Tag Archives: Romance

The Poet X

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The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

Book of the Week: 23 June 2019

Cover illustration by Gabriel Moreno

It was announced on Tuesday (18 June) that Elizabeth Acevedo had won the 2019 Carnegie Medal for The Poet X.

Xiomara lives in Harlem with Mami, Papi and her twin brother Xavier, whom she calls ‘Twin’. Her hard-working mother wants her to follow the rules, attend church, go to confirmation class and stay away from boys. Xiomara is questioning her faith and attracted to her new lab partner, Aman. She and her mother are set on a collision course. Xiomara’s teacher, Ms Galiano, sees that she is a talented writer and encourages her to attend poetry club, but it isn’t until events push her to breaking point that she finds her voice.

Xiomara’s story is told in free verse, so this is one to try if you enjoy coming-of-age stories and have enjoyed books by Jason Reynolds, Kwame Alexander or Sarah Crossan.

The Gifted, the Talented and Me

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The Gifted, the Talented and Me by William Sutcliffe

Book of the Week:12 May 2019

If you are a sucker for a funny book and have enjoyed the likes of The Private Blog of Joe Cowley, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole or Socks Are Not Enough, this is a must-read. More than the comedy-of-cringe, it speaks to all of us who have felt out of our depth and away from our comfort zone.

Sam’s inventor Dad has sold his business for enough profit to propel them from their ordinary life in a modest house in Stevenage to one of privilege in North London. His arty and aspirational Mum enrols Sam, his seventeen-year-old brother Ethan and art-mad, younger sister Freya in a school for the gifted and talented or, as Sam thinks of it, ‘the North London Academy for Exactly the Kind of People I Instinctively Hated’. It is a school where teachers may be called by their first names and where you might be asked to perform an improvised dance about conflict resolution in front of the class on your first day. Amongst all his glitzy classmates, Sam feels lonely and out-of-place, even more so once Ethan and Flora start making friends and fitting in. Then he develops a crush on the gorgeous but aloof Jennifer, makes an enemy and gets involved, against his better judgement, in the school play. The author offers insights into the power of drama to alter your perceptions, plenty of identifiable scenes of family life and manages it all by making us laugh.

I’m not sure why, but this line resonated with me:

‘Mr Duverne was shouting at us for not listening, but I didn’t really hear what he said because I wasn’t listening’.

We have a book list full of suggestions for funny books fans here.

 

The Traitor’s Game

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The Traitor’s Game by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Book of the Week: 28 April 2019

Cover art by Billelis

The Olden Blade is a long-lost dagger that can only be wielded by a chosen one who will be named the Infidante. It is being searched for by Corack rebels who want to end the reign of the tyrannical Lord Kendrick who rules Antora. Only the Olden Blade is capable of killing him. A group of kidnappers demand that Kestra Dallisor search for the Blade at the family home of the Dallisors from where she has been exiled on the orders of her father. Simon, one of the kidnappers, poses as her protector but finds his job is far from easy as Kestra not only has plans of her own but has a knack for stealing weapons, using them and outwitting those who oppose her.

The plot is told from the alternating points of view of Simon and Kestra and keeps you guessing about motives and identities until the end where it leads on to a sequel (The Deceiver’s Heart). It is aimed at slightly older readers than the author’s Ascendance Trilogy, which you can also borrow from the Tim Pigott-Smith Library.

Truly Devious

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Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Book of the Week: 24 March 2019

Cover art by Leo Nickolls

We start this story at an exclusive boarding school in the mountains of Vermont in the 1930s. One foggy April day, new student Dottie Epstein stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel in the woods, follows it and finds herself in a domed building on an island in the lake. Shortly later, a stranger enters the dome and Dottie is no more. The fog also seems to have hindered the return to school of the wealthy founder’s wife and daughter. In the ensuing panic, Albert Ellingham, the wealthy philanthropist who built the school, receives a telephone call to say kidnappers are holding his wife and daughter and demanding a ransom.

In the present day, detective fan and new student, Stevie Bell, is arriving at Ellingham Academy for the first time with a vast knowledge of the murder and kidnapping and a determination to solve it all.

Whilst this has all the expected ingredients of a murder mystery: grand country house (converted into a school), isolated setting, unsettling atmosphere, a cast of idiosyncratic characters who may or may not be trustworthy and a determined investigator, it also looks at school life and the difficulties of fitting in and does not neatly tie up loose ends because the author wants to hold you in suspense for much longer than the duration of the book. It is only the first in a trilogy.

The Twisted Tree

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The Twisted Tree by Rachel Burge

Book of the Week: 3 February 2019

Cover illustration by Rohan Eason

Martha is on her way to visit her grandmother (her Mormor) on a remote Norwegian island where she used to spend her summers. She is troubled by her relationship with her mother, the aftermath of an accident that left her blinded in one eye and the strange power she has to sense people’s emotions and aspects of their past through contact with their clothing. She is given a lift to Mormor’s cabin by a neighbour, only to find that the sole inhabitant is a squatter called Stig. He tells her that her grandmother died and the funeral was a couple of weeks ago. Martha realises that no-one knows where she is, the mobile phone signal is out, the nearest neighbours are miles away and Stig could be a mad, axe-murderer. Added to this, there appears to be something on the loose in the nearby woods and odd movements that can’t be explained coming from inside the cabin.

Rachel Burge uses Norse mythology and the isolated setting to create a creepy tale with a dash of romance.

Other books with frightening happenings in remote places:

Fir by Sharon Gosling

Savage Island by Bryony Pearce

Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

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The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Book of the Week: 16 December 2018

Cover image not credited

We learn from chapter one that Frankie has been responsible for some outrageous pranks at her exclusive private school, Alabaster Preparatory Academy, but how and why they happened is the subject of the rest of the book.

Soon after Frankie starts her sophomore year (our Year 11) she starts dating Matthew who is a senior (our Year 13). He introduces her to his best friend Alessandro, known as Alpha, who is ‘top dog’ in a secret society called the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. Only boys can be members and they dedicate their time to playing pranks on campus. Frankie feels that Matthew is hiding something from her and treating her rather like her family do – as harmless and adorable. She sets out to discover his secret and infiltrate the secret society.

You might give this a try if you enjoy books by John Green or Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Warwickshire Secondary School Book Award 2019

Last week we heard that the winner of the Warwickshire Year 9 Book Award was Fiona Shaw with her book Outwalkers and we started on the Warwickshire Book Award for 2019 with a team of Year 7 readers.

If you like the sound of some of the 2019 shortlisted books, why not try something with a similar theme? There are some suggestions below:

‘Shell’ and ‘Stranger’

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Shell by Paula Rawsthorne and Stranger by Keren David

Books of the Week: 9 December 2018

Designer not credited

Design by Ellen Rockell

Monday 10 December sees the announcement of the winner of the Warwickshire Year 9 Book Award. Teams of Year 9 students throughout Warwickshire have been shortlisting, reading and voting on books chosen initially by school library staff and are now waiting to find out which book has won. We started in September with a longest of nine books, narrowed it down to four, and have been reading and discussing them for the last couple of months. It has been a hard choice as there were so many wonderful reads.

Two of the four shortlisted books have already been Books of the Week: Orphan Monster Spy in May  and Outwalkers in April, so now it is the turn of Shell and Stranger to be joint Books of the Week.

Shell raises all sorts of questions about the ethics of body transplants and what makes you the person you are. Lucy is terminally ill, but a revolutionary and risky new medical procedure allows her brain to be transplanted into the body of a donor. Although she is happy to have escaped death, she finds adjusting to a new body an alienating experience. She is now pretty and popular which alters her relationships and forces her to keep secrets from everyone around her. She needs to find out more about her donor and, in doing so, uncovers things that others wish to remain hidden. This is a grippingly told story with plenty of dramatic highlights.

Stranger is a novel where the action takes place in two different eras: Astor, Ontario in 1904 and the same location in 1994. It is about outsiders and people who feel they don’t belong and how events have lasting repercussions over time. It begins in 1904 when Emmy and Sadie are out walking and encounter a naked, bloodied young man who emerges from the forest distressed and unable to talk. Sadie runs away, but Emmy tries to help. Ninety years later, Megan arrives in the same small town for Emmy’s 105th birthday. She is Emmy’s great-granddaughter with her own secrets and unhappiness. How the lives of the two women intertwine is something we discover as we read the dual narratives of this compassionately told story.

Whichever book is voted the winner on Monday, I’m sure Year 9 judges will tell you that they are all worth reading and are books that will stay in your mind long after you have put them down.

 

What I Couldn’t Tell You

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What I Couldn’t Tell You by Faye Bird

Book of the Week: 14 October 2018

Images from Shutterstock

Joe has taken the unauthorised loan of a motorbike from the garage where he works to take his girlfriend Laura to the river, but his plan to be alone with her is ruined when three menacing boys appear, take the bike from Joe and threaten Laura.

The scene then shifts to eight weeks later by which time Laura is in a coma and her family are preparing for their daily visit. Joe is missing and is number one on the list of people the police would like to interview. Laura’s brother Jake and younger sister Tessie have just returned to school after the trauma of Laura’s attack, but school is not a happy place for Tessie. She is selectively mute and is being bullied by two girls about her inability to talk. Tessie can talk at home, or at her friend Max’s house, when the doors are ‘proper shut’, but not in school or other places or when there are strangers about. She cannot even talk to the unconscious Laura in hospital, much as she wants to.

The tension of the first chapter does not let up as we follow Tessie’s attempts to uncover what happened to her sister and navigate complicated family relationships as well as a developing romance with the mysterious Billy.

Boy Meets Hamster

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Boy Meets Hamster by Birdie Milano

Book of the Week: 7 October 2018

Illustration by Linzie Hunter

“She was wearing a shiny, royal blue power suit that looked like she’d pulled it out of a portal to the 80s, and holding a serious-looking clipboard. There are two types of clipboard in the world: ones that make people look like they are going on a Geography field trip, and ones that look like they’re full of Very Bad News.”

The clipboard-holder is Margaret who runs Starcross Sands, a Cornish holiday park, where Dylan, his parents, younger brother Jude and best friend Kayla, are about to enjoy a ‘dream holiday for the bargain price of £9.50. Margaret feels that every carefully-planned event at the park that goes wrong has one common denominator: Dylan!

Bad luck and horrible embarrassment seem to follow Dylan around, just as he’s trying to impress the gorgeous Jayden-Lee from the caravan opposite and avoid the cheery organising attempts of a holiday employee dressed as a giant hamster. Unfortunately, little brother Jude thinks Nibbles the hamster is one of the highlights of the holiday, making him doubly hard to avoid.

The author, Birdie Milano, dedicates the book to anyone who has ever felt different and adds ‘which I’m almost sure is everyone’. Read this for plenty of wisdom and reassurance, whether you are crushing on someone from afar, or trying to avoid excruciatingly embarrassing situations, or doomed holidays in awful places.

Mud

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Mud by Emily Thomas

Book of the Week: 30 September 2018

Illustration by Helen Musselwhite

Lydia is horrified when her dad has money problems and moves her and her siblings Elsa, Harry and Sam to live on a decrepit Thames barge called Lady Beatrice. Even worse, they have to move in with dad’s ‘lady friend’ Kate and her three children: Sally, Eric and Jake. Lydia’s worst fears are realised when she moves into her cramped cabin that has no electricity and damp running down the walls. When her rebellious older sister Elsa leaves for Cambridge University, Lydia is left with her squabbling family, trying to fit in with new classmates and a father who takes to drink.

Lydia is a quirky and funny narrator but the family’s precarious situation is portrayed in a clear-eyed, unsentimental way and real anxieties are never glossed over. This book has been compared to the classic I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and there are similaries. Mud, however, is much less of a fairytale and more a nicely observed slice of life.