A trip to Siberian to study under one of his father's friends helps Vladimir to hone his skills but on his return he must cope with a vampire attack and confront the slayer hired to kill him.
Ben Harvester, begins to discover that he can 'see dead people.' Set in London, Ben and mother have just moved into a new area and both struggling on the meager waitressing wages and tips that her mother receives.
Benny, Nix, Lou, and Lilah journey through a fierce wilderness that was once America searching for the jet they saw months ago, while evading fierce animals and a new kind of zombie.
When a travelling stranger brings disease to the village Peat is blamed and just escapes the mob. Alone and knowing she cannot return to the Overhang Peat travels towards the marshes at the opposite end of the valley.
SUITABLE AGES:
9 to 12
PUBLISHED:
2013
PUBLISHER:
Allen & Unwin
ISBN:
9781743313589
GENRE:
fantasy
CATEGORY:
Novel
THEMES:
Adventure
Storytelling
Survival
Loyalty
Friendship
AWARDS:
Aurealis Award finalist 2013, Younger Readers Book of the Year Award shortlist 2014, Readings Children's Book Prize shortlist 2014, Prime Minister's Literary Awards shortlist 2014
Girl with no name : the incredible true story of a child raised by monkeys
2013
9781743362259
TITLE:
Girl with no name : the incredible true story of a child raised by monkeys
AUTHOR:
Chapman, Marina
Recommendation:
Highly recommended
A young girl is abducted and abandoned in the Colombian jungle. She spends five years living with a family of monkeys before being found and sold into slavery.
Gretchen does not act like a lady much to the disgust of the straitlaced Tobias, but when danger threatens the two must get together with the Lovegrove cousins, Emma and Penelope, to save London.
Marly's life changes when her Uncle Beng, Aunty Tam and cousins Tuyet and DaWei, Vietnamese refugees who fled to Hong Kong, arrive to live at her house.
Stamp and James are on the road again and they've brought their new friend Ace along. There's a bushfire coming to the town of Jasper, and the local vet has his hands full. Will James, Stamp and Ace be able to save all the town pets in Jasper?
An elephant on a bus, what next? Well try a monkey in a shopping trolley or a tiger on a train, a camel in a sailing boat, and a taxi driven by a seal.
Hazel is a self-proclaimed, relentlessly focused spy-catcher who uses small hints, clues and fabrication to create a portfolio of evidence against potential spies.
Captured by the Nazis during the Second World War, two orphaned sisters are forced to take divergent paths. Larissa's story was documented by Marsha Skrypuch in Stolen Child (2010). In Making Bombs for Hitler (2015), the author details the experiences of Larissa's older sister, Lida. This companion novel is a testament to the legions of young Ostarbeiters, mostly Ukrainian; who were captured, worked and starved, during the war.
Somewhere in the Arctic Circle SHADOW agents have set up a laboratory to make copies of every world currency. Emma's skills in solving codes are called upon to help find the hidden location. Solving the present day mission and one that occurred nine months earlier in Sweden are mysteriously linked.
Jack finds some new acquaintances readily, but when he holds their pet mouse the animal inexplicably dies. He is distraught, even going as far as administering mouse to mouse resuscitation.
A captain at twenty, in charge of the Chloe and the Snout, Dow determines to find new lands for the refugees, men, women and children, who have trusted him with their lives. To them, he is Dow Amber, the legend, the myth and the inspiration.
With Dad leaving home to go on the road to look for work, twelve year old Daniel is the man of the house, charged with looking out for his mother and two sisters, Adelaide and Lydia. It is The Depression in Australia and Daniel's father, like many other men, has lost his job and so must search for work away from home.
Orr depicts, in vivid and often painful detail, the struggle for individuals and families trying to cope with life, revealing the emotional responses to death, divorce, inter-racial tension and disillusionment. He centres his vignettes on the essential qualities of being human, particularly focusing on the generosity, love, respect and loyalty that are at the basis of being human.
The funny and heartfelt journey of a father raising his six children off-the-grid. In the American wilderness, Ben teaches his kids survival skills and home-schools them with a challenging curriculum and a healthy does of anarchy. When tragedy strikes and the family is forced to leave their self-created paradise, Ben begins to question the choices he has made for his family. (From container)
SUITABLE AGES:
M
PUBLISHED:
2016
PUBLISHER:
Electric City Entertainment
GENRE:
family
CATEGORY:
Novel
THEMES:
Family life
Survival
Parent and child
Parental behaviour
Social isolation
Home schooling
Russell, Rachel Renee
Middle school mayhem
2017
9781471164279
TITLE:
Middle school mayhem
AUTHOR:
Russell, Rachel Renee
Recommendation:
Recommended
Max is desperately trying to find his dad's lost comic book and stop three thugs determined to steal the school's computers.
A small book full of fun activities (quizzes, puzzles, drawings, etc) related to space. As such it is not a text book, but a fun and interesting way for children to learn facts and concepts related to space.
Tarin is weak and has a deformed leg. He disturbs the mammoth hunt and is sentenced to exile by the elders, tasked with taking an offering to the Earth Mother.
SUITABLE AGES:
8 to 12
PUBLISHED:
2017
PUBLISHER:
Puffin Books
ISBN:
9780143309376
SERIES:
Tarin of the mammoths ; 1
GENRE:
fantasy
CATEGORY:
Novel
THEMES:
Prehistoric peoples
Ice age
Voyages and travels
Prehistory
Humans
Resilience
Courage
Disability
AWARDS:
Younger Readers Book of the Year Award Notable Books 2018, Readings Children's Book Prize 2018
Rachel Matthews constructs a narrative that is engendered in the opening story of a 16 year old girl, Jordi, who is seduced by a footballer. Taken back to his apartment, with others, she takes part in a sexual act that seems to be acceptable at first but, because she is not in a state to agree, and she does not acquiesce, it is rape.
Tildy knew there were monsters. They sailed in from outside and hid behind the curtains. Moonlight brought them in. Tildy hated moonlight. Mum and Dad said there were no such things.
A soulful and heartwarming story about what happens when a pavement artist's drawing comes to life. Barnaby is a pavement artist. This morning he started drawing me. I have a head that can think, eyes that can see, ears that can hear and legs that can run. Best of all, I have a heart that can feel. Thank you, Barnaby. (Publisher)
Big box, little box. Hey, that's not a bed box. My box, your box. Snore box. How many ways can a cat interact with a box? This cat will entrance young readers as it investigates every box it can - and makes a mouse friend along the way.
Mia is a 13-year-old girl from a remote community in the Kimberley. She is saddened by the loss of her brother as he distances himself from the family. She feels powerless to change the things she sees around her - until one day she rescues her totem animal, the dirran black cockatoo, and soon discovers her own inner strength.
SUITABLE AGES:
11 to 14
PUBLISHED:
2018
PUBLISHER:
Magabala Books
ISBN:
9781925360707
CATEGORY:
Novel
THEMES:
Aboriginal peoples
Family relations
Family relationship
Identity
Bullying
AWARDS:
Younger Readers Book of the Year Award Notable Books 2019
The Poppa Platoon are on another dangerous mission. They must sneak into Wibbly the Cheeky Wizard's spooky all-you-can-eat family restaurant. They must eat as much as they can, as fast as they can, but still leave plenty of room for dessert. Then they must get out of there without being captured by a very spooky enemy - Wibbly the Cheeky Wizard himself. (Publisher)
Sybel, the beautiful great-granddaughter of the wizard Heald, has grown up on Eld Mountain with only the fantastic beasts summoned there by wizardry as companions. She cares nothing for humans until, when she is 16, a baby is brought for her to raise, a baby who awakens emotions that she has never known before.
Using state-of-the-art equipment, a group of activists, led by renowned dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, infiltrate a cove near Taijii, Japan to expose both a shocking instance of animal abuse and a serious threat to human health.
Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn't pray and defies teachers' orders.
SUITABLE AGES:
14 to 18
PUBLISHED:
2019
PUBLISHER:
Allen & Unwin
ISBN:
9781760524814
GENRE:
school
CATEGORY:
Novel
THEMES:
Adolescents
Friendship
Books
Missing persons
Church schools
Christian schools
Comparative texts
Bullying
Class divisions
Class text suggestion
AWARDS:
Best Fiction for Young Adults 2020, Older Readers Book of the Year Notable Books 2020, Prime Minister's Literary Award shortlist 2020
This book gives you a beginner's tour of our whole planet and beyond, explains key parts of society and how they work together, delves into shared human history (including Aboriginal culture) and explores the ins and outs of common machines. (Publisher)
Jarli has lost a day. His missing memories may reveal the identity of Viper - who just announced a plan to destroy the town of Kelton. Meanwhile, Doug is trapped in Viper's hidden prison. (Publisher)
Now pushing fifty, Murray Whelan is spinning his wheels in parliament, a toothless cog in a stalled political machine. The millennium is coming but the prospect of Labor regaining power is utterly remote. But when the remains of a long-dead union official are found in dried-up Lake Nillahcootie, Murray soon gets sucked into murky waters.
First with your head and then with your heart . . . So says Hoppie Groenewald, boxing champion, to a seven-year-old boy who dreams of being the welterweight champion of the world. For the young Peekay, its a piece of advice he will carry with him throughout his life.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Colour Purple by A. Walker, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith by T. Keneally, Things Fall Apart by C. Achebe, Cry Frredom by J. Briley
In 1945, as the war in Germany nears its violent end, the Huber family is not yet free of its dangers or its insidious demands. Etta, a mother from a small, rural town, has two sons serving their home country: her elder, Max, on the Eastern front, and her younger, Georg, at a school for Hitler Youth. When Max returns from the front, Etta quickly realizes that something is not right-he is thin, almost ghostly, and behaving very strangely.
