Oaks Park LRC

Somerset , 1809: a ravaged soldier drags himself across the threshold of his home, destined to perish were it not the efforts of his housekeeper to save him. This is Captain John Lacroix, a combatant of the Peninsular War, a man shattered by something so unspeakable his only instinct is to flee from himself. With his healing comes command to return to his regiment: instead, Lacroix chooses the Hebrides. Meanwhile, across the moors and fields follow his possible nemesis: the English corporal Calley and a Spanish officer by the name of Medina, under secret orders. An atrocity was committed on the British retreat to Corunna, and justice must be delivered. Lacroix is unaware of this fresh danger, consumed only by his blighted past and his current action of treason. Soon, the paths of these men must converge, and the moment of reckoning will be upon them all.

Inspired by the true stories of animals in the Second World War,  The Umbrella Mouse  follows furry hero Pip, as she undertakes a perilous journey across Europe in search of her family, aided by a courageous band of resistance fighters, known as Noah’s Ark. A daring, heart-stopping story of courage and comradeship in conflict, that is stunningly brought to life with illustrations by Sam Usher. A timeless tale of courage, resistance and friendship,   The Umbrella Mouse  is a heart-stopping adventure drawing on the true stories of animals caught in the conflict of WWII. 1944, and London is under attack. Young mouse Pip Hanway's safe and quiet world is turned upside down when her home, umbrella shop James Smith & Sons, is destroyed by a bomb. Orphaned and alone, she must begin a perilous quest to find a new home. But the only way to get there is by joining Noah's Ark, a secret gang of animals fighting the resistance in France, operating beneath the feet of th

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Shatter Me series comes a powerful, heartrending contemporary YA novel about fear, first love, and the devastating impact of prejudice. It's 2002, a year after 9/11, and Shirin has just started at yet another new high school. It's an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who's tired of being stereotyped.  Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She's tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments - even the physical violence she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day.  Shirin drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother. But then she meets Ocean James. He's the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know her. It terrifies her -they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds - and Shirin has had her guard up against the worl

The Lost Words  is a very special illustrated collection of spell-poems to re-wild the language of children. All over the country, there are words disappearing from children's lives. These are the words of the natural world - Dandelion, Otter, Bramble and Acorn, all gone. The rich landscape of wild imagination and wild play is rapidly fading from our children's minds. This work stands against the disappearance of wild childhood. It is a joyful celebration of nature words and the natural world they invoke. Assembled in acrostic spell-poems by the peerless wordsmith that is Robert Macfarlane and illuminated by Jackie Morris’ unparalleled skill in rendering the natural world,  The Lost Words  is a volume to be treasured forever. The book – standing some two feet high and over 130 pages – will almost be as monumental as the world it describes, a fitting thing of beauty to arrest the decline of a language and experience that are both so quickly fading away.

The Poet X  is a raw, effervescent debut novel about the power of language and speaking your own truth. Written entirely in verse, this Waterstones Children’s Book Prize nominee follows the trials and tribulations of Xiomara, a teenager growing up in a tough Harlem neighbourhood, and her creative release in the world of slam poetry. Winner the  CILIP Carnegie Medal 2019 Winner of the 2018 National Book Award Xiomara has always kept her words to herself. When it comes to standing her ground in her Harlem neighbourhood, she lets her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But X has secrets - her feelings for a boy in her bio class, and the notebook full of poems that she keeps under her bed. And a slam poetry club that will pull those secrets into the spotlight. Because in spite of a world that might not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to stay silent. A novel about finding your voice and standing up for what you believe in, no matter how hard it is to say. Brave,

Laki is Iceland's largest volcano.  Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great, untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years.  It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe.  Island on Fire is the story not only of a single eruption but the people whose lives it changed, the dawn of modern volcanology, as well as the history and potential of other super-volcanoes like Laki around the world. And perhaps most pertinently, in the wake of the eruption of another Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, which closed European air space in 2010, acclaimed science writers Witze and Kanipe look at what might transpire should Laki erupt again in our lifetime.

It is worse, much worse, than you think. The slowness of climate change is a fairy tale, perhaps as pernicious as the one that says it isn't happening at all, and if your anxiety about it is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. Over the past decades, the term "Anthropocene" has climbed into the popular imagination - a name given to the geologic era we live in now, one defined by human intervention in the life of the planet. But however sanguine you might be about the proposition that we have ravaged the natural world, which we surely have, it is another thing entirely to consider the possibility that we have only provoked it, engineering first in ignorance and then in denial a climate system that will now go to war with us for many centuries, perhaps until it destroys us. In the meantime, it will remake us, transforming every aspect of the way we l

Sally Jones is not only a loyal friend, she's an extraordinary individual. In overalls or in a maharaja's turban, this unique gorilla moves among humans without speaking but understanding everything. She and the Chief are devoted comrades who operate a cargo boat. A job they are offered pays big bucks, but the deal ends badly, and the Chief is falsely convicted of murder. For Sally Jones this is the start of a harrowing quest for survival and to clear the Chief's name. Powerful forces are working against her, and they will do anything to protect their secrets.‘I don’t know,’ wrote Philip Pullman, ‘when I last read a book with such pure and unalloyed pleasure.’ Her tale painstakingly delivered via an old Underwood typewriter, prepare to be utterly enchanted by the misadventures of Sally Jones. Stunning illustrations and wild but thoughtful adventure make for a captivating read.

Cat is knocked down by a speeding fire truck whilst crossing 55th St and 3rd Ave in Central Manhattan. She wakes in a world made from all the books her grandfather used to read to her, peopled by some of the most memorable heroes of classic adventure fiction, brought vividly to life. Cat must earn their friendship and help as she begins an odyssey and epic quest to find the mythic Castle at the World's End. And the name of that distant, mythic, wave-tumbled fastness? It is, of course, the castle of Far Rockaway. If you enjoy reading good books; swashbuckling adventures with sword fights and pirates - then  Far Rockaway  is the book for you. Join Cat as she embarks on the journey of a lifetime.

By the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. Ryder, a renowned pianist, arrives in a Central European city he cannot identify for a concert he cannot remember agreeing to give. But then as he traverses a landscape by turns eerie and comical - and always strangely malleable, as a dream might be - he comes steadily to realise he is facing the most crucial performance of his life.  Ishiguro's extraordinary and original study of a man whose life has accelerated beyond his control was met on publication by consternation, vilification - and the highest praise. About Kazuo Ishiguro Recipient of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nagasaki-born Kazuo Ishiguro’s writing career began with 1982’s acclaimed novel  A Pale View of Hills . His third book, 1989’s  The Remains of the Day , firmly secured his reputation as a writer with an unparalleled control of character and nuance; its standing was later confirmed by winning the Booker Prize for

In the exciting second Warriors story arc, the wild cats of the forest have lived in peace and harmony for many moons - but new prophecies from their warrior ancestors speak of a mysterious destiny and grave danger for the clans. Now the time has come for a new generation of heroes to arise, as the quest to save the warrior cats begins... Darkness, air, water, and sky will come together and shake the forest to its roots... The wild cats of the forest have lived in peace and harmony for many moons - but a doom that will change everything is coming. Strange messages from their warrior ancestors speak of terrifying new prophecies, danger, and a mysterious destiny. All the signs point to young warrior Brambleclaw as the cat with the fate of the forest in his paws. But why would the son of wicked cat Tigerstar be chosen to be a hero? And who are the other cats mentioned in the prophecy? All Brambleclaw knows for sure is that the strength and courage of the greatest warriors will b