Written by Gary D Schmidt (Penguin) Guest reviewed by Aimee (13) Orbiting Jupiter is a heartwarming story about a teenage boy called Joseph, who has a baby. Joseph moves in with a foster family but all he can think about is meeting his daughter. The story is told from...
An award winning book about a young girl called Annabelle coming of age during the 2nd world war. While the war rages she deals with a much closer threat – a bully who manipulates her way into their community and rips it apart.
Letters to the Lost is a beautifully written exploration of grief, loss and acceptance explored through the lives of two very different teens – Juliet who has lost her mother, and Declan who has lost his sister.
Do you wish there were more books about kick-ass female role models to share with your kids? Superwoman is all well and good but Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls is the real deal. Real women doing extraordinary and inspiring things.
Freak the Mighty is a popular middle grade novel, about two unusual boys and their friendship. Max is a slow learner stuck in the body of a teenage giant and Kevin (Freak) is a small boy with a near genius brain stuck in leg braces. Our reviewer compares which is better – the book or movie version?
This is the mixed-up summer that twelve-year-old June Farrell learns about making the best pies and sticking by her family – even if it means facing bullying and shame.
Gary, John, and their dad are lost without their mum, who died in a car accident. Fourteen-year old Gary feels locked in his own pain which is made worse by his falling grades at school and his inability to come to terms with his mum’s death. He begins to go off the rails, getting involved with local thugs and teetering on the brink of being on the wrong side of the law.
We can’t wait for this debut novel about a young girl who discovers a love for running in the midst of a family tragedy. Wing Jones is a young girl in a mixed-race family who deals with her brother’s accident by searching for an escape.
Confession: I read this book over a year ago but I didn’t feel up to writing a review because the subject matter – the angst of raising teenagers – felt too raw, too real for me at the time. You see I was a new mom of a teenager. I’d been teenagered.
What can one young girl do in the face of Islamophobia and ignorance? How do we work out what’s right and wrong in an increasingly complex world? One cold and misty morning Alix and Samir save a drowning man who turns out to be Muhammed – an undocumented Iraqi immigrant escaping torture and seeking asylum.
Fantastic Beasts brings the wizardly world from England to the streets of New York. When Magizoologist Newt Scamander arrives in New York, he plans a brief stopover. He might have come and gone without incident, were it not for a No-Maj (American for Muggle) named Jacob, a misplaced magical case, and the escape of some of Newt’s fantastic beasts. Now both the wizarding and No-Maj worlds are about to collide and it looks like trouble!
By E.G Lutz (Lom Art - an imprint of Micheal O'Mara books) First printed in 1921, this is the book credited with inspiring Walt Disney's animation career. A simple step-by-step breakdown of how to draw using basic shapes and drawing everything from birds and animals...
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