Claremont Fan Court School

Reading List, Year 10

There are merely suggestions . All books are available in the school library. If you enjoy reading a novel, look for others by the same author.

TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN John Green Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there's a hundred thousand dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett's son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

THE BONE SPARROW Zara Fraillon Born in a refugee camp, all Subhi knows of the world is that he's at least 19 fence diamonds high and the nice Jackets never stay long. And one day he meets Jimmie. Carrying a notebook that she's unable to read and wearing a sparrow made out of bone around her neck - both talismans of her family's past and the mother she's lost - Jimmie strikes up an unlikely friendship with Subhi beyond the fence. As he reads aloud the tale of how Jimmie's family came to be, both children discover the importance of their own stories in writing their futures.

THE GHOSTS OF HEAVEN Marcus Sedgwick It's there when a girl walks through the forest, the moist green air clinging to her skin. There centuries later in a pleasant green dale, hiding the treacherous wa-ters of Golden Beck that take Anna, who they call a witch. There on the other side of the world, where a mad poet watches the waves and knows the horrors they hide, and far into the future as Keir Bowman realises his destiny. Each takes their next step in life. None will ever go back to the same place. The spiral has existed as long as time has existed. Follow the ways of infinity to discover its meaning.

BEFORE I DIE Jenny Downham Tessa has just a few months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, end-less tests, Tessa compiles a list. It's her To Do Before I Die list. Released from the constraints of 'normal' life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa's feelings, her relation-ships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa's time finally runs out.

THE BUNKER DIARY Kevin Brooks I can't believe I fell for it. It was still dark when I woke up this morning. As soon as my eyes opened I knew where I was. A low-ceilinged rectangular building made entirely of whitewashed concrete. There are six little rooms along the main corridor. There are no windows. No doors. The lift is the only way in or out. What's he going to do to me? What am I going to do? If I'm right, the lift will come down in five minutes. It did. Only this time it wasn't empty.

CHILD 44 Tom Rob Smith In Stalin's Soviet Union, crime does not exist. But still millions live in fear. The mere suspicion of disloyalty to the State, the wrong word at the wrong time, can send an in-nocent person to his execution. Officer Leo Demidov, an idealistic war hero, believes he's building a perfect society. But after witnessing the interrogation of an innocent man and ordered to investigate his own wife, his loyalty begins to waver. A murderer is on the loose, killing at will. Leo must risk everything to find a criminal that the State won't admit even exists.

THE OUTSIDERS S.E. Hinton Greasers, Rockers, different place, different name - but wherever they are, they're outsiders; the rough, tough, long-haired boys from the other side of town, with little hope of Mustangs, madras shirts and the good things of American life in the Sixties. Their story is told by Ponyboy, a greaser with good reason to rear the lucky boys in Mustangs, and a witness to the savage baiting that leads his best friend to manslaughter.

THE HELP Kathryn Stockett Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver. There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and mourning her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. No one would believe they'd be friends. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another.

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE J.D. Salinger If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two haemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

BUFFALO SOLDIER Tanya Landman Charley, a young African-American slave from the Deep South, is freed at the end of the American Civil War. However her freedom is met with tragedy after her adopted mother is raped and lynched at the hands of a mob, and Charley finds herself alone with no protection. In a terrifyingly lawless land, where the colour of a person's skin can bring violent death, Charley disguises herself as a man and joins the army. Trapped in a world of injustice and inequality, it's only when Charley is posted to Apache territory to fight "savage Indians" that she begins to learn about who she is and what it is to be truly free.

LORD OF THE RINGS J.R.R. Tolkien Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power - the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks is the One Ring - the ring that rules them all - which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the

THE KITE RUNNER Khaled Hosseini 12-year-old Amir is desperate for his father’s approval and resolves to win the local kite-fighting tournament. His loyal friend Hassan promises to help him - for he always helps Amir - but this is 1970s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at in the street. But neither of the boys could foresee what would happen to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament, which was to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return, to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.

MOONRISE Sarah Crossan They think I hurt someone. But I didn't. You hear? Cos people are gonna be telling you all kinds of lies. I need you to know the truth. Joe hasn't seen his brother for ten years, and it's for the most brutal of reasons. Ed is on death row. But now Ed's execution date has been set, and Joe is determined to spend those last weeks with him, no matter what other people think ...

ROOM Emma Donoghue Jack is five. He lives with his Ma. They live in a single, locked room. They don’t have the key. Jack and Ma are prisoners.

I CAPTURE THE CASTLE Dodie Smith 'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.' Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her novelist father who suffers from crippling writer's block. However, all their lives are turned upside down when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time…

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND Charles Dickens This features an inheritance - Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps - and its heirs, young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the River Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London, inhabited by such disparate characters as Gaffer Hexam, scavenging the river for corpses; enchanting, mercenary Bella Wilfer; the social climbing Veneerings; and, the unscrupulous street-trader Silas Wegg.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS Emily Bronte The new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: of the intense passion between the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.

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