Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

"All the reality of a vividly realised nightmare." The Times

"When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere."

"Triffids" are tall plants capable of aggressive and seemingly intelligent behaviour. They are able to move about on their three "legs", appear to communicate with each other, and possess a deadly whip-like poisonous sting that enables them to kill and feed on the rotting carcasses of their victims.

The Day of the Triffids begins with Bill Masen in hospital, his eyes bandaged after having been splashed with droplets of triffid venom in a lab accident. During his convalescence he is told of the unexpected and beautiful green meteor shower that the entire world is watching. He awakes the next morning to a silent hospital and learns that the light from the unusual display has rendered any who watched it completely blind.

After unbandaging his eyes, he wanders through an anarchic London full of almost entirely sightless inhabitants, and witnesses civilization collapsing around him.

He meets some other sighted survivors and they decide to leave London and start a colony in the countryside...

The Day of the Triffids, Wyndham's first significant novel, has been permanently in print since its publication in 1951, and remains one of his most widely-read and highly acclaimed works.

To read a short biography of John Wyndham, click on the link below:

http://ds.dial.pipex.com/l.j.hurst/jwyndham.htm

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Newcomer Waters serves up the best YA read of the year with a tale of love, humour, humanity and zombies --err, the differently biotic. Witty and well written, “Generation Dead” is a classic desegregation story that also skewers adult attempts to make teenagers play nice New York Times

In this debut novel, Waters shows an impressive understanding of the factors affecting teens as they navigate the high school environment. Using humor to lighten a world that is mixed with both violence and horror, he is able to capture readers' attention and sympathy for a group of very complex characters.— Caryl Soriano, New York Public Library

All over the country, a strange phenomenon is happening. Some teenagers who die aren't staying dead. They are coming back to life, but they are no longer the same—they stutter, and their reactions to everything are slower. Termed "living impaired" or "differently biotic," they are doing their best to fit into a society that doesn’t want them.

With her pale skin and Goth wardrobe, Phoebe has never run with the popular crowd. But no one can believe it when she falls for Tommy Williams, the leader of the dead kids. Not her best friend, Margi, whose fear of the differently biotic is deeply rooted in guilt over the past. And especially not her neighbor, Adam, the star of the football team. Adam has just realized his feelings for Phoebe run much deeper than just friendship. He would do anything for her, but what if protecting Tommy is the one thing that would make her happy?

This is the first book in the Generation Dead series. To see Dan Waters' website, click below:

http://www.danielwaters.com/

Frozen in Time by Ali Sparkes

Two cryonically frozen children are brought back to life after fifty years - and find themselves caught up in a thrilling contemporary adventure.

1956 Freddy and Polly have always known their father is a genius so they've never minded helping him with his experiments. Even when that means being put into cryonic suspension-having their hearts frozen until their father wakes them up again. They know it will only be for an hour or two, so there's nothing to worry about...
2009 Ben and Rachel have resigned themselves to a long, boring summer. Then they find the hidden underground vault in the garden and inside it two frozen figures, a boy and a girl. And as if that isn't spooky enough, when Rachel accidentally presses a button, something unbelievable happens...

Ali Sparkes has written other books including the brilliant Shapeshifter series.
To find out more about her, click the link below

http://http//www.alisparkes.co.uk/

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

'..fiction for teen readers that does more than deliver pulse-pounding adventure but also forces introspection into the way we perceive ourselves and others ' The Trades Book Review

Tally lives in a world where your sixteenth birthday brings aesthetic perfection: an operation which erases all your flaws, transforming you from an 'Ugly' into a 'Pretty'. She is on the eve of this important event, and cannot wait for her life to change. As well as guaranteeing supermodel looks, life as a Pretty seems to revolve around having a good time. But then she meets Shay, who is also fifteen - but with a very different outlook on life. Shay isn't sure she wants to be Pretty and plans to escape to a community in the forest - the Rusty Ruins - where Uglies go to escape ' turning'. What Tally finds out in the Rusty Ruins will change her life... This is the first book in a quartet. The other titles are Pretties, Speacials and Extras.

To visit Scott Westerfeld's website and find out how he came to write his dystopian novel, click http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/

Noughts And Crosses by Malorie Blackman

'Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity by Noughts, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum – a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger…'

Callum is a nought – a second-class citizen in a world run by the ruling Crosses…

Sephy is a Cross, daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country…

In their world, noughts and Crosses simply don’t mix. And as hostility turns to violence, can Callum and Sephy possibly find a way to be together? They are determined to try.
And then the bomb explodes…
A gripping, stimulating and totally absorbing novel set in a world where black and white are right and wrong.

Malorie Blackman is a fine, award-winning author whose work is always inclined to provoke debate amongst her readers, and indeed her peers. With Noughts and Crosses she surpasses expectation not only with her subject matter, but with the execution of a stimulating and provocative plot line that often leaves the reader chilled to the bone.

Sephy and Callum have been best friends since childhood, and now they are older and they realise they want more from each other. But the harsh realities of lives lived in a segregated society are beginning to take their toll: Callum is a nought--a second-class citizen in a world dominated by the Crosses--and Sephy is a Cross, and the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country. The barriers they would have to cross to be together at first seem little more than minor obstacles to the two idealistic teenagers, but soon those barriers threaten not only their friendship but their lives.
 
Noughts and Crosses is written with the passion of an author who has a personal message about the perception of the past, present and future, and Blackman has used the clever device of turning preconceived ideas of racial prejudice upside down to make sure that her point is well and truly made. Deeply disturbing and totally absorbing this novel is intriguing from the outset, with a shocking climax that packs an unforgettable punch. Susan Harrison

Malorie Blackman: Developing negatives - Click here to read the novelist talk to Alison Flood about turning racism upside down in her Noughts and Crosses novels...

About the Author

Malorie Blackman was born in 1962. She qualified in Computer Science and followed a successful career in computing, before becoming a writer at the age of 28. Her first published book was Not So Stupid! (1990), a book of short stories.

Since then she has written many books and scripts, and her popularity has steadily grown. Her scripts for television include several episodes of Byker Grove, Whizziwig and Pig-Heart Boy, and she has also written original dramas for CITV and BBC Education. Her stage play, The Amazing Birthday, was performed in 2002.

She writes for all ages of children. Her picture books include I Want a Cuddle! (2001) and Jessica Strange (2002) and she has written many reader books for early and more confident readers. Her novels include: Hacker (1992); the story of Vicky, who saves her father from being wrongly convicted of stealing from the bank after hacking into the bank’s computer to solve the crime herself; Thief! (1995), about a child who is transported into the future after being accused of a crime she did not commit; and Pig-Heart Boy (1997), the diary of 13-year-old Cameron, who needs a heart transplant. The latter book and its subsequent adaptation as a series for television won several awards, including a BAFTA for best children’s drama in 2000.

Malorie Blackman's most well-known books for young adults are: Noughts & Crosses (2001); Knife Edge (2004); and Checkmate (2005) – which form the Noughts & Crosses Trilogy, the tale of two teenagers, Callum and Sephy.  In 2004, she also wrote a novel entirely in verse, Cloud Busting (2004), which won a Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (Silver Award) the same year.

Malorie Blackman lives in Kent. In 2007 she collected stories and poems for the book Unheard Voices, commemorating the bicentenary anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Her latest books are The Stuff of Nightmares (2007) and Double Cross (2008). She was awarded an OBE in 2008.

She has recently contributed to Free? (2009), a book of stories celebrating Human Rights.

Find out more about the Author by visiting her website here...

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Winner of The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

An unflinching novel about the impossible choices

of growing up...

You only have to read the first sentence to see how fantastic this novel promises to be:

 "The first thing you find out when your dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say."

It's hard to review The Knife of Never Letting Go without spoiling the story. It's so cunningly written that I was 100 pages in before I even realised what genre it was. I will say this, though: it lives up to the thrill of that first sentence.

It's not only his dog's thoughts that the hero, Todd Hewitt, can hear.

As the result of a virus, all the men in Prentisstown can hear each others' thoughts all the time. The resulting ongoing background jabber is called The Noise. It's a brilliant invention and, like a lot of brilliant inventions - Pullman's daemons, Philip Reeve's traction cities - it's an illuminating transformation of something very familiar.

The Noise made me more sharply aware of the static of MP3s, mobile phones, announcements, adverts, surveillance and traffic that interferes when we try to tune into our own thoughts, of the way our minds have been colonised by the market.

When Todd finds a pool of silence moving through the marshes at the edge of Prentisstown, it's not just a good plot point, it's also a stab of unexpected beauty. The source of that silence is a girl. There are no girls in Prentisstown, and finding her means that Todd has to escape. The book - which is the first part of a trilogy - is mostly the story of their flight. Frank Cottrell Boyce

Watch the author interviewed about his Chaos Walking Trilogy



About the Author

Patrick Ness is the author of The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer – books one and two in the award-winning Chaos Walking trilogy. Patrick has written two other books for adults and is a literary critic for the Guardian. He lives in London.

The silent bark - The Knife of Never Letting Go is a deftly told tale of a boy's flight, says Frank Cottrell Boyce in The Guardian

The Enemy by Charlie Higson

The Enemy is a thrilling book - scary, moving, dramatic, action-packed, everything you want in a teen novel. 

They’ll chase you.

They’ll rip you open.

They’ll feed on you . . .

When the sickness came, every parent, police officer, politician – every adult – fell ill. The lucky ones died.

The others are crazed, confused and hungry. Only children under fourteen remain, and they’re fighting to survive. Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide.

And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city – down alleyways, in deserted houses, underground – the grown-ups lie in wait.

But can they make it there – alive?

About the Author

Charlie Higson is a well-known writer of screenplays and novels, and is the author of the phenomenally successful Young Bond series. He is also a performer and co-creator of The Fast Show and Radio Four’s award-winning Down the Line series. Charlie is a big fan of horror films and is now hoping to give a great many children sleepless nights with this series.

Click here to read more about the first in this new series of books...

Here's an interview with Charlie Higson from The Times explaining why he wrote the book...

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

'When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere...'

When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation.

Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor shower. Now, with civilization in chaos, the triffids - huge, venomous, large-rooted plants able to 'walk', feeding on human flesh - can have their day.

The Day of the Triffids, published in 1951, expresses many of the political concerns of its time: the Cold War, the fear of biological experimentation and the man-made apocalypse.

However, with its terrifyingly believable insights into the genetic modification of plants, the book is more relevant today than ever before.

About the Author

John Wyndham was born in 1903. After a wide experience of the English preparatory school he was at Bedales from 1918 to 1921. Careers which he tried included farming, law, commercial art, and advertising, and he first started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. During the war he was in the Civil Service and afterwards in the Army. In 1946 he began writing his major science fiction novels including "The Kraken Wakes", "The Chrysalids" and "The Midwich Cuckoos".