A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
There is nothing to be found in the pages of A Series of Unfortunate Events but misery and despair. But if you must know what unpleasantries befall the charming and clever Baudelaire children read on...In The Bad Beginning the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune and cold porridge for breakfast. Then again, why trouble yourself with the unfortunate resolutions?
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 10+ |
Born to Run by Michael Morpurgo
When Patrick saves a litter of greyhound puppies from the canal, he can’t bear to hand them all over to the RSPCA. He pleads with his parents: couldn’t he just keep one of them? Patrick christens his puppy Best Mate, and that’s what he becomes. One day Best Mate is kidnapped by a greyhound trainer, and begins a new life as a champion race dog. What will happen when he can’t run any more?
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 10+ |
Carrie's War by Nina Bawdin
It is the Second World War. Carrie and Nick are evacuated to Wales, where they are placed with Mr Evans and his sister. Their friend Albert is luckier, living with Hepzibah Green who tells wonderful stories, and the strange Mister Johnny, who speaks a language all of his own. Carrie and Nick like to visit Albert, until one day Carrie does a terrible thing - the worst thing she ever did in her life...
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 10+ |
Dear Olly by Michael Morpurgo
A moving story of a brother, a sister and a swallow, and how all are in some way victims of the horrors of landmines. Olly’s brother Matt wants to go and work with children in Africa. His mother and sister want him to stay in England and go to university. Hero, a swallow, has a journey to make too. He must fly to Africa for the winter to join all the other swallows. Three separate stories are woven into one powerful and moving novel.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 10+ |
Doppelganger by Alison Lohans (Nitty Gritty Series)
As soon as Connor and his family arrive in Athens, bizarre things start to happen. He keeps seeing a a boy who looks almost exactly like him and, he begins to be accused of doing things he hasn’t, like running up charges on an Internet account – and his parents don’t seem to believe he’s innocent. Connor suspects that his Dopplganger might have something to do with it. But who is he and what are his motives?
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 9 - 11+ |
Harry Potter by J K Rowlings
Harry Potter is an ordinary boy who lives in a cupboard under the stairs at his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's house, which he thinks is normal for someone like him whose parents have been killed in a 'car crash'. Read and find out how Harry discovers his true heritage, the reason behind his parents mysterious death, who is out to kill him, and how he uncovers the most amazing secret of all time.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 9+ |
Holes by Louis Sacher
Stanley Yelnats ia a kid who is under a curse. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the warden makes the boys "build character" by spending all day digging holes. It doesn't take long for Stanley to realise there's more than character improvement going on: the warden is looking for something. Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this humorous tale of crime, punishment and redemption.
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 10 - 12+ |
Journey to Tangiwai by David Hill
The year is 1953. Peter Cotterill starts the year writing in a journal given to him by his Great Aunt. We follow him through a year of many changes as his town of Napier struggles through hard times in the aftermath of WWII. The story culminates in a train ride to Auckland on the eve of Christmas. But, unbeknownst to the travellers, a lahar washes away a railway bridge.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 10 -12+ |
Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson
It is 1910 and Maia, tragically orphaned at 13, has been sent from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She is accompanied by an eccentric and mysterious governess who has secret reasons of her own for making the journey. Both soon discover an exotic world bursting with new experiences in this highly colourful, joyous and award-winning adventure.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 9 - 11 |
Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo
I heard the wind above me in the sails. I remember thinking, this is silly, you haven't got your safety harness on, you haven't got your lifejacket on ... I was in the cold of the sea before I could even scream. Washed up on an island, Michael struggles to survive on his own. With no food and no water, he curls up to die. When he wakes, there is a plate beside him and a bowl of fresh water. He is not alone ...
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 9+ |
Mission Girl by Fleur Beale
Atapo begins her story with her capture and slavery as a young child through to her escape to the Mission House in the Bay of Islands as a 14-year-old. Here she learns the new ways and language that means she is present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Atapo's capture and slavery has meant she has lost her standing in her tribe, however, she hopes that the new skills she has acquired will mean she can return home with her head held high.
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 10-12+ |
Petronas by Tina Shaw (Nitty Gritty Series)
There was something about Petronas he didn't like. Something secret. If he kept looking, maybe he would find it. It seemed like a miracle - a dream come true: A beautiful, deserted city with plenty of water and everything anyone could need. No longer would they have to live as nomads, constantly struggling to survive. But who were the people who used to live in Petronas? And why would anyone leave such a perfect place ...?
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 9 - 11+ |
Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
Told in the voice of Private Tommo Peaceful, the story follows twenty-four hours at the front, and captures his memories of his family and his village life – by no means as tranquil as it appeared.
Full of vivid detail and engrossing atmosphere, leading to a dramatic and moving conclusion, Private Peaceful is both a compelling love story and a deeply moving account of the First World War. Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 9+ |
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
When his guardian dies in suspicious circumstances, fourteen-year-old Alex Rider finds his world turned upside down. Forcibly recruited into MI6, Alex has to take part in gruelling training. Then, armed with his own set of secret gadgets, he's off on his first mission: Herod Sayle is producing state-of-the-art Stormbreaker computers. Sayle has offered to give one free to every school in the country - but there's more to the gift than meets the eye.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 9+ |
The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo
It’s 1943, and Lily Tregenza lives on a farm, in the idyllic village of Slapton. Her life is scarcely touched by the war until one day Lily and her family, along with all of the other villagers, are told to move out of their homes. Soon, the whole area is out of bounds, as the Allied forces prepare to invade France. But Tips, Lily’s cat, has other ideas – barbed wire and keep-out signs mean nothing to her, nor does the danger of guns. Frantic to find her, Lily decides to cross the wire into the danger zone to look for Tips herself…
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 9-12 |
The BFG by Roald Dahl
The BFG is no ordinary giant. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, or any of the other giants—rather than the BFG—she would have soon become breakfast. When Sophie hears that the giants are off to England to swollomp a few nice little chiddlers, she decides she must stop them once and for all. And the BFG is going to help!
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 10+ |
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
The Borrowers live in the secret places of quiet old houses; behind the mantelpiece, inside the harpsichord, under the kitchen clock. They own nothing, borrow everything, and think that human beings were invented just to do the dirty work.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 9-11 |
The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo
Bertie rescues an orphaned white lion cub from the African veld. They are inseparable until Bertie is sent to boarding school far away in England and the lion is sold to a circus. Bertie swears that one day they will see one another again, but it is the butterfly lion which ensures that their friendship will never be forgotten.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 9+ |
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Bod is an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place—he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by the ghosts and other cemetery denizens, Bod has learned the customs of his guardians as well as their ghostly teachings—such as the ability to Fade so mortals cannot see him. Can a boy raised by ghosts face the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead?
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 10-12+ |
The Shadow Thief by Alexandra Ardornetto
Drabville is a model town, where Milli Klompet lives with her slightly offbeat family and spends her time longing for adventure. Then one day, along with her cautious best friend and amateur geologist, Ernest Perriclof, Milli discovers 'Hog House'. But the afternoon's entertainment takes a different turn when they are held prisoner by the wacky Mr and Mrs Mayor and a cohort of evil magicians...
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 10 + |
The Wahine Disaster by Shirley Corlett
When Debbie's grandmother gives her a copy of her forefather's old sea journal she finds it fascinating. While Debbie's own diary tells of school life and troubles with friends, excerpts from the diary of 1841 tell of hardships and life on an emigrant sailing ship. At home, sick, Debbie feels transported back in time. Is it a feverish hallucination, or is her long-dead relative trying to tell her something?
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 10 - 12+ |
Toro Toro by Michael Morpurgo
Antonito lives an idyllic life on his parent’s bull farm in Spain. But the idyll is shattered when he realises that his beloved bull calf, Paco, is destined for the bloody struggle of the bullring. He has a plan – a plan of such daring, it will take enormous courage to see it through. Little does Antonito realise the full consequences of his actions – and Paco has a destiny far exceeding Antonito’s dreams.
Comprehensive Guided Reading/Independent Chapter Notes Also Available Reading Age: 9+ |
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
Wonder by R J Palacio
Wonder is about young boy, August Pullman, who has a congenital facial abnormality. After being home-schooled, he enters school for the first time and has to cope with a range of reactions to his unusual appearance, as well as a lot of typical middle school drama.
Comprehensive Guided Reading Plans Available Independent Learning Contracts Available Reading Age: 10+ |
