Recommended reads for the summer holidays

Rooftoppers

Katherine Rundell

Everyone thinks that Sophie is an orphan. True, there were no other recorded female survivors from the shipwreck which left baby Sophie floating in the English Channel in a cello case, but Sophie remembers seeing her mother wave for help. Her guardian tells her it is almost impossible that her mother is still alive, but that means still possible.

AR BL:3.5 Pts:6.0

Between Shades of Gray

Ruta Sepetys

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known.

AR:3.6 Pts:9.0

Liar & Spy

Rebecca Stead

When seventh grader Georges (the S is silent) moves into a Brooklyn apartment building, he meets Safer, a twelve-year-old coffee-drinking loner and self-appointed spy. Georges becomes Safer's first spy recruit. His assignment? Tracking the mysterious Mr. X, who lives in the apartment upstairs.
AR BL:3.8 Pts:5.0

Ingo (The Ingo Chronicles)

Helen Dunmore

Sapphire's father mysteriously vanishes into the waves off the Cornwall coast where her family has always lived. She misses him terribly, and she longs to hear his spellbinding tales about the Mermaids, who live in the underwater kingdom of Ingo.

AR BL:3.9 Pts:10.0

The Brilliant World of Tom Gates (Series)

Liz Pichon

Tom Gates is the master of excuses for late homework: dog attacks, spilt water, lightening ... Tom's exercise book is full of his doodles, cartoons and thoughts, as well as comments from his long-suffering teacher, Mr Fullerton.

AR BL 4.0 Pts:2.0

The World of Norm: May Contain Nuts (Series)

Jonathan Meres

When Norm wakes up about to wee in his parent’s wardrobe, things can’t really get worse. Forced to move house, watch his little brothers get whatever they desire and being blamed for everything that goes wrong, Norm gets desperate – and all he wants is a pimped-up bike.

AR BL 4.0 Pts:4.0

Framed

Frank Cottrell Boyce

Dylan's parents run the Snowdonia Oasis Auto Marvel garage - and when he's not trying to persuade his sisters to play football, Dylan is in charge of the petrol log. That means he gets to keep track of everyone coming in and out of Manod. This is an exploration of how art touches the life of one little boy.

AR BL:4.2 Pts:9.0

Oranges in No Man’s Land

Eliabeth Laird

Oranges in No Man's Land tells the riveting story of ten-year-old Ayesha's terrifying journey across no man's land to reach a doctor in hostile territory in search of medicine for her dying grandmother.

Set in Lebanon during the civil war, this story is told by award-winning author Elizabeth Laird and is based on personal, real-life events.

AR BL:4.3 Pts:2.0

Raven’s Gate (Book 1 of The Gate Keepers)

Anthony Horowitz

When Matt Freeman gets into trouble with the police, he's sent to be fostered in Yorkshire. It's not long before he senses there's something wrong with his guardian: with the whole village.

AR BL:4.4 Pts:10

Hacker

Malory Blackman

When Vicky's father is arrested, accused of stealing over a million pounds from the bank where he works, she is determined to prove his innocence. But how? There's only one way - to attempt to break into the bank's computer files.

AR BL:4.4 Pts:7.0

The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians)

Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school... again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life.

AR BL:4.5 Pts:13.0

Dawn of the Demontide (Witchfinder Series)

William Hussey

Jake Harker is an outsider, a loser whose nose is always in a horror comic. That is until horror stops being fiction and the Pale Man and his demon Mr Pinch stop Jake on a dark, deserted road. That night, under a tree called the demon's dance, Jake will learn the true meaning of terror ...

AR BL:4.8 Pts:11.0