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Showing posts from April, 2019

SLA Information Book Award 2019 Long List

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The longlisted titles for the SLA Information Book Award 2019 have been announced. The longlisted titles for each category are as follows: Up to 7 The Big Book of Blue, Yuval Zommer Dogs in Space, Vix Southgate and Iris Deppe Hello Horse, Vivian French and Catherine Rayner Peek and Seek, Violet Petu and Charlotte Milner Same Sex Parents, Holly Duhig Secret of the Egg, Nicola Davies and Abbie Cameron This Drop of Water, Anna Claybourne and Sally Garland The Usborne Book of the Night Time, Laura Cowan and Bonnie Pang We’re All Works of Art, Mark Sperring and Rose Blake What’s Worrying You, Molly Potter and Sarah Jennings 7 to 12 A Cat’s Guide to The Night Sky, Stuart Atkinson and Brendan Kearney The Atlas of Heroes, Sandra Lawrence and Stuart Hill Dot. Common Sense, Ben Hubbard and Beatriz Casto Everest, Sanyma Francis and Lisk Feng Eye Spy, Guilluame Duprat, translated by Patrick Skipworth Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor, Patricia Valdez and Felicity Sala The Legend

KS4 LRC Book Recommendation - More Than This by Patrick Ness

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From two-time Carnegie Medal winner Patrick Ness comes an enthralling and provocative new novel chronicling the life - or perhaps afterlife - of a teen trapped in a crumbling, abandoned world. A boy called Seth drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments, losing his life as the pounding sea claims him. But then he wakes. He is naked, thirsty, starving. But alive. How is that possible? He remembers dying, his bones breaking, his skull dashed upon the rocks. So how is he is here? And where is this place? It looks like the suburban English town where he lived as a child, before an unthinkable tragedy happened and his family moved to America. But the neighbourhood around his old house is overgrown, covered in dust and completely abandoned. What's going on? And why is it that whenever he closes his eyes, he falls prey to vivid, agonising memories that seem more real than the world around him? Seth begins a search for answers, hoping that he might not be alone, that this mi

KS3 LRC Book Recommendation - Wonder by R J Palacio

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I know I’m not an ordinary kid. I mean, sure, I do ordinary things. I eat ice-cream. I ride my bike. I play ball. I have an Xbox. Stuff like that makes me ordinary. I guess. And I feel ordinary. Inside. But I know ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. I know ordinary kids don’t get stared at wherever they go. Author Raquel Jaramillo, who wrote  Wonder  under the pen name R.J. Palacio, is a one-time book cover designer and a mother of two boys. It was the act of buying ice cream with one of those boys that lead to her writing the story of Auggie Pullman, when she became anxious about her son’s possible reaction to the visible facial differences of a little girl in the queue. Her book is an emotional, important tale of a 10-year-old boy with ‘mandibulofacial dysotosis’ or ‘Treacher-Collins syndrome’ – or in plain English ‘rare facial birth disfigurement’. Auggie has had 27 operations, yet his first foray into school life, having been h

KS4/Adult LRC Book Recommendation - The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

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On the eve of her ninth birthday, Rose Edelstein bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the slice. All at once her cheerful, can-do mother tastes of despair and desperation. Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes perilous. Anything can be revealed at any meal. Rose's gift forces her to confront the truth behind her family's emotions - her mother's sadness, her father's detachment and her brother's clash with the world. But as Rose grows up, she learns that there are some secrets even her taste buds cannot discern. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is about the pain of loving those whom you know too much about, and the secrets that exist within every family.

KS5/Adult LRC Book Recommendation - Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell

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Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different to our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.  In this richly-illustrated and unusual history, Jack Hartnell uncovers the fascinating ways in which people thought about, explored and experienced their physical selves in the Middle Ages, from Constantinople to Cairo and Canterbury.  Unfolding like a medieval pageant, and filled with saints, soldiers, caliphs, queens, monks and monstrous beasts, it throws light on the medieval body from head to toe - revealing the surprisingly sophisticated medical knowledge of the time in the process.  Bringing together medicine, art, music, politics, philosop

KS3 LRC Book Recommendation - Warrior Cats by Erin Hunter

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Take your first steps into the wilderness with Rusty the house cat as he leaves his home to go and live in the wild. A thrilling new feline fantasy series that draws you into a vivid animal world. When `kittypet' Rusty strays into the forest beyond his owner's garden and is ambushed by a wild cat, life as he knows it is over. After a brave fight, he is invited to leave the `twoleg' world and join Thunderclan, one of four cat tribes, to train as a warrior. Rusty becomes Firepaw and learns laws of the wild - hunting and fighting to protect the clan's survival. When the fearsome Shadowclan threaten Thunderclan's territory his warrior skills are put to the test. But how can he protect the clan when he suspects their own deputy of trechery?

KS4 LRC Book Recommendation - The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare and Wesley Chu

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From #1 New York Times bestseller Cassandra Clare and award-winner Wesley Chu comes the first book in a new series that follows High Warlock Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood as they tour the world after the Mortal War.  The Red Scrolls of Magic   is a Shadowhunters novel. All Magnus Bane wanted was a vacation—a lavish trip across Europe with Alec Lightwood, the Shadowhunter who against all odds is finally his boyfriend. But as soon as the pair settles in Paris, an old friend arrives with news about a demon-worshipping cult called the Crimson Hand that is bent on causing chaos around the world. A cult that was apparently founded by Magnus himself. Years ago. As a joke. Now Magnus and Alec must race across Europe to track down the Crimson Hand and its elusive new leader before the cult can cause any more damage. As if it wasn’t bad enough that their romantic getaway has been sidetracked, demons are now dogging their every step, and it is becoming harder to tell friend from foe. As t

KS3 LRC Recommended Reading List 2019/2020

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Classic Titles                                              Historical Fiction    Title Author Title Author The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Code Name Verity Elizabeth Wein King Solomon’s Mines H Rider Haggard The Call of the Wild Jack London Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte My Name’s not Friday Jon Walter Treasure Island R L Stevenson War Horse Michael Morpurgo The Time Machine H G Wells The Book Thief Markus Zusak War of the Worlds H G Wells Five Children on the Western Front Kate Saunders Animal Farm George Orwell Hetty Feather Jacqueline Wilson Great Expectations Charles Dickens The Way of the Warrior Chris Bradford The Adventures of