8-11 years

5-8 years | 8-11 years | 11-13 years | Teen/Young Adult

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Wonder

8-11 years

Savour this paean to kindness before its big screen release

The upcoming cinema release of Wonder, provides an ideal opportunity to consider the charms of its literary predecessor. We meet Auggie, who’s living with Mandibulofacial Dysostosis, a rare and severe cranio-facial abnormality. ‘I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse’. Previously home-educated, Auggie’s parents have decided it’s time he went to school. At the tender age of 10, he must learn to confront the prejudices of an often hostile world.
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From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler

8-11 years

Capturing the charms of New York in the 1960's

Claudia Kincaid is 12-years-old, and a bit disgruntled. Bored with the ‘…sameness of each and every week’, she feels it’s time for a grand adventure. Something bold, original, and instructive (she is, after all, a Grade A student). How about running away to New York, to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? With the Met offering celebratory tours to mark 50 years since publication, E.L Konigsburg’s American Classic deserves to be better known on this side of the Atlantic.
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The Explorer

8-11 years

Richly imagined Amazonian adventure destined to become a modern classic

En route to the Brazilian city of Manaus, a tiny passenger plane crash-lands in the Amazon jungle. Four children walk away from the smoking wreckage, and into the greatest adventure of their lives. In their bid to reach civilisation, the terrified children need to dig deep, to fight their personal demons, and find courage in a terrain where only the strong survive.

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When Marnie Was There

8-11 years

A poignant and beautiful evocation of childhood loneliness and friendship

A self-proclaimed outsider, Anna’s days are spent quietly dreaming. Her imagination is rich but her days are lonely. Until that is, the bewitching Marnie appears, and over the course of one long hot summer, opens Anna’s timid heart to friendship. But Marnie’s enigmatic aura is unsettling. Who is she really, and what is her mysterious behaviour concealing?

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Ruby Redfort: Blink and You Die (Book 6)

8-11 years

Inspiring a new generation of super-cool girl spies

There is something rotten at the core of top spy agency Spectrum. One of it’s agents appears to want Ruby dead. Who? Why? Will they rue the day they crossed Ruby Redfort, the smartest, bravest secret agent ever? Congratulations to Lauren Child, who’s just been appointed our new Children’s Laureate. The hugely successful creator of Charlie & Lola, and the irrepressible Clarice Bean, now turns her versatile talents to 9+ adventure-crazy girls.

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An Eagle in the Snow

8-11 years

Vivid and enthralling wartime tale wins coveted Children's Book Award

It is 1940. 10-year-old Barney and his mum are on the 11.50 train to London, all their worldly possessions contained in a suitcase on the overhead luggage rack. Bombed out of their home by the Luftwaffe, they are moving in with Barney’s aunty Mavis. But events on this journey will haunt them forever, as a mysterious travelling companion shares some chilling revelations. The Children’s Book Award is voted for entirely by children. This makes it an especially lovely accolade, and one that this year has been awarded to Michael Morpurgo, for An Eagle in the Snow.
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New and Collected Poems for Children

8-11 years

An exuberant journey to the heart of childhood imagination

In this 2017 edition, our Poet Laureate presents poems from previous collections, plus a handful of new. A delicious assortment, it honours the fantastical landscape of our children’s inner lives, and tells us that poetry belongs to us all, it is the music of being human.

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The Bookshop Girl

8-11 years

A joyously bookish crime caper

Property Jones lives in a bookshop. As if this isn’t the height of good fortune in itself, her family wins a raffle to become owners of the world famous Montgomery Book Emporium. This is, of course, a staggeringly marvellous turn of events. Or is it? Property wonders if maybe it’s just too good to be true.
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Stories From Shakespeare

8-11 years

Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare!

Marking the Bard’s birthday this April, is a new edition of Geraldine McCaughrean’s sparkling re-telling of ten of his best known plays. The aim is to engage younger readers by sloughing off the drier elements of the text, and letting the stories shine through.
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The White Tower

8-11 years

An enthralling and inventive tale of magic and flight

The White Tower tells the story of Livy, a lonely, bereaved girl, trembling on the edge of adolescence. When her father becomes the librarian at ancient, hallowed Temple College, Livy is granted a scholarship there. A marvellous tale of alchemy, magic, and villainy unfolds.

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