Introducing "Sookin' Berries", her collection of stories for younger readers, Jess Smith writes: 'I have been a gatherer of tales for most of my life, and I suppose it all began when I was a wee girl. I shared a home with parents, seven sisters and a shaggy dog. It could be said that I lived a different sort of life from most other children, because 'home' was an old blue bus. We were known as tinkers or travellers, descendants of those who have wandered the highways and by ways of Scotland for...
We Had to Be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport
by Deborah Hopkinson
Sibert Honor author, Deborah Hopkinson, illuminates the true stories of Jewish children who fled Nazi Germany, risking everything to escape to safety on the Kindertransport. Ruth David was growing up in a small village in Germany when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s. Under the Nazi Party, Jewish families like Ruth's experienced rising anti-Semitic restrictions and attacks. Just going to school became dangerous. By November 1938, anti-Semitism er...
Winner of the 2017 Colorado Book Award After her soldier brother is horribly wounded in Afghanistan, Gabriela must honor the vow she made: If anything ever happened to him, she would walk the Camino de Santiago through Spain, making a pilgrimage in his name. The worst part is that the promise stipulates that she must travel with her brother's best friend--a boy she has despised all her life. Her brother is in a coma, and Gabi feels that she has no time to waste, but she is unsure. Will she hes...
A Bridge to the Stars (Joel Gustafsson, #1)
by Henning Mankell
12 year old Joel lives with his father in the cold northern part of Sweden. At night he often sneaks out of his father's house to look for a lonely dog he has seen from his window. On the bridge across the icy river he starts a secret society and has adventures. But one night he discovers that his father's bed is also empty and will have to come terms with his father's new-found love. The harsh reality of Joel's world comes vividly to life and leaves the reader spellbound.
"Fifteen-year-old Lucy discovers that she is a chantress who can perform magic by singing, and the only one who can save England from the control of the dangerous Lord Protector"--Provided by publisher.
Grim Tales - West Country Legends
The Name of the Star (Shades of London, #1)
by Maureen Johnson
Thrilling ghost-hunting teen mystery as modern-day London is plagued by a sudden outbreak of brutal murders that mimic the horrific crimes of Jack the Ripper. "A gorgeously written, chilling, atmospheric thriller. The streets of London have never been so sinister or so romantic." Cassandra Clare, author of THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS Sixteen-year-old American girl Rory has just arrived at boarding school in London when a Jack the Ripper copycat-killer begins terrorising the city....
Whispers Series #1 From the Ghetto (Whispers, #1)
by Kathy Kacer and Sharon McKay
The stories in this book come from behind the walls and barbed wire of Europe's ghettos during the Nazi regime. We hear the voices of young boys and girls as they live with the fear that they might be deported to the death camps at any moment. Theirs are stories of courage and determination, of struggle and resistance. They speak for those who, like them, managed to survive the war. And they speak for those who did not.
In 1939 an eleven-year-old London girl is kidnapped to Time City, a place existing outside the stream of time and manipulating the history of humanity, where she finds the inhabitants facing their worst hour of crisis.
What if everyone you loved was suddenly taken away? Five siblings struggle to stay together as the tides of war threaten to tear them apart. When Germany invades France in the Second World War, the five Laskowski children lose everything: their home, their Jewish community and most devastatingly their parents who are abducted in the night. There is no safe place left for them to evade the Nazis, but they cling together, never certain when the authorities will come for what is left of them. Ins...
How to Fall (Jess Tennant Mysteries, #1) (Jess Tennant)
by Jane Casey
Now with exclusive first chapter from the sequel, BET YOUR LIFE. When fifteen-year-old Freya drowns, everyone assumes she's killed herself, but no-one knows why. Her cousin, Jess Tennant, thinks she was murdered - and is determined to uncover the truth. On a summer visit to sleepy Port Sentinel, Jess (who bears a striking resemblance to her dead cousin) starts asking questions - questions that provoke strong reactions from her friends and family, not to mention Freya's enemies.Everyone is hiding...
For fans of rich and complex historical novels like Girl with a Pearl Earring or Code Name Verity, New York Times bestselling author Laura Malone Elliott delivers the stunning tale of real-life Renaissance woman Ginevra de' Benci, captured forever in Leonardo's first portrait-a painting that broke convention and established the master as a force of artistic honesty. Though rich in beauty, wit, and talent, Ginevra is trapped in an arranged marriage, expected to limit her creativity to household d...
"Which would you choose: a long, quiet life or a short, heroic one? Jesse Serrano has always been drawn to this question, but he's never really had a choice. He's known since birth that a hole in his heart would render his life a short one, whether he likes it or not. As his dying wish, Jesse sends his cousins, best friend, and girlfriend on a trip across Europe--a mysterious mission that seems more harebrained with every leg of the journey. Following Jesse's vague instructions, they trek across...
Grim Tales - Southern England
Grim Tales - Middlesex & Surrey
Welcome to Wonderland - Adventures from Wales
An ordinary girl faces an extraordinary choice in this gripping, coming-of-age tale of secrets and courage set in Nazi Germany, perfect for readers who enjoyed The Book Thief and Beneath a Scarlet Sky.' 'It's terrifying and incredible to think how much of this story is true' Elizabeth Wein, author of Code Name Verity Munich, 1931. Gretchen Muller has been cherished and protected by Adolf Hitler ever since her father, a senior Nazi officer, sacrificed himself to save the life of the Führer. And...
Winner of the CILIP Carnegie Medal.Every summer Quill and his friends are put ashore on a remote sea stac to hunt birds. But this summer, no one arrives to take them home.Surely nothing but the end of the world can explain why they've been abandoned - cold, starving and clinging to life, in the grip of a murderous ocean. How will they survive?'Brilliant, beautiful...as unpredictable as the sea itself' Philip Reeve, author of The Mortal Engines'This is the best book I've read this year. Extraordi...
'Roald Dahl by way of Charles Dickens' - Vox.com The Iremongers have taken up what was not wanted and wanted it. Clod is an Iremonger. He lives in the Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items collected from all over London. At the centre is Heap House, a puzzle of houses, castles, homes and mysteries reclaimed from the city and built into a living maze of staircases and scurrying rats. The Iremongers are a mean and cruel family, robust and hardworking, but Clod has an illness. He can hea...
The Count of Monte Cristo (Count of Monte Cristo, #2)
by Alexandre Dumas
Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, The Count of Monet Cristo recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal.From the Hardcover edition.