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Bittersweet and sometimes hilarious – solace of the road

Solace of the Road

~ Siobhan Dowd

Holly’s story will leave a lasting impression on all who travel with her.

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

Buy from Amazon

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Brilliant, hugely ambitious, and life changing – The Book Thief

The Book Thief 

by Marcus Zusak


  • Format:  560 pages
  • Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers;
  • Published:  March 14, 2006
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375831003

Reading level: Young Adult

 Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it,The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA 
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Markus Zusak talks about the writing of The Book Thief

Pre Reading Activities

Book Club discussion notes

Reading Group Guide - discussion questions

Marcus Zusak talks about writing The Book Thief



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A Gripping thriller from Sophie McKenzie

Winner of the Red House Children's Book Awards

A Kid's Review

fab book
u can't put the book down, i have read all her other books and this is the best so far...

Read a synopsis here

Buy the book here

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Coming soon – the second in the Hunger games series – the deadly cost of victory

"In the bristling thriller CATCHING FIRE, two young heroes win the horrifying--and mandatory--Hunger Games, thereby becoming targets of a Government bent on maximum revenge."

Read the first chapter (PDF)

Watch the video

Listen to the author read a chapter

Play the games

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Another great read for teenagers/young adults: The Awakening

The AwakeningThe Awakening

by Kelley Armstrong

(The darkest Powers.  Book 2)

Genetically altered at birth by a sinister group of scientists, Chloe is an aberration - a powerful necromancer who can see ghosts and even raise the dead, often with terrifying consequences. Now Chloe is running for her life with three other supernatural teenagers - a charming sorcerer, a troubled werewolf and a temperamental young witch.


... Watch a video trailer of The Awakening and

Read the first 10 chapters ....

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Ghosts of War – an interview


  • Army Reservist Ryan Smithson was only 19 when he went to Iraq as an engineer, and the experience haunted him for years. Smithson ended up writing a college essay about one of his first missions there, which not only impressed his professor—but also led to Smithson’s first book, Ghosts of War: My Tour of Duty. (HarperTeen, 2008). more » » »
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    ‘Little Brother’ Takes a Bow at Chicago Theater


    Little Brother, the futuristic tale of teen-techno-revolution in a dystopian San Francisco by journalist/blogger Cory Doctorow, has done well since its release last May by Tor Teen. It received excellent reviews, has sold 90,000 copies to date, was nominated for a Hugo Award, and movie rights were recently optioned to producer Don Murphy. Now Little Brother has been adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Griffin Theatre Company. more » » »

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    Simon & Schuster Launches Teen Networking Site


    Simon & Schuster's children's division has launched Pulse It, a social network site where teens can read and react to S&S titles. The site is aimed at 14- to 18-year-olds and will let teens do things they can do on such places as Facebook—like create personal profiles and befriend other members—as well as read and react to S&S titles. more » » »

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    About the Teens’ Top Ten

    Teens' Top Ten is a "teen choice" list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year! Nominators are members of teen book groups in fifteen school and public libraries around the country. Nominations are posted in April during National Library Week, and teens across the country vote on their favorite titles each year during Teen Read Week. Readers aged twelve to eighteen can vote right here, online, anytime that week.

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    Book – The Devouring

    The Devouring

    By Billy Carton

    When Reggie finds an old journal and reads about the Vours, supernatural creatures who feast on fear and attack on the eve of the winter solstice, she assumes they are just the musings of some lunatic author. But soon, they become a terrifying reality when she begins to suspect that her timid younger brother might be one of their victims.

    more .... Amazon ...eBook