ENG 7-10 Wide Reading: Relationships

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming... The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. Costa Award winner Patrick Ness spins a tale from the final idea of much-loved Carnegie Medal winner Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself. Darkly mischievous and painfully funny, A Monster Calls is an extraordinarily moving novel of coming to terms with loss from two of our finest writers for young adults.

In the remarkable, bizarre, and heart-wrenching summer before Cullen Witter's senior year of high school, he is forced to examine everything he thinks he understands about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town. His cousin overdoses; his town becomes absurdly obsessed with the alleged reappearance of an extinct woodpecker; and most troubling of all, his sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, suddenly and inexplicably disappears. Meanwhile, the crisis of faith spawned by a young missionary's disillusion in Africa prompts a frantic search for meaning that has far-reaching consequences. As distant as the two stories initially seem, they are woven together through masterful plotting and merge in a surprising and harrowing climax. This extraordinary tale from a rare literary voice finds wonder in the ordinary and illuminates the hope of second chances.

The Watson family moves to Stoneygate, an old coal-mining town, to care for Kit’s recently widowed grandfather. When Kit meets John Askew, another boy whose family has both worked and died in the mines, Askew invites Kit to join him in playing a game called Death. As Kit’s grandfather tells him stories of the mine’s past and the history of the Watson family, Askew takes Kit into the mines, where the boys look to find the childhood ghosts of their long-gone ancestors. Written in haunting, lyrical prose, Kit’s Wilderness examines the bonds of family from one generation to the next, and explores how meaning and beauty can be revealed from the depths of darkness.

When is a school assignment not a drag? When it's the beginning of a love affair Watch the sparks fly as Gary Crew and Libby Hathorn, two of Australia's most popular Young Adult authors, combine their talents to create this offbeat love story.

'Deadly, unna?' He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them. Dumby Red and Blacky don't have a lot in common. Dumby's the star of the footy team, he's got a killer smile and the knack with girls, and he's a Nunga. Blacky's a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to say, and he's white. But they're friends... and it could be deadly, unna? This gutsy novel, set in a small coastal town in South Australia is a rites-of-passage story about two boys confronting the depth of racism that exists all around them.

Then I found what I was looking for. A photo of a man in army uniform. Written in pencil, on the back of the photo, was Darcy Charles Fletcher, 1941.' By Finding Darcy, Darcy Abbott discovers exactly what she has been searching for all her life - except she didn't know it. From the author of the award-winning Allie McGregor's True Colours comes this powerful story of the damage that secrets can wreak over generations - and the healing liberation of truth.

Awkward, funny and poignant, Jarvis 24 places the reader in the mind of 16-year-old Marc Jarvis, who tries to step outside the boundaries of his private school life by taking on work experience for two weeks in a car yard. Within days Marc has made friends with 24-year-old Mikey, who is gay and has run away from home in Queensland, and met Electra, a girl who has moved away from her family and friends in Broome to follow her dream to be a world-class sprinter. As he falls in love with Electra, and deals with the ensuing memories of his first girlfriend who died years earlier, Marc grapples with a world so much less simple than the world of school that he is used to. Travis, his sidekick, is always there. . . It's a funny, gentle coming-of-age story about falling in love and finding your place in the world, about growing up and growing apart. And, most importantly, about friendship.

Is falling in love with a stranger what it means to be a foreigner? At eighteen, Anna is in limbo. She has decisions to make but stalls for time. Deferring her university studies in Australia, she visits her father in Shanghai. In an exotic environment, her life seems both better and worse: she loves learning Chinese painting but can't cope with being a foreigner, or with the chaos and heat of the city. Then the last thing she could have imagined happens: she falls in love with Chenxi, a young, mysterious fellow painter whose secret life in art and counter-revolutionary activities fascinates Anna. Their affair is passionate and fraught. Sally Rippin writes with a natural flair and an insider's voice about the torment of a teenager on the verge of adulthood. She evokes the thrills and spills of being a foreigner in the topsy-turvy world of China. Chenxi is a remarkable novel for young adults that confronts adolescent sexual experience, pregnancy and cross-cultural questions in an extraordinarily vivid and compelling story.

Imagine your name is John Lennon, only everyone calls you Beatle.And then you meet your Dream girl and her name is Destiny McCartney.But what if you're already with the perfect girl?A novel about change, chance and everybody doing the wrong thing.I loved this book. And I loved it for so many different reasons.I love the story and the craziness of so many coincidences tying the plot together. John Lennon falls in love with Destiny McCartney?! Genius! But that's what real life is like to me. I reckon everyone can tie the threads of their lives together with strange magical coincidences -- it's just a matter of looking for them and noticing them when they happen. -- Dylan LewisVisit betweenthelines.com.au - the destination for Young Adult books.

Boys are like dogs - ready to bite, bark and beg to be given a chance to show their value.. "I vowed that if I ever got a girl I would treat her right and never be bad or dirty to her or hurt her, ever." Cameron Wolfe is a dirty boy. He knows it. His brother Rube knows it, because he's one too. they could change - but what would it take?

Great book - easy read
Honored with the 2011 Moonbeam Children's Book Award, this book won the Silver Medal in young adult fiction, historical/cultural. Seventeen-year old Sarah James receives a secret key at her Great Grandmother Rose Chandler's deathbed where she is told to unlock a hidden room. In the mysterious room, she finds an antique mirror with a spell. The mirror pulls her into the past where she relives her grandmother's life as a young pre-Civil War woman, who built a cotton plantation and raised a family with Hugh Chandler. The Chandler family history continues to unfold decades later when Sarah's twin grandchildren, Drew and Sarah, discover the magical mirror which also transports them back in time. They relive the Civil War (or as they call it, the War of Northern Aggression) through the eyes of Paul and Sarah, also twins, learning the secrets of the Chandler Plantation and what life was like when the Yankees invaded their ancestral home. A love story unfolds in the third chapter of this novella, when Dr. Karen Marshall is summoned south by lawyer Stephen McGuire to arrange a funeral in the Chandler family. Karen finds herself under a spell, she's no longer herself, can't understand why she keeps remembering things she couldn't possibly know, with feelings she shouldn't have. Her mysterious connection to the Chandler Plantation and her ownership of a unique topaz ring bring her life into focus.

When Momma abandoned Dicey Tillerman and her three siblings in a mall parking lot and was later traced to an asylum where she lay unrecognizing, unknowing, she left her four children no choice but to get on by themselves. They set off alone on foot over hundreds of miles until they finally found someone to take them in. Gram’s rundown farm isn’t perfect, but they can stay together as a family—which is all Dicey really wanted.

But after watching over the others for so long, it’s hard for Dicey to know what to do now. Her own identity has been so wrapped up in being the caretaker, navigator, penny counter, and decision maker that she’s not sure how to let go of some responsibilities while still keeping a sense of herself. But when the past comes back with devastating force, Dicey sees just how necessary—and painful—letting go can be.

Jamie wants to be the real thing. From the roots of her dyed blonde hair ... There are a lot of things Jamie hates about her life: her dark hair, her dad's Stone Age Charter of Curfew Rights, her real name - Jamilah Towfeek. For the past three years Jamie has hidden her Lebanese background from everyone at school. It's only with her email friend John that she can really be herself. But now things are getting complicated: the most popular boy in school is interested in her, but there's no way he would be if he knew the truth. Then there's Timothy, the school loner, who for some reason Jamie just can't stop thinking about. As for John, he seems to have a pretty big secret of his own ... To top it all off, Jamie's school formal is coming up. The only way she'll be allowed to attend is by revealing her true identity. Will she risk it all? And does she know who she is ... Jamie or Jamilah?

'girl X recreated' is the intriguing and beautifully illustrated diary of an imaginary Year 12 student. She uses it to capture her strong feelings about commitment, friendship, family relationships, sex, depression, drugs, grief, racism, terrorism, war and the future in uncertain times. And it expresses the creativity, courage, and at times, despair of the young people who created this extraordinary character. They are sending a powerful message of hope to young people like themselves.Radio presenter Norman Swan says in his foreword to the book:'Projects like 'girl X recreated' deliver, are worth more than all the self-esteem programs in the country put together. It provides a tangible way we can make our lives happier.'While the world is in turmoil, communities must find new ways to promote hope.

Reissue of author's first children's novel, originally published in the UK in 1989 by Blackie and Son Limited, and in Australia in 1990 by Pan Macmillan under the Piper imprint. Story follows the experiences of young Colin, sent to stay with relatives in England because his younger brother is seriously ill with cancer. Colin reasons that if anyone can cure him it would be the Queen's own doctor. He sets out to find the doctor, making an understanding new friend on the way. Ages 8-12 years. Author's other novels for children include 'Misery Guts' and 'Belly Flop'

Jessie's life falls apart when her grandmother comes to live with her and her family. Nanny has demetia and she can't seem to remember a thing. Not only does she accuse Jessie of taking her purse, she even tries to steal Jessie's new boyfriend But everything changes when Jessie discovers some old love letters.

Kathleen Sutton is a happy, carefree Australian teenager. She is musical and is learning to play the piano. She also is also a member of a group with some of her friends and makes tapes for the school funds.

Then she is diagnosed with leukaemia and her long treatment begins. And a strange thing happens. Kathleen's grandmother has just died and Kathleen starts to have dreams about her grandmother. It is as if her grandmother is reaching out to her and is trying to send her an urgent message. Kathleen tries to tell people about these dreams but when she sees their reaction she wisely decides she is better keeping them to herself.

When Avalon moves to the city her life is turned upside down. Starting at a new high school, she finds herself at the center of a brutal cyber-bullying campaign. Inundated with obscene text messages, subject to increasingly vicious web site postings, and feeling miserable and isolated, Avalon relies on a small group of new friends. But as the threats escalate, she wonders if anyone is safe.

Gracey's come home to Cunningham on holidays. But now she's a state athletics champion and a private school student, and everything looks different - even frightening. Dougy, her younger brother, has dropped out of school and spends his time doing odd jobs around the town. It's Dougy who makes the discovery - Raymond, the eldest, is a football star; he played A-grade in Sydney and is doing really well for the local team ... isn't he? Part history, part mystery, Gracey is a challenging story about the past and the present, murder and compassion, and black and white identity.

Richard Feynman is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Catherine is a science-loving 15-year-old. Richard invented the atom bomb; Catherine's just trying to survive school. When your life is falling apart around you, is talking to a dead physicist normal? Catherine thinks so, but it isn't until her life begins unravelling that she learns who she can really trust. "I've been looking at you while I sit at my desk, and imagining what you were like as a person. In the poster you look like you're concentrating hard on the machine you're working on but having fun at the same time. I get that feeling when I'm working on a difficult Maths problem. In the picture your hair is a bit mad, really curly and there's lots of it. I like it though. In fact, you were pretty cute in 1943. Of course, even then you were far too old for me, probably in your 20s."

Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their controlling, super-strict father all their lives. Forced to wear Mum's odd hand-made garments and forbidden from reading teenage magazines, they know they're very different to 'normal' girls - but when Dad has a stroke and ends up in hospital, unable to move or speak, Prue suddenly discovers what it's like to have a little freedom. Sent to a real school for the first time, Prue struggles to fit in. The only person she can talk to is her kindly, young - and handsome - art teacher, Rax. They quickly bond, and Prue feels more and more drawn to him. As her feelings grow stronger, she begins to realise that he might feel the same way about her. But nothing could ever happen between them - could it?

One of Robin Klein's most important novels -- the moving, powerful, multi-award-winning story of eleven-year-old Seymour, his friendship with the beautiful Angie, and the terrible secret that Angie hides. 180 pages Paperback

"My name is Harriet Manners, and I will always be a geek." The fifth book in the bestselling, award-winning GEEK GIRL series. Harriet Manners knows almost every fact there is. She knows duck-billed platypuses don't have stomachs.She knows that fourteen squirrels were once detained as spies.She knows only one flag in the world features a building. And for once, Harriet knows exactly how her life should go. She's got it ALL planned out. So when love is in the air, Harriet is determined to Make Things Happen!If only everyone else would stick to the script... Has GEEK GIRL overstepped the mark, and is following the rules going to break hearts all over again?

I need to see Sitti Zeynab one last time. To know if I will have the courage to go ahead with my plan. The two nurses look frazzled and smile wearily at me. 'We must leave now,' they say in urgent tones. 'I won't be long,' I reassure them and I jump up onto the back of the ambulance. I can smell the air of her village, pure and scented. I can see her village as though it were Bethlehem itself. I can smell the almond trees. Hear my heels click on the courtyard tiles. See myself jumping two steps at a time down the limestone stairs. I can see Sitti Zeynab sitting in the front porch of the house. I only have to remember that walk through her memories and I know I can make my promise. I've already lost once. I refuse to lose again. 'Stay alive,' I whisper. 'And you shall touch that soil again.' Thirteen-year-old Hayaat is on a mission. She believes a handful of soil from her grandmother's ancestral home in Jerusalem will save her beloved Sitti Zeynab's life. The only problem is the impenetrable wall that divides the West Bank, as well as the check points, the curfews, the permit system and Hayaat's best-friend Samy, who is mainly interested in football and the latest elimination on X-Factor, but always manages to attract trouble. But luck is on their side. Hayaat and Samy have a curfew-free day to travel to Jerusalem. However, while their journey may only be a few kilometres long, it may take a lifetime to complete.

Seventeen-year-old Friday Brown is on the run—running to escape memories of her mother and of the family curse. And of a grandfather who’d like her to stay.
She’s lost, alone and afraid. Silence, a street kid, finds Friday and she joins him in a gang led by beautiful, charismatic Arden. When Silence is involved in a crime, the gang escapes to a ghost town in the outback.
In Murungal Creek, the town of never leaving, Friday must face the ghosts of her past. She will learn that sometimes you have to stay to finish what you started—and often, before you can find out who you are, you have to become someone you were never meant to be.

Martin lives in the city with his mum. He′s come to walk the boundaries of the farm that′s been in his family for generations. It sounds easy, especially as he′ll own the land when he gets back. Martin′s great-grandfather, Ted, doesn′t even want him to walk around the farm′s fences, just up the gorge and along the hills.

But up in the gorge Martin meets Meg from almost a century ago and Wullamudulla from thousands of years in the past. Despite their differences they discover that they′re all on the same journey ... and that walking the boundaries means more than following lines on a map.

A story of adventure, ball control and hope. Jamal and Bibi have a dream. To lead Australia to soccer glory in the next World Cup. But first they must face landmines, pirates, storms and assassins. Can Jamal and his family survive their incredible journey and get to Australia? Sometimes, to save the people you love, you have to go overboard.

Much anticipated sequel to hilarious yet poignant popular debut novelThe Whole Business with Kiffo and the Pitbullby Barry Jonsberg - a fresh, funny and engaging new voice in young adult books. Laugh-out-loud humour with a strong beating heart and a sting in the tail.

Novel for young adult readers. Winter de Salis has lived a haunted life for 12 years. Her departure from her home long ago was surrounded in mystery. Now that she was turned 16, Winter realises that she must return home. To face the future she must first confront her past. This is the award-winning author's first novel since the completion of his best-selling Tomorrow series. Other works include 'So Much to Tell You' and 'Letters from the Inside'.

Brilliantly funny, teenage angst author Louise Rennison's first book about the confessions of crazy but lovable Georgia Nicolson. Now repackaged in a gorgeous new paperback and looking even fabber than ever. Louise is an international bestselling author and her books can't fail to make you laugh out loud. There are six things very wrong with my life: 1. I have one of those under-the-skin spots that will never come to a head but lurk in a red way for the next two years.2. It is on my nose.3. I have a three-year-old sister who may have peed somewhere in my room.4. In fourteen days the summer hols will be over and then it will be back to Stalag 14 and Oberführer Frau Simpson and her bunch of sadistic 'teachers'.5. I am very ugly and need to go into an ugly home.6. I went to a party dressed as a stuffed olive. Follow Georgia's hilarious antics as she tries to overcome the dilemma's that are weighing up against her, and muddle her way through teenage life and all that it entails: how to replace accidentally shaved-off eyebrows; how to cope with Angus, her small labrador-sized Scottish wildcat; her first kiss with Peter - afterwards known as Whelk Boy; annoying teachers; unsympathetic friends and family, and how to entice Robbie the Sex God! Phew - she's really got her work cut out!

Everyone in Kinvara is conscious that time is flying past, faster and faster - to such an extent that when JJ asks his mother what she would like as a birthday present she ask for more time. JJ dismisses this as mere wishful thinking, an impossibility, for who know where the time goes? The Liddys have been musicians for generations and JJ is no exception but what he discovers is that a shadow from the past hangs over their family -did his great-grandfather murder the village priest? When he sets out to buy his mother time, he discovers the fate of a flute which will provide the key to both problems - it is the vital clue. He makes the transition to Tir na n'Og, the land of eternal youth, where the fairy people are also having a problem with time and it falls to his lot to locate the leak between the two parallel worlds. JJ finds where time goes! Music proves to be the touchstone for communication between the fairy and the human domains and the book is saturated with the lure of Irish music for JJ`s whole existence is built round the ceili and each chapter relates to a tune, printed out as a heading so that the reader can also become a performer. As for the New Policeman, Larry O'Dwyer, he is an enigmatic figure who has a significant bearing on the plot but whose identity is kept a superbly guarded secret to the very last surprising moment.

Thirteen-year-old Lockie Leonard is new in town and has nothing going for him except for the fact that he's a hot-shot surfer. He falls in love with the beautiful Vicki and, amazingly, she likes him too. Suddenly Lockie is famous and popular, but he still has a lot to learn about love.

Novel for older children about the problems of a 13-year-old surfer, Lockie Leonard, who befriends a heavy metal fan, falls in love with an 11-year-old girl and tries to save his town from industrial pollution. As well as his award-winning adult novels, Tim Winton has written several novels for adolescents, including 'Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo' (1990), which introduced the novel's protagonist.

Five Things They Never Told Me is story to be felt and not forgotten, from Rebecca Westcott, author of Dandelion Clocks and Violet Ink . . . It's a glorious summer and Erin and Martha are both stuck at Oak Hill Home for the Elderly. Misunderstood and feeling ignored, they are equally frustrated by the situation. But as Erin learns to listen to Martha, she discovers some very important lessons about making her own voice heard.

Will and Summer meet online and strike up a friendship based on coincidence. Summer lives in Will's old hometown, Kettering, a small Tasmanian coastal community. Summer isn't telling the whole truth about herself, but figures it doesn't matter if they never see each other in person, right?

When Will returns to Kettering, the two finally meet and Summer can no longer hide her secret – she is deaf. Can Summer and Will find a way to be friends in person even though they speak a completely different language?

After sixteen-year-old Rory (Aurora) is the only one of her gang caught in a racially motivated attack on a local Indian restaurant, she is sentenced to community service at St Mary's aged care facility. There she meets Jack, an old tent boxing champion with enough of an attitude to match Rory's. After being threatened for her role in the attack, Rory is surprised to discover a connection between Jack and one of the migrant boys Essam. Feeling disillusioned with her gang, Rory takes up Essam's offer to teach her to box. Through her new friendships and interests, Rory learns more about the migrant community and she finds not only a new pack, but herself as well.