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Showing posts from January, 2020

KS5/Adult LRC Book Recommendation - The Second Life Of Ava Rivers by Faith Gardner

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Ava's disappearance was the crack in the Rivers family glacier. I wish I could explain to you how we were before, but I can't, because the before is so filmy and shadowed with the after. The after is all Vera remembers. When her twin sister, Ava, disappeared one Halloween night, her childhood became a blur of theories, tips, and leads, but never any answers. The case made headlines, shocked Vera's Northern California community, and turned her family into tragic celebrities.  Now, at eighteen, Vera is counting down the days until she starts her new life at college in Portland, Oregon, far away from the dark cloud she and family have lived under for twelve years. But all that changes when a girl shows up at the local hospital. Her name is Ava Rivers and she wants to go home. Ava's return begins to mend the fractures in the Rivers family. Vera and Ava's estranged older brother returns. Vera reconnects with Max, the sweet, artistic boy from her childhood. Their

KS4 LRC Book Recommendation - Watch Us Rise by Renee Watson

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A stirring and unputdownable read about what it means to be a woman today.  Perfect for fans of Moxie and The Hate U Give.  Jasmine and Chelsea are best friends on a mission. Sick of the way that young women are treated even at their 'progressive' New York City high school, they decide to start a Women's Rights Club. One problem - no one shows up. That hardly stops them. They start posting everything from videos of Chelsea performing her poetry to Jasmine's response to being reduced to a racist and sexist stereotype in the school's theatre department. And soon, they've gone viral, creating a platform they never could've predicted. With such positive support, the Women's Rights Club is also targeted by trolls. But Jasmine and Chelsea won't let their voices - or those of the other young women in their city - be silenced.  They'll risk everything to be heard and effect change ... but at what cost?

KS3 LRC Book Recommendation - Ghost - RUN SERIES 1 by Jason Reynolds

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Running. That's all Ghost (real name Castle Cranshaw) has ever known. But Ghost has been running for the wrong reasons -until he meets Coach, an ex-Olympic Medallist who sees something in Ghost: crazy natural talent. If Ghost can stay on track, literally and figuratively, he could be the best sprinter in the city. Can Ghost harness his raw talent for speed, or will his past finally catch up to him? Read the Run series: Ghost. Lu. Patina. Sunny. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school running team-a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. They all have a lot to lose and a lot to prove. Not only to each other, but to themselves.

KS5/Adult LRC Book Recommendation - I am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist

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A supernatural super thriller from the author of  Let the Right One In Molly wakes her mother to go to the toilet. The campsite is strangely blank. The toilet block has gone. Everything else has gone too. This is a place with no sun. No god. Just four families remain. Each has done something to bring them here - each denies they deserve it. Until they see what's coming over the horizon, moving irrevocably towards them. Their worst mistake. Their darkest fear. And for just one of them, their homecoming. This gripping conceptual horror takes you deep into one of the most macabre and unique imaginations writing in the genre. On family, on children, Lindqvist writes in a way that tears the heart and twists the soul.   I Am Behind You   turns the world upside down and, disturbing, terrifying and shattering by turns, it will suck you in.

KS4 LRC Book Recommendation - I'm Not Dying with You Tonight by Gilly Segal and Kimberly Jones

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Over the course of one night, two girls with two very different backgrounds must rely on each other to get through the violent race riot that has enveloped their city. Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she's going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school. When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together. They aren't friends. They hardly understand the other's point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames, and they only have each other to rely on if they're going to survive the night.

KS3 LRC Book Recommendation - Rumblestar - The Unmapped Chronicles 1 by Abi Elphinstone

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Adventures are unpredictable and often terribly badly behaved - a bit like pickled onions if you've ever tried to fork one on a plate - but they have a way of unlocking people and turning them upside down so that all the astonishing things fizzing around inside them start to tumble out... Eleven-year-old Casper Tock hates risks, is allergic to adventures and shudders at the thought of unpredictable events. So, it comes as a nasty shock to him when he accidentally stumbles into Rumblestar, an Unmapped Kingdom full of magical beasts. All Casper wants is to find a way home, but Rumblestar is in trouble. An evil harpy called Morg is sending her followers, the Midnights, into the kingdom to wreak havoc and pave the way for her to steal the Unmapped magic for herself. But Casper cannot turn a blind eye because the future of his own world, he discovers, is bound up with that of the Unmapped Kingdoms. And so, together with Utterly Thankless, a girl who hates rules and is allergic

KS5/Adult LRC Book Recommendation - The Outsider by Stephen King

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When an eleven-year-old boy is found murdered in a town park, reliable eyewitnesses undeniably point to the town's popular Little League coach, Terry Maitland, as the culprit. DNA evidence and fingerprints confirm the crime was committed by this well-loved family man. Horrified by the brutal killing, Detective Ralph Anderson, whose own son was once coached by Maitland, orders the suspect to be arrested in a public spectacle. But Maitland has an alibi. And further research confirms he was indeed out of town that day. As Anderson and the District Attorney trace the clues, the investigation expands from Ohio to Texas. And as horrifying answers begin to emerge, so King's propulsive story of almost unbearable suspense kicks into high gear. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy but there is one rock-hard fact, as unassailable as gravity: a man cannot be in two places at the same time. Can he?

KS4 LRC Book Recommendation - The Harm Tree by Rose Edwards

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Often lyrical, and always entertaining, this Norse-vibed YA debut has friendship, fear and coming-of-age conundrums at its heart.  It tells the tale of a land ransacked by a civil war that saw a new religion and younger prince replace a brutal old regime. Some nine years later, in peacetime, friends Torny and Ebba remember nothing of the war, or life before the uprising. But with their land on the brink of fresh upheaval, the unforgettable female protagonists find themselves on separate tracks, with painful, testing, relentless repercussions. With a cast of characters that includes gods and spirits, shamans and magic-workers, the world-building is fabulous, and the dual narrative device (it alternates between Torny and Ebba) really adds to the drama and tension. Fantasy fans will be delighted to hear that a sequel is on its way.

KS3 LRC Book Recommendation - Race to the Frozen North - The Matthew Henson Story by Catherine Johnson

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Matthew Henson was simply an ordinary man. That was, until Commander Robert E. Peary entered his life, and offered him a chance at true adventure. Henson would become navigator, craftsman, translator, and right-hand man on a treacherous journey to the North Pole.  Defying the odds and the many prejudices that faced him to become a true pioneer. This is his incredible and often untold story. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant or dyslexic readers.

KS5/Adult LRC Weekly Book Recommendation - Chernobyl - History of a Tragedy by Serhii Plokhy

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From an outstanding shortlist, Serhii Plokhy’s charged and impeccably-researched history of the Chernobyl disaster emerged as the triumphant winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2018. In Serhii Plokhy’s riveting account, the tragedy becomes emblematic of the decline of the Soviet state itself, from the complacency that led to the disaster, to the massive underestimation of its political and human aftermath. Sobering and gripping, the volume stands as a powerful testimony to the terrible consequences of national hubris. Winner of the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2019 Winner of the Ballie Gifford Prize 2018 On 26 April 1986 at 1.23am a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded. While the authorities scrambled to understand what was occurring, workers, engineers, firefighters and those living in the area were abandoned to their fate. The blast put the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation, contaminating over half of E

KS4 LRC Weekly Book Recommendation - Snowflake, AZ by Marcus Sedgwick

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A timely, contemporary novel challenging ideas around health - our own and our planet's - and the stigma that persists around illness, by Printz Medallist and internationally bestselling novelist, Marcus Sedgwick. Ash has lived in eight states in as many years. Mom has gone walkabout, but stepdad Jack is like a father, and stepbrother Bly the best anyone could wish for. When Bly goes missing too, Ash sets off to search for him - and finds something much bigger: the sickness of the world. Arriving in Snowflake, Arizona, Ash discovers Bly living with a community 6000 feet high in the wide red desert. They call themselves the Canaries and all suffer from some kind of environmental illness. They are ostracised by modern society, as it continues to ignore climate change, global warming and so much more of our self-inflicted poisoning of the planet. When Ash takes ill, the doctor's response is, 'it's all in your mind'. In a story spanning seven years with triumph

KS3 LRC Weekly Book Recommendation - The Night Spinner by Abi Elphinstone

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Deep within Tanglefern Forest,  Moll Pecksniff  and her wildcat,  Gryff , are waiting for a sign from the Old Magic before they continue their quest to find the last  Amulet of Truth  and free their world from the  Shadowmasks'  terrible magic. Still missing fellow Tribe member,  Alfie , and armed only with a mysterious set of clues, Moll sets out on an adventure across the northern wilderness with Gryff and her friend  Siddy  at her side. They must brave the Lost Isles, scale the Barbed Peaks and face witches, goblins and giants who lurk at every turn . . . while the Shadowmasks draw ever closer. Can Moll, Siddy and Gryff find the friend they think they have lost? And do the  Tribe  have what it takes to defeat the  Dark magic  once and for all? Catapult into this page-turning adventure from the author of  Sky Song , perfect for fans of J.K. Rowling, Michelle Harrison and Eva Ibbotson.