Young Readers


Mind Your Head by Juno Dawson

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Mind Your Head

A clear and supportive guide to young people's mental health

Here in the UK, the month of May brings Mental Health Awareness Week, a brilliant opportunity for Bookstoker to explore the literary side of the subject. Mind Your Head by Juno Dawson is a book we feel no teenager should be without. Packed with information and strategies on how to cope with a range of issues, this practical guide will become a personal counsellor residing on your bookshelf.

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S.T.A.G.S.

Thrills and chills in this darkly clever YA Book Prize shortlisted novel

‘In order for the higher orders of species to thrive…the lower orders must be curbed.’ A line to chill the spine of the most seasoned thriller fan. Shortlisted for the YA Book Prize 2018, the deliciously dark S.T.A.G.S is the perfect lazy weekend read.

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Children of Blood and Bone

Heralding a powerful new voice in YA fiction

One day magic breathed. The next, it died.

Orïsha was once a land blessed with ‘maji’, sacred clans people with divine powers over the land. When their magic abruptly vanishes, Orïsha bows to the tyranny of a bloodthirsty king, a despot who wishes to wipe the magic arts from the face of his kingdom. But the children of the fallen maji remain, cowed and silent.One day they will rise.

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Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls 2

Inciting joyful rebellion

Volume One of Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, a collection of 100 tales of extraordinary women, was one of the publishing sensations of 2017. Showcasing real women of courage and ingenuity, and riding the wave of thezeitgeist, the authors produced a beautiful factual book that has been translated around the world. A wonderful thing then happened, a clamour of readers’ voices calling for more tales, and offering up their own heroines. Here, in Volume Two, we see the results of a very happy collaboration.

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The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit and Other Stories

Delightful storytelling from a literary icon

Hands up who knew Sylvia Plath had written stories for children. I certainly didn’t, and was thrilled to stumble across this trio for young readers. Discovered among her papers after her death, and subsequently published, they aretales of magic and mischief, and cast their author in an unexpected and welcome new light.

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Things a Bright Girl Can Do

For bright young feminists everywhere, celebrating 100 years of Votes for Women

‘If you was my wife, I’d take a stick to you.’ When 17-year-old Evelyn witnesses a suffragette being jeered at and pelted with missiles, it sparks a pledge of solidarity with the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Her contemporaries, Nell and May, have different stories to tell but all three girls are raging at the confines of their metaphorical cages. Set in Edwardian London, where women’s lives revolved around home and hearth, Things a Bright Girl Can Do follows their personal quests to live by the motto Deeds not Words.

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The 1,000-year-old Boy

Who wants to live forever?

To the casual observer, Alfie Monk looks like an average 11-year-old boy. But Alfie can remember the last Viking invasion of England. He was there. As was his mum, Hilda, and cat, Biffa. A thousand years later and they’re still alive. Ageless, with a millennium of history and wisdom between them.

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Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All

25th anniversary edition of this poetic guide to a fearless heart

What a magnetic duo. Maya Angelou, poet, memoirist and civil rights campaigner. Jean-Michel Basquiat, the street artist whose posthumous reputation has soared in recent years. Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All is a poem of defiance, a lesson in vanquishing childhood fears. And in a lightning strike of inspiration, it’s been paired with a selection of Basquiat’s Neo-Expressionist paintings.

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Frankenstein

Stretch your teen with this school syllabus favourite on its 200th anniversary

‘The monster is the real hero of the novel. Discuss.’ One of the many thorny essay questions set to this perennial school syllabus favourite. Written at the dawn of science fiction, crackling with horror, and strikingly ‘fettered to grief,’ 2018 marks 200 years since Frankenstein’s publication, an ideal moment to review this illuminating young students edition. Read full Review

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Blame My Brain – The Amazing Teenage Brain Revealed

An entertaining guide for teenagers and their long-suffering parents

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers.

Or so said Socrates. If the great philosophers were moaning about teenagers 2500 years ago, this surely indicates some curious features that are timeless and universal in the adolescent brain. Nicola Morgan takes a humorous and non-patronising approach to revealing the science behind the subject. Ambitiously aimed at both teens and their parents, it may be just what you’ve been waiting for.

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