from Germany to England. They thought they were safe, but now the British want them to go back. Their mission is to find and kidnap a girl who could bring down Hitler. | 11+ |
| The Winter Horses Philip Kerr | Max, the devoted caretaker of a wildlife reserve, must learn to live with the Nazis who have overrun his land. He must also learn to keep secrets – for there is a girl, Kalinka, who is hiding in the park. | 10+ |
| Hitler’s Canary Sandi Toksvig | It’s April 1940 in Denmark. Bamse is ordered by his father to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. But Bamse and Anton can’t resist playing a few practical jokes on the invading soldiers. | 10+ |
| Salt to the Sea Ruta Sepetys | It’s 1945 and a group of refugees trek across East Prussia, bound together by their desperation to reach the ship that can save them. Four young people, each haunted by their own dark secret, narrate their unforgettable stories. | 15+ |
| The Book Thief Markus Zusak | Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. | 13+ |
| All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr | For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. Her life leads her from Paris to a walled city by the sea, and closer to Werner, a German orphan and part of the Hitler Youth. | 14+ |
| Between Shades of Gray Ruta Sepetys | One night Lina, her mother and brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, and deported to Siberia. Lina doesn’t know if she’ll ever see her father again. But she refuses to give up hope. | 14+ |
| Code Name Verity Elizabeth Wein | When a vital mission goes wrong, Verity is captured by the Gestapo and becomes a prisoner of war. The story begins in ‘Verity’s’ own words, as she writes her account for her captors. | 14+ |
| An Elephant in the Garden Michael Morpurgo | Dresden, 1945. Lizzie’s mother works at the zoo, but when she is told that dangerous animals must be shot before the town is bombed, she moves an elephant into her back garden to save her. | 10+ |
| Blitzcat Robert Westall | She made her way down the cliff, and on to the beach. At the edge of the waves, she stopped. She knew that somewhere ahead was her person, but far, far away. | 10+ |
