|
2008 Middle School Sakura
Books
|
|
|
A Respectable Girl
|
It is 1859 in the raw new township of New Plymouth, where 15-year-old Hannah Carstairs walks between two worlds with an English father and twin bother and a Maori step-mother and step-brother. Soon Hannah finds both worlds changing when disturbing hints about her dead mother’s past surface, and then the tensions between Maori and the settlers boils over. With her family divided and war threatening, Hannah and her twin brother flee to England to discover the truth about their parentage.
|
|
After the death of Alice Bennett
|
Before mum died, she told Sam that she would always be with him. On the day of mum's cremation, his sister Becky receives a text from a friend: 'Thinking about you. X' Sam becomes convinced that the text is from their mother. Sam thinks he's in contact with mum and forms a plan. How will Sam cope when confronted with the truth? |
|
Aim High
|
Neale's sport is archery and he faces a challenge between bow and arrows and a rifle when Kane, a boy he doesn’t like, dares him to go out to the bush for a shoot-out. But a sudden terrifying event cuts the two boys off from help and they must put aside their differences and work together to survive.
|
|
Ask Me No Questions
|
As part of a U.S. government crackdown on illegal immigration after 9/11, Muslim men were required to register with the government and many were arrested because their visas had long-since expired. Families who had lived and worked in this country were suddenly and forcibly reminded of their illegal status without any likelihood of changing it. For 18-year-old Aisha Hossain, this means the end of her dream of going to college to become a doctor. For 14-year-old Nadira, her younger sister and the story's narrator, it means coming out from behind the shadow of her perfect older sister to reveal her own strength and find a way to reunite her nearly shattered family. Immigrants from Bangladesh, the Hossains have lived illegally in New York for years, their visa requests handled by a series of dishonest or incompetent lawyers and mired in the tortuous process of bureaucratic red tape. Following their father's arrest and detention, the teens put together the documentation and make a case that requires the judges to see them as individuals rather than terror suspects.
|
|
The Black Book of Secrets
|
Fate delivers young Ludlow Fitch into the employ of strange Joe Zabbidou who every night buys up the secrets of the town's people, relieving them of the awful burdens they have borne for years. These secrets are all duly noted down in the pages of the Black Book. Ungrateful lot that they are, their happiness is short-lived. |
|
Breathe
|
Jack can feel the essence of those that have died just by touching the objects that they touched. After his father's death his mum, knowing how much Jack loves his gift, takes him to live in an old house, so full of history and secrets that she hopes Jack can forget his sadness for a while and try to keep his asthma (so serious it has nearly killed him) at bay. But on his very first night in the house, Jack discovers that his gift has changed - not only can he see ghosts, but he can feel them too! The strongest spirit terrorizes the ghostly children whom she holds captive in the house, living off their souls. Now she wants Jack to take the place of her long dead daughter and intends to show no mercy to anyone who stands in her way.
|
|
Dark Hours
|
On Gisel’s sixteenth birthday, her world, like the war effort, begins to crumble. Her father is still away serving in the German army when the advancing Allies force the rest of the family to flee their home. Gisel, her three younger brothers, and their pregnant mother board a crowded train. But when their mother goes into labour, the children are separated from her at the next station. Before they know what’s happening an air raid siren sounds, and Gisel barely manages to hustle the children into a trackside lavatory. When the bombs hit, the children are trapped. As they await rescue, Gisel’s only adult communication is with a dying soldier buried on the other side of the wall who offers guidance on how to survive. It is a suspenseful and dramatic novel about the injustice of war, its impact on ordinary people, and the hope that resonates in the human soul.
|
|
Darkside
|
Your home's been attacked. Your dad's in an asylum. You're running for your life. And there's nowhere to hide. You've stumbled on the city's greatest secret: Darkside. Incredibly dangerous and unimaginably exciting. Darkside is ruled by Jack the Ripper's children - a place where nightmares walk the streets. You think you're in trouble now, but your problems have just begun...
|
|
Don’t Call Me Ishmael
|
The story follows a boy called Ishmael in Secondary school in Queensland. He is just about managing to avoid the school bully, Barry Bagsley, when a long comes along a new, fantastic English teacher, Miss Tarango, at the beginning of the school year in February. She is simply awesome and manages to control Barry effortlessly in many clever ways. A few weeks later, a weak-looking and over-neat boy called James Scobie arrives and makes a huge difference to everything from the school's rugby team, stands up to Barry in most unusual ways and goes on to setting up a debate club.
|
|
Don’t Tell
|
School girl Kirsty finds a blood covered body of a boy in the park and doesn't know whether to stop and help or flee. When the boy turns out to be unharmed and hisses at her, "Don't tell", before running off into the night she is confused and frightened. Their lives become unexpectedly intertwined just a few day later when the same boy is sent to her school. Simon's behavior is bizarre and erratic, the horrors of his past relived in nightmares and acting-out - but Kirsty can't resist being drawn to him. Is Simon as paranoid as everyone seems to think, or is someone trying to keep the truth buried?
|
|
Endymion Spring
|
Having reluctantly accompanied his academic mother and pesky younger sister to Oxford, twelve-year-old Blake Winters is at loose ends until he stumbles across an ancient and magical book, secretly brought to England in 1453 by Gutenberg's mute apprentice to save it from evil forces, and which now draws Blake into a dangerous and life-threatening quest. |
|
Girl, Missing
|
Lauren has always known she was adopted but when a little research turns up the possibility that she was snatched from an American family as a baby, suddenly Lauren's life seems s a sham. How can she find her biological parents? And are her adoptive parents really responsible for kidnapping her? She manages to wangle a trip across the Atlantic where she runs away to try and find the truth. But the circumstances of her disappearance are murky and Lauren's kidnappers are still at large and willing to do anything to keep her silent...
|
|
The Goat who Sailed Around the World
|
True story of
the animal who sailed with James Cook on the Endeavour, on the voyage that
first mapped Australia's east coast and led to the British colony there 20
years later.
|
|
H.I.V.E.: Higher Institute of Villainous Education
|
Thirteen-year-old Otto and three of his new friends are kidnapped and taken to H.I.V.E., a super academy for world domination where the particular talents encouraged are craftiness and daring. Students come from all over the world, speak varying degrees of English, and are often the offspring of H.I.V.E. graduates. Otto, however, is an orphan. He has real brilliance and a photographic mind. Both qualities made him relatively independent before he was kidnapped, and they now provide somewhat of a challenge to his would-be keepers at H.I.V.E. Otto spearheads the group's effort to escape and return home, an escape that is foiled in the course of an evening that involves H.I.V.E.'s electronic overseer, an out-of-control flesh-eating plant, and other techno thrills. H.I.V.E. comes across as the shadow side of Hogwarts, but Otto and his pals aren't so much bad wizards as they are bright kids realizing they may be out of their depth.
|
|
Half Moon Investigations
|
Twelve-year-old Fletcher Moon, the youngest qualified private detective in the world, receives a diploma and gold-plated detective's shield after completing an Internet course, and sets out to solve petty crimes at school, but he forced to go on the run when, while investigating the town's biggest crime family, his badge is stolen and he is framed for several crimes he did not commit. |
|
The Mysterious Benedict Society
|
Exceptional orphan Reynie Muldoon answers a newspaper ad for "special opportunities" for gifted children, and when he passes the tests-both paper exams and more esoteric ones-he becomes a member of a crack team of orphans recruited by the genial narcoleptic genius Mr. Benedict. The children are to infiltrate the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, a school run by the reclusive Mr. Ledroptha Curtain. Their job: to discover the purpose behind sinister subliminal messages emitted from the school that Mr. Benedict has detected riding piggyback on television and radio signals. Once inside the Institute, the four children face danger and discovery, puzzles and plots, and their own mortal weaknesses as they confront Mr. Curtain and his plan to take over the world.
|
|
|
The book is about two kids: Jackson and Esmerelda. Jackson lives alone with his Mum and they have moved because her old job has put them both in danger. Jackson and Esmerelda become friends and end up rescuing each other from nasty characters from Jackson's Mum's past. The book is action packed with great characters.
|
|
Penny from Heaven
|
Penny Falucci, 11, lives with her widowed mother and maternal grandparents, but her father's large, Italian family is tremendously important to her, too. It frustrates her that no one talks about his death, but as the summer of 1953 progresses, several events occur. First, her mother begins dating the milkman, and, when Penny's arm goes through the wringer on the washing machine, things come to a head. Finally, the secrets behind her father's death come out. Aunt Gina tells her about a minor incident that had horrifying consequences for him because of the restrictions placed on Italian Americans during World War II.
|
|
The Prophecy
|
Guided by the words of a prophecy, Prince Perryndon, who loves books more than swords, sets out to slay the black dragon that is destroying his kingdom. |
|
The Pull of the Ocean
|
Loosely based on
Charles Perrault's
"Tom Thumb." Seven brothers in modern-day France flee their poor parents'
farm, led by the youngest who, although mute and unusually small, is
exceptionally wise. |
|
Rift
|
In a vast African landscape four teenagers and a journalist vanish without a trace from a camp below a steep rock ridge, 'Chomlaya'. As Ella, the sister of one of the missing girls, helps Inspector Murothi piece together what happened, she realizes there are terrifying possibilities for her sister and the four others. There has been sinister behavior and bullying in the camp where the missing were staying. Has there been foul play? Then one of the missing turns up - but with no memory of what has happened...As the search helicopters continue their constant hum over the rock ridge, Ella and the Inspector begin to wonder whether they are already too late.
|
|
Samurai Shortstop
|
While obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890, sixteen-year-old Toyo also receives traditional samurai training which has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father. |
|
Smokescreen
|
Ellie has been scared of water since her mum drowned, so when her dad decides to move to a pub by a canal in East London, Ellie is afraid. But she soon thinks there's something more disturbing about the pub than just its setting. Something is going on at the weekly music night and Ellie and new friend, Flo are determined to find out what, despite warnings to back off. The music night is clearly a smokescreen for something, but what? Bundled from country to country on a harrowing journey from a tiny Chinese village with the false promise of a better life in England, Song Fang Yin knows the truth. If she can escape her captors, she could help Ellie expose it.
|
|
Sure Fire
|
In this book, we meet the fifteen-year-old twins, Rich and Jade, whose mother has recently died. A strange man turns up at the funeral who turns out to be their father. He did not know that he had any children and really does not know what to do with them. He takes them back to his small flat in London which Rich and Jade do not like. Their father turns out to be very strange, mysterious and really they do not like him. Little do they know that he is hiding a huge secret that will soon pull them headfirst into a very dangerous story. Nothing is what it seems. They can trust no one; they can believe no one but will they work that out in time
|
|
Wheels
|
Shane Jamieson is one cool 15-year old. His passion is motocross; he's popular, good looking, has a gorgeous girlfriend and, if you knew him, you'd want to be one of his mates. All that changes in a split second when Shane crashes his bike and wakes up in hospital only to discover that he can't feel his legs. Cool kid to paraplegic in the blink of an eye. This book really makes you wonder how you would cope if something like this ever happened to you, who would your real friends be, what are the most important things in your life? Although this is a very moving story it is, in parts, extremely funny.
|
|
The White Giraffe
|
At the beginning of the book, Martine wakes up in her home in England to find it on fire. Her parents die and while in care, she finds out that she has a grandmother living in South Africa. Although she receives a ticket to Cape Town and some money for new summer clothes, Martine feels that is not welcome or wanted in her grandmother’s house. This feeling grows stronger when she lands at Cape Town airport and finds no one there to meet her. She struggles to find answers to all the questions flying around her head: why did she not know about her grandmother, why is she so hard and unfriendly towards Martine, what was her grandfather like, who is the witch woman her grandmother hates so much and what of the legend of the white giraffe? This is a fast moving, exciting book.
|
)
)
