“Not everything makes sense, Zu. Sometimes things just happen,” says Suzy’s (Zu’s) mom when her best friend Franny dies from drowning. Heartbroken and confused, 12 year old Suzy refuses to accept this and begins a journey to find out what could have caused her to drown. The Thing about Jellyfish is a beautiful story of friendship, grief, forgiveness and acceptance.
Aurora and the Popcorn Dolphin is the third book in the Songbird Cafe Girls series for preteens about friendship, family and life.
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.
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.
When badger dies his friends are heartbroken, especially Mole who feels ‘lost, alone and desperately unhappy.’ The animals are so sad through the winter but then as spring draws near they gather together and talk about the days when Badger was alive.
A little girl grows up with huge excitement about learning to read. When she gets to grade 1 though, she is puzzled that the other children move on to bigger readers while she stays stuck on the beginning. With undiagnosed dyslexia her early school years are tough and challenging. It’s not until Grade 5 that a special teacher changes her life.
Livvy’s mom has suddenly started teaching her important things like how to cook, clean and deal with her brother – Isaac. Livvy doesn’t mind, it’s just, she feels like there’s something her mom’s not telling her. Mom has even given Livvy her own diaries from when she was young.
Patrick Ness is a very unusual writer. His “Knife of Never Letting Go”, the first book in the “Chaos Walking” trilogy was startlingly original. “A Monster Calls” has become a publishing sensation since it was published in 2011. It has won numerous awards, being the first book ever to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal. It hits with enormous power. It is about a young teenage boy trying to cope with his mother’s serious illness and then her death.
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