Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

'So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible'

In preparation for the school play at the end of term this week's book is a Drama and English Department tie-in...

'I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole without the least idea what was to happen afterwards,' wrote Dodgson, describing how Alice was conjured up one 'golden afternoon' in 1862 to entertain his child-friend Alice Liddell.

In the magical world of Wonderland and the back-to-front Looking-Glass kingdom, order is turned upside-down: a baby turns into a pig; time is abandoned at a tea-party; and a chaotic game of chess makes a 7- year-old a Queen.

Bored on a hot afternoon, Alice follows a White Rabbit down a rabbit-hole - without giving a thought about how she might get out. And so she tumbles into Wonderland: where animals answer back, a baby turns into a pig, time stands still at a disorderly tea party, croquet is played with hedgehogs and flamingos, and the Mock Turtle and Gryphon dance the Lobster Quadrille.

In a land in which nothing is as it seems and cakes, potions and mushrooms can make her shrink to ten inches or grow to the size of a house, will Alice be able to find her way home again?

Here's an excerpt to tingle your tastebuds...

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures of conversation?’

So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
 
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!’ (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
 
In another moment Alice went down after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
 
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
 
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupbards and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled ‘orange marmalade’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
 
‘Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)
 
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! ‘I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?’ she said aloud. ‘I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think -’ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, and though this was not a very good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to it, still it was good practice to say it over) ‘ – yes, that’s about the right distance – but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)
 
Presently she began again. ‘I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The Antipathies, I think – (she was rather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word) ‘– but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia? (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke – fancy curtseying as you’re falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it!) And what an ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking! No, it’ll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.’
 
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. ‘Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!’ (Dinah was the cat.) ‘I hope they’ll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’ And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, ‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ and sometimes, ‘Do bats eat cats?’ for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, ‘Now Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?’ when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

About the Author

Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Born in 1832, he was educated at Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was appointed lecturer in mathematics in 1855, and where he spent the rest of his life. In 1861 he took deacon's orders, but shyness and a constitutional stammer prevented him from seeking the priesthood. He never married, but was very fond of children and spent much time with them. His most famous works, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872), were originally written for Alice Liddell, the daughter of the dean of his college. Charles Dodgson died in 1898.

Here's the trailer to Tim Burton's recent film version...

Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

"My father, without the slightest doubt, was the most marvellous and exciting father any boy ever had."

Danny feels very lucky.

He adores his life with his father, living in a gypsy caravan, listening to his stories, tending their gas station, puttering around the workshop, and occasionally taking off to fly home-built gas balloons and kites.

His father has raised him on his own, ever since Danny's mother died when he was four months old. Life is peaceful and wonderful ... until he turns 9 and discovers his father's one vice.

Soon Danny finds himself the mastermind behind the most incredible plot ever attempted against nasty Victor Hazell, a wealthy landowner with a bad attitude.

Can they pull it off? If so, Danny will truly be the champion of the world. Danny is right up to Roald Dahl's impishly brilliant standards. An intense and beautiful father-son relationship is balanced with subtle escapades that will have even the most rigid law-abider rooting them on. Dahl's inimitable way with words leaves the reader simultaneously satisfied and itching for more.

Don't know much about the author? Where have you been for most of your childhood? Click the link to find out more...

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

'Wondrous. Brilliantly inventive, full of dazzling set pieces.

Not simply the most original novel I've read in years - it's one of the best'

The Times

'Original, moving and entertaining for adults

as well as for older children.'

Daily Express

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other.

The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone.

Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism.

He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched.

He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

Here's an extract from the opening of the novel to whet your dog-whistle...

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer for example, or a road accident.

But I could not be certain about this.

I went through Mrs Shears’ gate, closing it behind me. I walked onto her lawn and knelt beside the dog. I put my hand on the muzzle of the dog. It was still warm.

The dog was called Wellington. It belonged to Mrs Shears who was our friend. She lived on the opposite side of the road, two houses to the left.

Wellington was a poodle. Not one of the small poodles that have hairstyles, but a big poodle. It had curly black fur, but when you got close you could see that the skin underneath the fur was a very pale yellow, like chicken.

I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why.

Find out more...

Click here to go to the website dedicated to the book...

Click here to read The Guardian review...

To find out more about the author, click here...

Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz

A dark and shocking conclusion to the bestselling Alex Rider missions.

Alex Rider wants his life back.

But when you’re the world’s most successful spy, there’s only one way out. Alex’s final mission will be the deadliest of all.

One bullet. One life.

The end starts here.

This gripping final mission brings together Alex Rider's old enemies to frame the teenage superspy in an unstoppable plot of revenge, from which he can never return.

Pursued from Europe to North Africa and Cairo's city of the dead – this is the twistiest and most deadly plot of any Alex Rider mission yet, and will reveal Smithers' ultimate gadget and see the shock death of a major character.

Find out more about the book at the Alex Rider website by clicking here...

About the Author

I had always wanted to write a modern 'teenager saves the world' story. It was a recurring fantasy when I was at school that I wasn't a bored thirteen year old stuck in a gruesome north London prep school, but that I was, in reality, an MI6 agent.

At he same time, I wanted to make my story seem very credible. So I've researched everything from the rudiments of SAS training to remaing in a car until the very last moment before it's crushed in a breaker's yard, and I get my thirteen year old son Nicholas to try out things like diving and snowboarding!

Anthony Horowitz is a popular and prolific children's writer, whose books now sell in more than a dozen countries around the world. He has won numerous prizes for his books which include Stormbreaker, Point Blanc (shortlisted for the 2001 Children's Book Award) and both reviewed on this site as well as Eagle Strike and Scorpia. Anthony also writes extensively for TV. He lives in north London.

Watch the animated trailer to the book below

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/

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

'Gennifer Choldenko is a bright light in ... teenage fiction, and Al Capone Does My Shirts is one of her best.' The Independent

'this engaging tale develops its characters subtly and skilfully' Sunday Times

When Moose Flanagan and his family move home and become residents of the famous prison island Alcatraz, things get interesting. First of all, they share the island with a few other families and a lot of pretty heavy-duty criminals including Al Capone. And secondly, Moose's sister is starting a new school, which everyone hopes will help her become more integrated with those around her. When Moose comes up with some pretty cunning money-making schemes based on his famous co-residents, he does not count on his sister becoming inadvertently involved. This is a charming, funny and utterly enchanting book that skillfully and delicately weaves a humorous tale with some important issues.

To find out about Gennifer Choldenko's other books and her time researching Alcatraz prison, click on the link to her website

http://http//www.choldenko.com/

The Burying Beetle by Ann Kelley

'This is an atmospheric and beguiling book, written with a precision which guards it from sentimentality.' 
Helen Dunmore.

Gussie is twelve years old and settling into her new ramshackle home on a cliff top above St Ives in Cornwall. She has an irrepressible zest for life but also a life-threatening heart condition. Perhaps because she knows her time might be short, she values every passing moment, experiencing each day with humour and extraordinary courage. Spirited and imaginative, Gussie has a passionate interest in everything around her and her vivid stream of thoughts and observations will draw you into a renewed sense of wonder. Gussie's story of inspiration and hope is both heartwarming and heartrending.

Once you've met her, you'll not forget her. And you'll never take life for granted again.

To read about Ann Kelley and find out what else she has written click below

http://www.annkelley.co.uk/

Young Samurai the Way of the Warrior by Chris Bradford

A fantastic adventure that floors the reader on page one and keeps them there until the end. The pace is furious and the martial arts detail authentic -Eoin Colfer

August 1611. Jack Fletcher is shipwrecked off the coast of Japan. His beloved father and the crew lie slaughtered by ninja pirates. Rescued by the legendary sword master Masamoto Takeshi, Jack's only hope is to become a samurai warrior. And so his training begins. But life at the samurai school is a constant fight for survival. Even with his friend Akiko by his side, Jack is singled out by bullies and treated as an outcast. With courage in his heart and his sword held high, can Jack prove himself and face his deadliest rival yet?


To read reviews and to find out more about Japanese martial arts click the link below
http://http//www.youngsamurai.com/site/YOUN/Templates/General.aspx?pageid=45&cc=GB

To see Chris Bradford's website click here
http://http//www.chrisbradford.co.uk/Chris_Bradford/Home.html

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

'Smart and mesmerising.' --New York Times

Winner of the John Newbery Medal 2010

'This puzzle of a novel will stay with the reader long after they have put the book down. Adults too will enjoy this extremely well-crafted and intriguing story.' -- The Evening Standard

`Beautifully and simply told despite the fact that the story they tell is complex and thought-provoking. This is a great book.' --Julia Eccleshare, LoveReading4Kids

Miranda's life is starting to unravel. Her best friend, Sal, gets punched by a kid on the street for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The key that Miranda's mum keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then a mysterious note arrives:
'I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own.
I ask two favours. First, you must write me a letter.'
The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realises that whoever is leaving them knows things no one should know. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she's too late.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead – review - Philip Ardagh of The Guardian on a beautifully observed story of family and friends click below to read more...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/05/booksforchildrenandteenagers-philip-ardagh

To find out more about the author click here...

http://www.rebeccasteadbooks.com/index2.html

Rowan the Strange by Julie Hearn

Hearn is skilled at conveying the place and the time, but it is in the detail of human interactions that her novel is particularly remarkable. The Sunday Times

Rowan the Strange works perfectly as a strangely beautiful...story. It is nothing short of extraordinary.

The Guardian

How does a doctor examine a person's brain?

They won't use any knives on me, will they?

Rowan knows he is strange. But dangerous?

He didn't mean to scare his sister. In his right mind, he wouldn't hurt a fly.

But there's a place he can go where they say they can fix his mind . . .

Beyond the bars on the window, England is at war.

Behind them, Rowan's own battle is only just beginning.

This amazing story gives a thought-provoking look at life in an asylum and the experimental treatments practised at the start of the Second World War. For Rowan, nobody could ever have predicted the effect these treatments would have...

Shock and war - Philip Ardagh is drawn into an extraordinary tale of medical experimentation...

About the Author


At the age of eight, Julie wrote her first novel about a psychedelic dragon who longed to be plain green or brown. Sadly her teacher didn't have time to read the story and Julie vowed never to write anything that ambitious again!

Julie went on to become a journalist. She wrote for a daily newspaper in Australia, then lived in Spain for a while, before returning to England and working as a features editor and 'mother and baby' columnist. In 1994, Julie started a degree in Education, but switched to English when she realized teaching wasn't for her.

She then went on to complete a Master of Studies at Oxford University in Women's Studies, but found academia creatively restrictive. An idea for her Masters thesis became her inspiration for Follow Me Down.  Julie lives in Oxfordshire and has one daughter, Tilly.

To find out more about the author click here to go to her website...

Listen to the author talk about Rowan the Strange...

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

'...a small wonder of a book.' The Guardian

What happens when innocence is confronted by monstrous evil?

Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us . . .

Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.

Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas will no doubt acquire many readers as a result of the subsequent film of the novel, but viewers of the latter would do themselves a favour by going back to the spare and powerfully affecting original book.

Bruno is nine years old, and the Nazis’ horrific Final Solution to the ‘Jewish Problem’ means nothing to him. He's completely unaware of the barbarity of Germany under Hitler, and is more concerned by his move from his well-appointed house in Berlin to a far less salubrious area where he finds himself with nothing to do.

Then he meets a boy called Shmuel who lives a very different life from him - a life on the opposite side of a wire fence. And Shmuel is the eponymous boy in the striped pyjamas, as are all the other people on the other side of the fence. The friendship between the two boys begins to grow, but for Bruno it is a journey from blissful ignorance to a painful knowledge. And he will find that this learning process carries, for him, a daunting price.

A legion of books have attempted to evoke the horrors of the Second World War, but in this concise and perfectly honed novel, all of the effects that John Boyne creates are allowed to make a maximum impact in a relatively understated fashion (given the enormity of the situation here). The Boy in Striped Pyjamas is also that rare thing: a novel which can affect both children and adults equally; a worthy successor, in fact, to such masterpieces as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye -- both, of course, books, dealing (as does this one) with the loss of innocence. - Barry Forshaw

Educating Bruno - The slow revelation of detail in John Boyne's Holocaust story for children, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, impresses Kathryn Hughes...

About the Author

John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971.

The winner of two Irish Book Awards, he is the author of seven novels, including the international bestseller The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which was made into a Miramax feature film and has sold more than five million copies worldwide.

His novels are published in over forty languages. He lives in Dublin.

To find out more about the author click here to go to his website...



How can they understand? A new film about the Holocaust, aimed at children, represents the Disneyfication of the Final Solution. Can the horrors of the Nazis ever make great cinema? By Linda Grant

Nobody's Girl by Sarra Manning

Shortlisted for the Booktrust Teenage Fiction Award

'A fabulous coming of age romp.' Now

'One of the most endearing characters you'll ever come across.' Book Fest Reading Guide

I went a little bit stark-raving bonkers. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.

Usually, I’m not the kind of girl who does crazy, stupid or irresponsible things. I look both ways before I cross the road. I drink two litres of water and eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day. I aim for eight hours’ sleep a night. Respect my elders. Don’t talk back.Mind my Ps and Qs. Floss twice daily.

Let’s face it, no one can be as boring and perfect as me and not lose it just once. But I couldn’t lose it in a safe, controlled environment. No, I had to lose it at a train station in Malaga.

Bea thinks she's the most boring seventeen-year-old in the world. She's not pretty or popular or funny, unlike her mother who had Bea when she was 17. The only glamorous thing about Bea is the French father who left before she was born and lives in Paris.

She yearns for la vie Parisienne every moment of her dull existence. So when Ruby Davies, the leader of her school's most elite clique picks Bea as her new best friend and asks her to go on holiday with them, she's wary but delighted. If nothing else it's two weeks away from her over-protective mother.

But when the gang arrive in Spain, Bea is crushed to realise that Ruby and her posse have simply been using her. Bea wreaks vengeance on her so-called friends, and plans to decamp to Paris to find her father. But when she falls asleep on the train and wakes up in Bilbao, she meets a group of American students who are backpacking around Europe and bonds with them straight away, especially the gorgeous Toph who helps heals Bea's hurting heart.

Though Bea has a shock in store when they finally get to Paris. The 'City of Lovers' really works it magic on Bea and Toph who spend a week wandering the sun-dappled streets of Paris, talking, holding hands and falling in love. When it comes time to go home to confront her Mum about her mysterious father, the new version of Bea is determined that she'll never go back to her old, boring way of life - she's no longer Nobody's Girl; she belongs to herself and to Toph...

But with an ocean between them, will he wait for her?

Find out more about the book and the author by clicking here...

About the Author

Sarra Manning is a teen queen extraordinaire. She spent five years working on the legendary but now sadly defunct UK teen mag, J17, first as a writer and then as Entertainment Editor. She then joined the launch team and became editor of teen fashion bible Ellegirl UK. There followed a stint as editor of the BBC's What To Wear and consulting on Bliss, The Face and More. Sarra now writes for ELLE,  Grazia, Red, InStyle, The Guardian, The Mail On Sunday's You magazine and The Sunday Telegraph's Stella. Her best-selling teen novels, which include Guitar Girl, Let's Get Lost and The Diary Of A Crush trilogy, have been translated into numerous languages and in 2008, she was short listed for the Book People's Queen of Teen award. In 2009, her first adult novel, Unsticky, was published by Headline Review. Sarra lives in North London.

Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo

'A poignant, elegiac novel.' Daily Mail

'Full of warmth as well as grief, conveying vividly how precious it is to be alive' Sunday Times

'Michael Morpurgo is expert at getting through to his readers. He writes here about events that should never be forgotten nor forgiven...' The Independent

Longer novels from Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo are always a particular treat, and Private Peaceful is no exception. Tragic, surprising and engaging in equal measures, Morpurgo's novel charts both the childhood of young Thomas Peaceful in the early years of the 20th century, and his eventual underage enlistment in the British army to help fight the First World War.

It is, above all, a poignant story of war and about all of its many life-changing effects on those involved - also the brutality of the commanding regimes and the relentless squalor of trench warfare. It's not for the squeamish - Morpurgo tells it like it was and his honest insight is on every page for all to appreciate.
 
"Tommo" Peaceful is recalling his childhood from those terrible battlefields. He remembers his big brother Charlie taking him to his first day of school, the death of his father, his mum working hard to keep a roof over their heads and food on their table. He remembers his brother Joe, who some called simple, but who to Tommo was very special. He also recalls the only girl in his life, Molly, and how Charlie somehow took her away from him. But as the World turned to War, he had to grow up fast.
 
Together Charlie and Tommo enlist and are sent to France, almost immediately, to what could only be described as pure hell on Earth. Bullets, bombs, death. Shells, noise, dirt. Disease, rats, stench. Charlie and Tommo fight for their lives and to stay together - facing certain death in the face every time they try to advance the British lines.
 
Morpurgo rattles through his narrative at some speed, gracefully capturing both the horror of war and the ecstasy of life. The ending is shocking and memorable. This is difficult, emotionally draining but highly recommended reading. John McLay

The lost generation - Michael Morpurgo's Private Peaceful enables Diane Samuels to explore distant memories of the first world war in her review for The Guardian...

About the Author

Multi-award winning author, Michael Morpurgo, is one of Britain's best-loved writers for children and has won many prizes, including the Smarties Prize, The Writers Guild Award and the Blue Peter Book Award for his recent novel, Private Peaceful, which has also had two successful runs as a play devised by Bristol Old Vic.

From 2003 to 2005 he was the Children's Laureate, a role which took him all over the UK to promote literacy and reading, and in 2005 he was named the Booksellers Association Author of the Year.

Find out more about the author by clicking here to visit his website...

Want to know Michael Morpurgo's favourite book? Watch him answer his 5 most common questions here...

Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz

Winner of the Red House Children's Book Award

"Horowitz has become a writer who converts boys to reading." The Sunday Times

"Done with enormous style, fun and suspense. Wannabe James Bonds will be completely hooked and eager for more."

The Guardian

'Night came quickly to Skeleton Key. The sun hovered brifly on the horizon,then dipped below. At once the clouds rolled in - First red, then mauve, silver, green and black as if all the colours in the world were being sucked into a vast melting pot. A single frigate bird soared over the mangroves, its own colours lost in the chaos behind it. The air hung close. Rain hung waiting. There was going to be a storm...'

Teenage superspy Alex Rider is enlisted by the national security services again - this time for a routine reconnaissance mission at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

But before long, Alex finds himself caught up in a terrifying chain of events that leads from the Chinese Triad gangs in London to an undercover assignment in Cuba.

Alex begins to make chilling links between suspicious deaths, an illegal nuclear weapons deal and the plans of his host, Russian General Sarov, for the future of the world...

Find out more about the book at the Alex Rider website by clicking here...

About the Author

I had always wanted to write a modern 'teenager saves the world' story. It was a recurring fantasy when I was at school that I wasn't a bored thirteen year old stuck in a gruesome north London prep school, but that I was, in reality, an MI6 agent.

At he same time, I wanted to make my story seem very credible. So I've researched everything from the rudiments of SAS training to remaing in a car until the very last moment before it's crushed in a breaker's yard, and I get my thirteen year old son Nicholas to try out things like diving and snowboarding!

Anthony Horowitz is a popular and prolific children's writer, whose books now sell in more than a dozen countries around the world. He has won numerous prizes for his books which include Stormbreaker, Point Blanc (shortlisted for the 2001 Children's Book Award) and both reviewed on this site as well as Eagle Strike and Scorpia. Anthony also writes extensively for TV. He lives in north London.

Watch Anthony Horowitz interviewed for readingzone.com

Point Blanc by Anthony Horowitz

'For first class thrills, spills and adventure,

look no further than Alex Rider...'

'Horowitz will grip you with suspense, daring and cheek - and that's just the first page!... Prepare for action scenes as fast as a movie.' The Times

Fourteen-year-old super spy Alex Rider swings back into action in Point Blanc.

Investigations into the 'accidental' deaths of two of the world's most powerful men have revealed just one link: both had a son attending Point Blanc Academy - an exclusive school for rebellious rich kids, run by the sinister Dr Grief and set high on an isolated mountain peak in the French Alps.

Armed only with a false ID and a new collection of brilliantly disguised gadgets, Alex must infiltrate the academy as a pupil and establish the truth about what is really happening there.

Point Blanc is the thrilling sequel to Storm Breaker!

Read more about the book here at the Alex Rider website...

About the Author

Anthony Horowitz is a popular and prolific children's writer, whose books now sell in more than a dozen countries around the world.

He has won numerous prizes for his books which include this one, Skeleton Key (Winner of the Red House Children's Book Award) and also reviewed on this site as well as Stormbreaker the first in the Alex Rider series.

Anthony also writes extensively for TV. He lives in north London.

Here's a trailer for the Alex Rider website...

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

'The Hunger Games is a searing novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present. Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever... '

Katniss Everdeen is a survivor.

She has to be; she's representing her District, number 12, in the 74th Hunger Games in the Capitol, the heart of Panem, a new land that rose from the ruins of a post-apocalyptic North America.

To punish citizens for an early rebellion, the rulers require each district to provide one girl and one boy, 24 in all, to fight like gladiators in a futuristic arena. The event is broadcast like reality TV, and the winner returns with wealth for his or her district.

With clear inspiration from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and the Greek tale of Theseus, Collins has created a brilliantly imagined dystopia, where the Capitol is rich and the rest of the country is kept in abject poverty, where the poor battle to the death for the amusement of the rich.

Impressive world-building, breathtaking action and clear philosophical concerns make this volume, the beginning of a planned trilogy, as good as The Giver and more exciting.

About the Author

Suzanne Collins has had a successful and prolific career writing for children's television. For preschool viewers, she penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald. She has worked on several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. She received a Writer's Guild of America nomination for co-writing the critically acclaimed Rankin/Bass Christmas special, Santa, Baby! And most recently she was the head writer for Clifford's Puppy Days. Suzanne Collins made her mark in children's literature with the New York Times-bestselling Underland Chronicles, which started with the acclaimed book Gregor the Overlander. In The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins continues to explore the effect of violence on those coming of age. She was inspired to write The Hunger Games when an idea formed whilst she flicked between television channels broadcasting real war coverage and reality television programmes.

Learn more about the author by clicking here...

'Catching Fire: Suzanne Collins' Hit Young-Adult Novels' read Time Magazine's review here...

Watch an interview with Suzanne Collins discussing The Hunger Games Trilogy...

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 Silver Blade by Sally Gardner

"There is magic, romance, a hint of gothic coupled with vivid vignettes of Parisian life in all its post revolutionary squalor. The writing is beautiful, never forced and everything is cleverly woven together like an intricate tapestry...read The Silver Blade and succumb to the seduction of this master storyteller."

The French Revolution lives on in children's imaginations, if at all, largely thanks to The Scarlet Pimpernel. The tale of how a seemingly foppish aristocrat leads a double life, rescuing other aristocrats from the guillotine, has been a perennial favourite. Yet what about all the other innocents, who, in the days of the Terror, could be executed simply for showing pity for the condemned?

This, Sally Gardner's sequel to The Red Necklace, plunges us into that very question. At the end of the first book, Yann saved his beloved Sido and discovered that she loved him, but returned to Paris to rescue his friends while she sailed to England.

Now known as the Silver Blade, he performs in the theatre by night and by day rescues others from the guillotine, at enormous risk. A Romany, Yann can read people's thoughts, make them forget things and cause objects to move by force of concentration. The trouble is that his old enemy and Sidonie's, Count Kalliovski, has returned from the dead after making a pact with the Devil. The only man who can walk the streets during the Terror wearing the “decadent symbols of aristocracy”, he is living in a palace of bones in Paris's catacombs, with a monstrous black dog with human eyes.

Why does Kalliovski keep waxwork heads, how does he make them talk and what does he want of the master key-maker Quint? All will be revealed.

Set against a vivid historical background, prize winning author Sally Gardner brings to life the horrors of the French Revolution in this breath-taking adventure, complete with intrepid heroism and a touching love story.

Perfect for readers and fans of The Red Necklace and I, Coriander.

About the Author

Sally Gardner trained at art college and went on to work in the theatre, winning awards for her costume designs for some notable productions. After her twin daughters and her son were born she started to illustrate children's books, and then turned to writing. She lives in north London.  

Watch the author discuss growing up in Dickensian London, dyslexia and her new novel, THE SILVER BLADE.

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...

CHERUB 1: The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

Winner of the Red House Children's Book Award

'An excellent start to a promising series. It is every boy's wish to be a spy, and this book will enthrall every single one of them.' The Bookseller

'Punchy, exciting, glamorous and, what's more, you'll completely wish it was true.' The Sunday Express

WHAT IS CHERUB?

During World War Two, French civilians set up a resistance movement to fight against the German forces occupying their country. Many of their most useful operatives were children and teenagers. Some worked as scouts and messengers. Others befriended homesick German soldiers, gathering information that enabled the resistance to sabotage German military operations.
A British spy named Charles Henderson worked among these French children for nearly three years. After returning to Britain, he used what he’d learned in France to train twenty British boys for work on undercover operations. The codename for his unit was CHERUB.

Henderson died in 1946, but the organisation he created has thrived. CHERUB now has more than two hundred and fifty agents, all aged seventeen or under. Although there have been many technical advances in intelligence operations since CHERUB was founded, the reason for its existence remains the same: adults never suspect that children are spying on them.

A terrorist doesn’t let strangers in her flat because they might be undercover police or intelligence agents, but her children bring their mates home and they run all over the place.

The terrorist doesn’t know that a kid has bugged every room in her house, cloned the hard drive on her PC, and copied all the numbers in her phone book. The kid works for CHERUB.

CHERUB is not James Bond. There are no master criminals or high-tech gadgets. CHERUB kids live in the real world. They slip under adult radar and get information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail.

For official purposes, these children do not exist.

There's an extensive CHERUB website, start by reading about The Recruit here...

About the Author

Robert Muchamore was born in Islington in 1972 and spent thirteen years working as a private investigator. He loves Arsenal and watching people fall down holes. He hates swimming and getting chased by cows. He was inspired to create the CHERUB series by his nephews' complaints about the lack of anything for them to read! The CHERUB series (all 12 of them!) has now become a number one bestseller in several countries.

Click here to go to the author's own website