Special Collections
Reluctant or struggling readers (Book Trust list): Teens
Description: List of titles selected by the Book trust as those supporting learners with an interest age of 9-13+ and a reading age 9+.
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Apple and Rain
by Sarah CrossanWhen Apple's mother returns after eleven years of absence, Apple feels whole again. She will have an answer to her burning question – why did you go? And she will have someone who understands what it means to be a teenager – unlike Nana. But just like the stormy Christmas Eve when she left, her mother's homecoming is bitter sweet, and Apple wonders who is really looking after whom. It's only when Apple meets someone more lost than she is, that she begins to see things as they really are.Like a brilliant hybrid of Cathy Cassidy and Jacqueline Wilson, Sarah Crossan entices you into her world, then tells a moving, perceptive and beautifully crafted, Carnegie Shortlisted story which has the power to make you laugh and cry.Shortlisted for The CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2015.
Roller Girl
by Victoria JamiesonAstrid has always done everything with her best friend Nicole. So when Astrid falls in love with roller derby and signs up for a summer camp, she's sure Nicole will be right by her side - until Nicole signs up for ballet camp instead, with Astrid's biggest rival. So begins the hardest summer of Astrid's life, as she struggles to stay on her skates, to learn who she is without Nicole . . . and to find out what it takes to be a strong, tough, awesome roller girl.
Booked
by Kwame AlexanderLike lightning/you strike/fast and free/legs zoom/down field/eyes fixed/on the checkered ball/on the goal/ten yards to go/can’t nobody stop you/can’t nobody cop you…Twelve-year-old Nick is a football-mad boy who absolutely hates books. In this follow-up to the Newbery-winning novel The Crossover, football, family, love, and friendship take centre stage as Nick tries to figure out how to navigate his parents’ break-up, stand up to bullies, and impress the girl of his dreams. These challenges – which seem even harder than scoring a tie-breaking, game-winning goal – change his life, as well as his best friend’s. This energetic novel-in-verse by the poet Kwame Alexander captures all the thrills and setbacks, the action and emotion of a World Cup match.
The Weight of Water
by Sarah CrossanArmed with a suitcase and an old laundry bag filled with clothes, Kasienka and her mother head for England. Life is lonely for Kasienka. At home her mother's heart is breaking and at school friends are scarce. But when someone special swims into her life, Kasienka learns that there might be more than one way for her to stay afloat. The Weight of Water is a startlingly original piece of fiction; most simply a brilliant coming of age story, it also tackles the alienation experienced by many young immigrants. Moving, unsentimental and utterly page-turning, we meet and share the experiences of a remarkable girl who shows us how quiet courage prevails.
Invisible Emmie
by Terri LibensonThis debut novel from US cartoonist Terri Libenson follows two girls who could not seem more different: shy, observant, wallflower Emmie; and loud, popular, cheery Katie. What both girls do have in common are their strong feelings for the same boy, Tyler Ross. Then Emmie's very private, very embarrassing scribbles fall into the wrong hands . . .
A Different Dog (PDF)
by Paul Jennings and Geoff KellyThe child narrator of A Different Dog can't speak - we assume it is from a disability or a reaction to a trauma in his past. He is teased by the other kids and is a loner. On a cold winter's day, when everyone is participating in a fun run on the mountain, our narrator finds himself alone at the scene of a car accident where the driver has died. But there is a little dog in the car... What follows is a moving story of survival and redemption (and somehow humour in the midst of all that), all told in a 96-page novella.
The Poet X – WINNER OF THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL 2019
by Elizabeth AcevedoTHE WINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'I fell in love at slam poetry. This one will stay with you a long time.' – Angie Thomas, bestselling author of The Hate U Give