Recommended Reading - September 2023 Year 7 Students

Recommended Reading List

The following fiction books are recommended summer reading for Year 6 students who are going into Year 7 in September 2023.

When The Sky Falls Phil Earle War is raging. And one angry boy has been sent to the city, where bombers rule the skies.

There, Joseph will live with Mrs F, a gruff woman with no fondness for children.

Her only loves are the rundown zoo she owns and its mighty silverback gorilla, Adonis.

As the weeks pass, bonds deepen and secrets are revealed, but if the bombers set Adonis rampaging free, will either of them be able to end the life of the one thing they truly love? Inspired by a true story.

Holes Louis Sachar Stanley Yelnats' family has a history of bad luck, so when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre (which isn't green and doesn't have a lake) he is not surprised.

Every day he and the other inmates are told to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find.

Why? The evil warden claims that it's character building, but this is a lie.

It's up to Stanley to dig up the truth. Witty, inventive and completely unique, this is a masterpiece of storytelling that combines sly humour with irresistible, page-turning writing.

Tyger SF Said 'There are three doors that I may show you. You will find a different kind of power behind each one . . .'Adam has found something incredible in a rubbish dump in London.

A mysterious, mythical, magical animal. A TYGER. And the tyger is in danger. Adam and his friend Zadie are determined to help, but it isn't just the tyger's life at stake.

Their whole world is on the verge of destruction. Can they learn to use their powers before it's too late?

The Diary of Anne Frank 'Anne Frank's diary is among the most enduring documents of the 20th century.

She documented her life in hiding from 12 June 1942 to 1 August 1944.

His Dark Materials Series Phillip Pullman There are worlds beyond our own - the Compass will show the way...When Lyra is given the strange and secret alethiometer, she begins an extraordinary journey that will take her to the frozen lands of the Arctic, where witch-clans reign and ice-bears fight. The destiny that awaits her will have immeasurable consequences far beyond her own world. So begins the journey into His Dark Materials trilogy.

Haunt Me Irfan Master An intensely romantic and haunting novel about how love can overcome the ultimate divide - from Liz Kessler, the bestselling author of Read Me Like a Book. Joe wakes up from a deep sleep to see his family leave in a removals van.

Where they've gone, he has no idea. Erin moves house and instantly feels at home in her new room.

Even if it appears she isn't the only one living in it.

Bit by bit, Erin and Joe discover that they have somehow found a way across the ultimate divide - life and death.

Bound by their backgrounds, a love of poetry and their growing feelings for each other, they are determined to find a way to be together. Joe's brother, Olly, never cared much for poetry. He was always too busy being king of the school - but that all changed when Joe died.

And when an encounter in the school corridor brings him face to face with Erin, he realises how different things really are - including the kind of girl he falls for.

Two brothers. Two choices. Will Erin's decision destroy her completely, or can she save herself before she is lost forever?

When I See Blue Lily Bailey 12-year-old Ben has a bully in his brain who tells him what to do. It makes dealing with a new school, new town and parents who are falling apart seem impossible.

This heartfelt story about a boy with OCD celebrates how friendship can make you brave and find the strength to overcome anything.

Show Us Who You Are Elle McNichholl When Cora's brother drags her along to his boss's house, she doesn't expect to strike up a friendship with Adrien, son of the intimidating CEO of Pomegranate Technologies.

As she becomes part of Adrien's life, she is also drawn into the mysterious projects at Pomegranate.

At first, she's intrigued by them - Pomegranate is using AI to recreate real people in hologram form.

As she digs deeper, however, she uncovers darker secrets...

Cora knows she must unravel their plans, but can she fight to make her voice heard, whilst never losing sight of herself?

Inkheart Cornelia Funke Meggie loves books. So does her father, Mo, a bookbinder, although he has never read aloud to her since her mother mysteriously disappeared.

They live quietly until the night a stranger knocks at their door.

He has come with a warning that forces Mo to reveal an extraordinary secret - a storytelling secret that will change their lives for ever.

Recommended Reading Continued...

The following fiction books are recommended reading for students once they start Year 7 in September 2023.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time Mark Haddon Christopher is 15 and lives in Swindon with his father.

He has Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science and Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people.

When he discovers a dead dog on a neighbour's lawn he decides to solve the mystery and write a detective thriller about it.

As in all good detective stories, however, the more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets - for both Christopher and the rest of his family.

A Beautiful Lie Irfan Master An extraordinarily rich debut novel, set in India in 1947 at the time of Partition, touching on the importance of tolerance, love and family.

The main character is Bilal, a boy determined to protect his dying father from the news of Partition - news that he knows will break his father's heart.

With great spirit and determination, and with the help of his good friends, Bilal persuades others to collude with him in this deception, even printing false pages of the local newspaper to hide the ravages of unrest from his father.

All that Bilal wants is for his father to die in peace.

But that means Bilal has a very complicated relationship with the truth...

Trash Andy Mulligan Raphael lives on a dumpsite, eking out a living sifting through rubbish.

One unlucky-lucky day, he makes an extraordinary and deadly discovery.

Now he and his two friends, Gardo and Rat, are wanted by the corrupt forces that run the city and will stop at nothing to get back what they've lost. From the slums to the mansions of the elite, it's going to take all of their quick-thinking and fast-talking to stay ahead. And to stay alive.

Orphan Monster Spy Matt Killen A Nazi boarding school. The performance of a lifetime.

Sarah has played many roles - but now she faces her most challenging of all. Because there's only one way for a Jewish orphan spy to survive at a school for the Nazi elite. And that's to become a monster like them.

They think she is just a little girl. But she is the weapon they never saw coming...with a mission to destroy them all.

Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman Also available as a graphic novel. Sephy is a Cross - a member of the dark-skinned ruling class.

Callum is a nought - a 'colourless' member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses.

The two have been friends since early childhood. But that's as far as it can go. Until the first steps are taken towards more social equality and a limited number of Noughts are allowed into Cross schools...Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity by Noughts, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum - a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger...

Skylark's War Hilary McKay Winner of the Costa Children's Book Award 2018. The Skylarks' War is a beautiful story following the loves and losses of a family growing up against the harsh backdrop of World War One, from the award-winning Hilary McKay. Clarry and her older brother Peter live for their summers in Cornwall, staying with their grandparents and running free with their charismatic cousin, Rupert. But normal life resumes each September - boarding school for Peter and Rupert, and a boring life for Clarry at home with her absent father, as the shadow of a terrible war looms ever closer. When Rupert goes off to fight at the front, Clarry feels their skylark summers are finally slipping away from them.

Can their family survive this fearful war?

Blackbird Girls Anne Blankman On a spring morning, neighbours Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up to an angry red sky. A reactor at the nuclear power plant where their fathers work - Chernobyl - has exploded.

Before they know it, the two girls, who've always been enemies, find themselves on a train bound for Leningrad to stay with Valentina's estranged grandmother, Rita Grigorievna.

In their new lives in Leningrad, they begin to learn what it means to trust another person.

Oksana must face the lies her parents told her all her life. Valentina must keep her grandmother's secret, one that could put all their lives in danger. And both of them discover something they've wished for: a best friend.

But how far would you go to save your best friend's life?

Would you risk your own?

Told in alternating perspectives among three girls Valentina and Oksana in 1986 and Rifka in 1941 - this story shows that hatred, intolerance, and oppression are no match for the power of true friendship.

My Swordhand is Singing Marcus Sedgwick In the bitter cold of an unrelenting winter Tomas and his son, Peter, arrive in Chust and despite the inhospitability of the villagers settle there as woodcutters.

Tomas is churlish - taciturn at the best of times. He digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut so they have their own little island kingdom.

Peter doesn't understand why his father has done this, nor why, all his life they've moved from place to place, or why his father carries a long battered box everywhere they go, and why he is forbidden to know its mysterious contents.

But when a band of gypsies comes to the village Peter's drab existence is turned upside down.

He is infatuated by the beautiful gypsy princess, Sofia, intoxicated by their love of life and drawn into their deadly quest.

For these travellers are Vampire Slayers and Chust is a dying community - where the dead come back to wreak revenge on the living.

Amidst the terrifying events that follow, Peter is stunned to see his father change from a disillusioned man, old before his time, to the warrior hero he once was. Marcus draws on his extensive research of the vampire legend which permeates traditions throughout the world and sets his story in the forbidding and remote landscapes of the 17th century.

Reading Log

Once you have completed a book from the list, add it to the reading log below along with your rating of it. At the end of the year you will be able to look back and see how much you've read!

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