INTERMEDIATE 1

READING LIST

This list is arranged in the following genres:

REAL LIFE

SPLIFFS 1, 2 & 3

ROMANCE

SUSPENSE

HORROR

WAR

OTHER TIMES/ OTHER PLACES

HUMOUR

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

FUTURE WORLDS

SHORT STORIES



REAL LIFE

ALMOND, David

Kit?s Wilderness

A powerful and intensely moving story about handling emotions, being strong in relationships and learning to handle death, all seen from the eyes of an ordinary boy.

BERTAGNA, Julia

Soundtrack

Finn is fascinated by the sea. He is constantly tempting fate, taking terrible risks, the bane of his parents? life. When his uncle is drowned at sea, Finn is forced to come out of his shell and face up to the consequences of the tragedy, for himself and for those round him.

BLACKMAN, Malorie

Pigheart Boy

Cameron lives for football and swimming, until a mystery virus damages his heart and starts a time bomb ticking on his life. No donor hearts are available and his only chance of recovery is a transplant with a pig?s heart.

COLEMAN, Michael

Weirdo?s War

Daniel and Tozer couldn?t be more different and when they are on a school outward-bound weekend, they are dismayed to learn that they will work together. Things get worse, but the boys begin to learn about each other and for a brief while forget their differences.

CREECH,Sharon

Walk Two Moons

Salamanca Hiddle is on a long journey across America and on the way she discovers all kinds of stories about her family. The trip has something to do with her mother?s sudden disappearance and these stories help prepare her for the truth, when she finally reaches her destination.

Try also Chasing Redbird or The Wanderer

CROSS,Gillian

Tightrope

Eddie Beale looks after his friends, as long as they entertain him. When he takes notice of Ashley, she is happy to put on a show and be part of the excitement. Then she realises someone is stalking her and leaving messages that get uglier. Can Eddie help? And if he does, what price will she pay?

FINE,Anne
Goggle Eyes

A very funny account of how to cope when you can?t stand your mother?s new boyfriend.

GARDNER, Graham

Inventing Elliot

Badly bullied at his previous school, Elliot is determined this will not happen at his next. But although he manages to avoid trouble he becomes aware that there is a secret reign of violence presided over by three self-appointed schoolboy ?guardians?. Rather than become their target, Elliot is forced to watch the way they make smaller, vulnerable children miserable. Matters come to a head when he is selected to become one of the guardians of the future.

GIBBONS, Alan

The Edge

At the start of the novel Danny and his mother, Cathy are running away from Cathy?s violent and abusive boyfriend Chris Kane. They go to Edgecliffe, to stay with Cathy?s family, but when they arrive, they are made to feel unwelcome by her father, while elsewhere in the town, racism is a major issue.

GRAY, Keith

Warehouse

A community of young people have gathered in an old warehouse to get away from a world they don?t fit in to. Through separate but interweaving narratives Warehouse tells the stories of three of the community?s members. There?s Robbie who is running away from his violent older brother, Frank, and needs some space to realise that the beatings are not his fault. Amy, who?s supposed to be travelling in Europe but has had her rucksack stolen and is too proud to ask her smothering family for help. And then there?s Lem, an ex drug addict and founder of the Warehouse community, whose perceived role as leader by the other young people is too much for him to cope with.

HOOPER,Mary
Megan

At 15 , Megan discovers she is five months pregnant. This book tells how she copes, and the reaction of her family and friends.

The story continues in Megan 2 & Megan 3.

KEMP, Gene

Seriously Weird

This book tells the story of Troy, a boy who has Asperger?s Syndrome, and the effect this has on his family. The story is narrated by his older, caring sister Claire ? who is the middle child trapped between an older, beautiful and confident sister and a younger brother who constantly behaves in an extremely challenging manner. Meanwhile their mother prefers to pretend nothing is wrong, through she has to take a bit of notice when Troy gets excluded from school and then goes missing.

MARSDEN,John

Letters from the Inside

A haunting story about how a friendship between two girls who never meet is developed through their letters.

MASTERS,Anthony
Wicked

Josh is worried by the change in behaviour of his brothers and starts to realise they are hiding a dark secret. Evolving round an unused pit and some old cars, this turns out to be more horrific that he could ever have imagined.

MATTHEWS, Matthew

Stiks and Stoans

Liam is the new boy. He thinks the only way to survive is to be the clown in Billy Pickett?s gang. Billy?s latest victim is Ella, who is dyslexic. The book looks at the effects of bullying.

RAI, Bali

(Un)arranged marriage

Manny lives in two worlds: the streetwise life of his Leicester school friends, and the expectations of his family. Manny is determined that he will never agree to the arranged marriage his parents have planned for him. But his family is determined as well, and Manny is taken to India to learn respect and a proper sense of where he belongs.

SACHER,Louis
Holes

A miscarriage of justice sends Stanley Yelnats to Camp Green Lake. He accepts his fate philosophically, after all his family has a history of bad luck. Each of the boys at the camp must dig a five-foot deep and five-foot wide hole daily. The warden says it?s character building. Stanley?s character shines through.

SWINDELLS,Robert
Abomination

Martha is 12, and very different from other children. Her parents are strict members of a religious group and their rules dominate her life. She must never invite anyone home, or their shameful secret, the Abomination, could be revealed. The tale focuses on the rights of a child and child abuse.

Try also Unbeliver or Smash.

URE, Jean

Bad Alice

13 year old Duffy is staying with his Nan for the Summer while his mum and seriously ill little sister are in America for a life-saving operation. He meets Alice, a girl his age who lives next door, who Nan disapproves of and everyone in the town thinks is mad. Alice makes Duffy accepted and liked, but gradually he becomes aware of something very wrong in her seemingly normal family.

WOLFF,Virgina
Make Lemonade

Verna describes her experience as a child-minder for single mother Jolly.

You could also try the sequel True Believer



ROMANCE

CANN,Kate
Diving In

Collette daydreams all the time about meeting the gorgeous bloke she sees at her swimming pool. Then, one afternoon, he asks her out. Close-up, he?s even more good looking ? but he?s also very pushy.

Sequels: In the Deep End and Sink or Swim

Breaking Up is another powerful Kate Cann novel, this time dealing with a teenager trying to make sense of her own emotions while her parents are splitting up.

JOHNSON,Pete
Ten Hours to Live

A story of first love told from the time it has gone wrong.

LINGARD,Joan
The Twelfth Day of July

The first in a series of 5 novels about the Protestant girl Sadie and Catholic Kevin in the highly charged atmosphere of divided Belfast.

WOODSON, Jacqueline

If You Come Softly

Fifteen year old Jeremiah feels good inside his own skin in his own Brooklyn neighbourhood, but is not so sure he fits in at the academy he attends until he meets Ellie. Their relationship begins to blossom, then, suddenly tragedy strikes.




SUSPENSE

ARKSEY,Neil
MacB

A fortuneteller prophesises that both Banksie and MacB will be captain of the team. How can this be? Duncan is the captain, but then Duncan meets with a terrible accident. But is it an accident? A taut and dramatic reworking of MacBeth via the football field.

BURGESS,Melvin
The Cry of the Wolf

Ben knows that there is one wolf pack living secretly in England. Unfortunately, he tells the hunter, whose ruthless quest is to kill the last remaining wolves.

You could also try Tiger, Tiger

CHRISTIE,Agatha
Murder on the Orient Express

Trapped on the snowbound Orient Express, Hercule Poirot solves the mystery surrounding the murder of one of his fellow passengers.

There are lots of other crime stories by Agatha Christie featuring Poirot or Miss Marple.

MORGAN, Nicola

Fleshmarket

Set in the 1820s in Edinburgh, a city of cruel contrasts between the lives of the rich and poor, and home to the infamous Burke and Hare, who sold their murder victims to brilliant anatomist Dr Robert Knox. This is the evocative, often harrowing story of a boy who must survive the pain of his mother?s death, at the hands of Doctor Knox.

PAULSEN,Gary
Hatchet

The story of a 13-year-old boy, whose plane crashed, leaving him stranded in the Canadian wilderness.

Sequels: Hatchet: Winter and The Return

RHUE,Martin
The Wave

A classroom experiment in history in an American High School goes too far and a Nazi-style system sweeps through the school.

ROSE,Malcolm
Flying Upside Down

Glynn?s mother gets held up at knifepoint in her own kitchen, all because Glynn?s been given a lousy present. It?s Duncan Brown who tells Glynn the true value of his gift. But being friendly with a loser like Duncan is a bad idea and someone is determined both boys will suffer for it.

SWINDELLS,Robert
Stone Cold

The chilling story of a homeless boy and a mass murderer.

WESTWOOD,Chris
Becoming Julia

Maggie has never met Julie Broderick, but their likeness is uncanny. When Julia?s body is fished out of the river, Maggie is drawn into the tangled web surrounding the dead girl.



HORROR

BRESLIN,Theresa
Whispers in the Graveyard

Solomon?s mum has left home; his dad drinks and his teachers have lost patience with him. His refuge is a corner of the kirkyard and the rowan tree that grows there. The tree is uprooted and as it dies a terrible force is released.

DUNCAN,Lois
Gallows Hill

Sarah is not keen to move with her mother to Pine Crest, but is pleased to be asked to play the fortuneteller at the school fair. Then images appear in her crystal ball and she begins to relive the Salam witch trials.

GROSS,Philip
Plex

Mr Multiplex has the gift of "plexing" ? the ability to mix two things together to make "the best of both worlds". But when Tod and Sly burst into his room in the middle of one of his experiments, something goes badly wrong and a monster is released.

Try also The Wind Gate.

WESTALL,Robert
Yaxley?s Cat

Jane and Tim persuade their mother to take the lonely cottage on the marsh. But why has it been deserted for seven years? And what of the terrible cat that comes clawing its way into the house at midnight?

Try also The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral or The Wheatstone Pond



WAR

BRADMAN, Tony (Ed)

Gripping War Stories

(You will find this book in the short stories section.)

BRESLIN, Theresa

Remembrance

This book is about 5 young people growing up during the First World War and the effects war and fighting have on them. An unforgettable and tear jerking novel.

DICKINSON,Peter
AK

Paul Kagomi is a boy soldier fighting for freedom in the African bush with only his gun to rely on.

SEDGWICK, Marcus

Cowards

This is the story of Howard Marten and Alfred Evans, two young men who refused to join the army in the First World War. They suffered imprisonment and punishment, because they believed it was wrong to kill.

TURNER, Barry

One Small Suitcase

For ten months before World War II, thousands of children were bundled onto trains and waved goodbye to their parents as they set off across Germany and Holland to the ferries that would take them to England. This book is based on extensive interviews with those who helped to organise the transports, the families who took the children in and above all, the young refugees as they began their new lives in a strange country.

WESTALL,Robert
A Time of Fire

Ten-year-old Sonny loses his mother in a German bombing raid, and his father joins the RAF to avenge her death, leaving Sonny to be cared for by his grandparents.

WESTALL,Robert
Gulf

An English boy finds himself experiencing the thoughts and feelings of an Iraqi boy soldier during the Gulf War.



OTHER TIMES / OTHER PLACES

BRANFIELD,Henrietta
Fire, Bed and Bone

The Peasants? Revolt of 1381 ? as seen through the eyes of an old hunting dog! Her masters are imprisoned and she is left alone.

CUSHMAN,Karen
Catherine, called Birdy

Set in the thirteenth century and written in the form of a diary this is the absorbing and often hilarious account of Catherine, sometimes called Birdy, and her quest to lose all the suitors her father finds for her.

DOHERTY,Berlie
Street Child

A fictionalised biography, based on the true story of Jim Jarvis, who lived rough in the London of the 1860s after escaping from the workhouse. His tale inspired Dr Barnado to establish Barnardo?s homes.

LESTER,Julius
Basketball Game

Allen, a young black teenager moves with his parents to a town in the deeply prejudiced southern states of America. Despite the father?s warnings, Allen plays basketball with Rebecca, the white girl next door.

LLOYD,Errol
Many Rivers to Cross

When her grandmother tells her she is going to England, 12-year-old Sandra is happy that she will see her father again, but sad she is leaving her grandmother and all her friends. The journey from Jamaica to London is only the first river she has to cross.

PAULSEN,Gary
Nightjohn

The brutality of slavery is shown in this novel set in the American South in the 1850s. It is the story of Sarny, a 12-year-old slave girl and her meeting with Nightjohn, who risks everything to teach Sarny to read.

The story is continued in Sarny.

SMUCKER,Barbara
Undergound to Canada

Taken away from her mother by a ruthless slave trader, all Julily has left is a dream of freedom ? via the "undergound railway to Canada".



HUMOUR

PRATCHETT,Terry
Truckers

The first of three hilarious fantasy books, telling the adventures of nomes living in the Store from which they have to move as it is about to be demolished.

Try also The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

RANKIN,Robert
A Dog called Demolition

Danny is not sad and lonely any more, because Danny has "the voice", the voice of an imaginary dog called Demolition. The dog tells him what to do, like how to adjust the bar code reader in the shop, so he can read what people are thinking. Soon, Danny can bend others to his will and fears no man.

TOWNSEND,Sue
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole

The first of the hilarious series of diaries in which Adrian, the undiscovered poet and intellectual tries to deal with his parents? crumbling marriage, his spots, his school, his unrequited love for Pandora, while trying to get his poetry accepted.



FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION

BRANFIELD,Henrietta
A Chance of Safety

A dictatorial and sinister government presides in this society of ?haves? and ?have-nots?. The ?haves? never question their lifestyle, or the inhuman treatment of the ?have-nots?. That is until Alex and Nelly?s father begins to make dangerous enquiries, and their lives are never the same again.

BURGESS,Melvin
The Baby and the Fly Pie

A chilling story set in a plausible future in which gangs of homeless and dispossessed youngsters roam the outskirts of cities.

RAYBAN,Chloe
Love in Cyberia

Justine doesn?t have a computer-literate bone in her body. But that soon changes when the gorgeous (if a little unusual) Los gives her his e-mail address. A light-hearted exploration into the world cyberspace.

This is one of a series of novels about Justice Duval.

THOMPSON,Kate
Switchers

Kate is a Switcher, meaning that she can change shape to become any animal she chooses. She always thought she was unique, but not any more. Tess meets Kevin, another Switcher, and together they turn out to have powers they never dreamed of.



SHORT STORIES

BRADBURY,Ray
The Toynbee Convector

In this selection of tales, the world?s only time-traveller reveals his secret ? a hundred years after the event and a ghost is given new life by a particularly perceptive nurse.

Another short story selection you could try is Quicker than the Eye.

DAHL,Roald
The Great Automatic Grammatizator

A collection of stories of the unexpected ? often bizarre and macabre.

Try also Skin and other Stories and Kiss Kiss.

LAYTON,George
The Swap and other Stories

A series of stories dealing with growing up and going to school in the 1950s.

MAGORIAN,Michelle
In Deep Water

A selection of stories exploring the theme of water in all its shapes and forms and how it affects the lives of those it touches.

PEARCE,Philippa
The Rope and other Stories

In these eight atmospheric short stories, the need to face fears, the comedy of family life, and the pressure of others' expectations are among the experiences of childhood brought to life.

WESTALL,Robert
Echoes of War

5 compelling stories describing the experience of war and its scars.



SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS BY DIFFERENT AUTHORS

( You will find these books in the Short Story Section of the Library)

BRADMAN, Tony (Ed) Gripping War Stories

CHAMBERS, Aidan (Ed) On the Edge

These stories are all on the edge ? of darkness, murder, dangerous speculation and revenge.

FRASER, Lindsey (Ed.) Points North: Short Stories by Scottish Writers

JONES, Diana Wynne (Ed) Hidden Turnings

A collection of fantasy stories through time and space by authors such as Terry Pratchett, Douglas Hill, Helen Cresswell and Robert Westall.