41 of the best new fiction titles for your secondary school Library
The Teenage Book list is selected annually by librarians from the Schools Library Service and secondary schools, and is a list of recommended fiction to buy for your school library.
The teen list represents a selection of the best new fiction first published in paperback within the last 12 months, and aims to cover as diverse a range of subjects, genres, authors and interests as possible.
Titles from the Teen and Primary lists will be chosen for the Tower Hamlets Book Award short list in July. Remember to let us know if you want to participate in this event!
Posters and bookmarks will be sent to subscribing secondary schools.
Please contact the library for more information on the Teen List or to request additional posters or bookmarks (subscribing schools only).
View the full list
| 9781909991408 | A Berlin Love Song | Sarah Matthias | Max is 17, a German schoolboy, when he meets Lili, a trapeze artist from a travelling circus that performs every year in Berlin. Lili is from a Romani gypsy family whose life and customs are very different from those of Max and his family. Their friendship turns into love – but love between a member of the Hitler youth and a gypsy is forbidden. As events tear them apart can their love survive? |
| 9781910411582 | A dangerous Crossing | Lane Mitchell | Ghalib doesn’t want to leave his home in Syria. But the city has become too dangerous, and his family has no choice but to flee. Together they make their way through Syria to the Turkish border, where Ghalib gets separated from his family. Stricken with grief and fear, fighting cold, pain and hunger, he manages to make it . Ghalib is safe for now, but life in a refugee camp is wretched and hopeless, and this boy’s journey in search of safety is far from over. |
| 9781406372601 | A Friend in the Dark | Pascal Ruter | Victor is a failure at everything – school, girls, making his dad feel better about his mother having left them. When Marie-Jose, the smartest girl in the class and musical prodigy, starts helping him with his maths homework, there must be something she wants in return. |
| 9781471145421 | All the things that could go wrong | Stewart Foster | Dan the bully and Alex the bullied are thrown together by their mums for the summer – what could go wrong? Of course, there are always two sides to every story. |
| 9780552574303 | Beyond the bright sea | Lauren Wolk | Crow has always lived on the island, ever since, as a tiny baby, she was found washed up on the shore by gentle Osh. But as she grows older, questions start to arise about who she really is… |
| 9781911107026 | Code Name: Butterfly | Ahlam Bsharat | Butterfly has lots of questions about the world around her as she grows up in Palestine – why do children seem to grow up so fast? Why does she sometimes get annoyed with her friends? And more searching questions – why does Baba have to work for the Israeli farmers and not able to have a farm of his own? Why do the Israelis shoot at Palestinians? A dramatic portrayal of life in occupied Palestine |
| 9781407172095 | Dream Magic | Joshua Khan | Things are dire for the inhabitants of Castle Gloom and the surrounding villages. The undead are leaving their graves in droves, a troll army is on the march from the north, and people are mysteriously disappearing from their homes. The people of Gehenna are blaming their misfortunes on Lilith Shadow, their young queen. |
| 9781406375657 | Flying Tips for Flightless Birds | Kelly McCaughrain | Twins Finch and Birdie Franconi are stars of the flying trapeze. But when Birdie suffers a terrifying accident, Finch must team up with the geeky new kid, Hector Hazzard, to form an all-boys double act and save the family circus school. |
| 9781509874057 | I am thunder | Muhammad Khan | Fifteen-year-old Muzna Saleem is used to being invisible. So no one is more surprised than her when Arif Malik, the hottest boy in school, takes a sudden interest. But Arif is hiding a terrible secret and, as they begin to follow a dark path, Muzna faces an impossible choice: keep quiet and betray her beliefs, or speak out and betray her heart. |
| 9781444934472 | I am traitor | Sif Sigmarsdottir | London has been targeted by extra-terrestrial life and victims are transported to a terrifying other world. Amy Sullivan is an unwilling hero. She runs until she can’t run any more. Then, she is taken.To have a chance of saving herself, and her planet, Amy will have to put faith in those she fears the most. But what if it means becoming a traitor to everyone she has ever loved? |
| 9781405286152 | I have no secrets | Penny Joelson | Fourteen-year-old Jemma has severe cerebral palsy. Unable to communicate or move, she relies on her family and carer for everything. She has a sharp brain and inquisitive nature, and knows all sorts of things about everyone. But when she is confronted with this terrible secret, she is utterly powerless to do anything. Though that might be about to change… |
| 9781444934007 | Illegal | Eoin Colfer/ Andrew Donkin | Ebo is one of thousands of refugees from West Africa, desperately attempting to make the crossing to the refugee camps in Italy. Following his sister and his brother he crosses the Sahara to Tripoli and finally to the merciless crossing over the sea. |
| 9781444927184 | Indigo Donut | Patrice Lawrence | Indigo has had a tough start in life, having grown up in the care system after her dad killed her mum. Bailey lives with his parents in Hackney and spends all his time playing guitar or tending to his luscious ginger afro. When Indigo and Bailey meet at sixth form, serious sparks fly. But when Bailey becomes the target of a homeless man who seems to know more about Indigo than is normal, he is forced to make a choice he should never have to make. |
| 9781406379006 | Landscape with Invisible Hand | M.T. Anderson | The alien Vuvv land on earth and begin making humans obsolete with their superior new technology. The trouble with this is that soon, families have no money for food or clean water. Adam and his girlfriend Chloe pull out all the stops to survive. |
| 9781405930994 | Lion | Saroo Brierley | Five year old Saroo went missing from his village in India – and finally found his way back after twenty-five years -an epic story of survival |
| 9781444014815 | List of Real Things | Sarah Moore Fitzgerald | Grace knows the difference between what’s real and the strange ideas that float around in her little sister’s mind. Their parents died – that’s real. A secret hotel on the cliff-top where their parents are waiting – definitely NOT real. So when grief strikes again, Grace is determined not to let her sister’s outlandish imagination spiral out of control. But the line between truth and fantasy is more complicated than it seems… |
| 9780192749956 | Night Speakers : Sleepless | Ali Sparkes | Night after night Elena, Matt, and Tima wake at exactly the same time, with no idea why. It’s messing them up and fracturing their lives . . . until they venture out into the dark and find each other. And then the sleepless trio realize their astounding power – they can speak any language; they can even communicate with animals. But something is happening over on the industrial estate – something which is emitting sounds that only they can hear, and killing any winged thing that crosses its path. |
| 9781781127230 | Rook | Anthony McGowan | When Kenny and Nicky rescue a rook left for dead, Kenny is determined to keep it alive. Nicky doubts the scruffy bird will make it, but then Nicky has plenty else to worry about – a school bully, his first love, and the fact that everything is about to go very, very wrong. |
| 9781784646981 | S/He | Catherine Bruton | Raven is “gender-fluid” – not a boy, not a girl – so some days decides to join the boys’ activities, and sometimes with the girls. Kat finds herself enormously attracted to Raven, but what does that say about her? Whilst trying to work this out, some others in the class want to find out what gender Raven is once and for all – what can Kat do to stop them? |
| 9781444011258 | Saint Death | Marcus Sedgwick | Anapra is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Mexican city of Juarez. Twenty metres beyond is America – the dangerous goal of many a migrant. Faustino is one of them, trying desperately to escape from the gang he’s been working for. He’s dipped into a pile of dollars he was supposed to be hiding, and now he’s on the run. Watching over them all the while is Saint Death. Santissima Muerte. |
| 9781406379242 | Scythe | Neil Shusterman | A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life – and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control. |
| 9781509801138 | Seven Letter Word | Kim Slater | Finlay’s mother vanished two years ago. And ever since then his stutter has become almost unbearable. Bullied at school and ignored by his father, the only way to get out the words which are bouncing around in his head is by writing long letters to his ma which he knows she will never read, and by playing Scrabble online. But when Finlay is befriended by an online Scrabble player called Alex, everything changes. |
| 9781471146077 | Sky Song | Abi Elphinstone | Eska and Flint live in the snowy kingdom of Erkenwald, where whales glide between icebergs, wolves hunt on the tundra and polar bears roam the glaciers. But the people of this land aren’t so easy to find – because Erkenwald is ruled by an evil Ice Queen and the tribes must stay hidden or risk becoming her prisoners at Winterfang Palace. Join Flint and Eska in their search for the power to force the Ice Queen back. |
| 9781471147159 | The Diabolic | S.J. Kincaid | Nemisis is a Diabolic. Created to protect a galactic Senator’s daughter, Sidonia. The girl who is as much as sister as a master. There’s nothing Nemesis wouldn’t do to keep her safe. But when the power-mad Emperor summons Sidonia to the galactic court as a hostage, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect her… she must become her; hiding her true abilities and pretending to be human. |
| 9781408332511 | The Erth Dragons : Dark Wyng | Chris D’Lacey | Ren is the first of his kind – a boy with the powers of a dragon – but the dragons are wary of his skills. Meanwhile a dark stranger arrives among the humans, far more threatening for the dragons than Ren…. |
| 9781408342923 | The Ethan I was Before | Ali Standish | A childhood dare changes Ethan’s life for ever when he loses his best friend Kacey. Moving from Boston to Georgia, he meets Coralee, who might just be able to help him come to terms with what happened, but Coralee has secrets of her own… |
| 9781471160622 | The Girl In Between | Sarah Carroll | In an old, abandoned mill in the heart of Dublin, homeless Sam and her ma take find refuge. Sam feels safe in her “Castle” but as her ma spins out of control and the Authorities move ever closer, Sam finds herself trapped – stuck in the crumbling mill with only the ghosts of the past for company |
| 9781406372151 | The Hate U Give | Angie Thomas | Sixteen-year-old Starr manages to juggle her two worlds – the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. But this uneasy balance is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed. |
| 9781781126806 | The Liars Handbook | Keren David | River is instantly suspicious of Mum’s new boyfriend, Jason – he seems fake, too good to be true. At school, River s routine fibs are escalating into something more serious, and his teacher gives him a notebook in the hope he can channel his fantasies into creative writing instead. And so, River begins The Liar s Handbook, and an investigation into Jason. But what he uncovers is a terrible deception involving his biological father, the police force and his mum s environmental campaign group… but will anyone take his findings seriously? |
| 9781406375473 | The Loneliest Girl in the Universe | Lauren James | Romy is lonely, the only survivor on a spaceship, so how wonderful to discover a second spaceship also with a single passenger – a boy called J. Romy is falling in love, but what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean? |
| 9781510101586 | The Ones that Disappeared | Zana Fraillon | Esra and his siblings are imprisoned in a basement by Orlando and their job is to tend the underground crops of drugs that Orlando grows. They manage to escape, but are separated – how can Esra get his family back together again |
| 9781509832569 | The Road to Ever After | Moira Young | Davy makes his angel pictures in the dirt in the early dawn while people are asleep. An orphan and living on the streets, he is used to surviving alone, so when George the dog leads him to Miss Flint, he is wary about getting involved. But Miss Flint, with not long to live needs him for her last great adventure |
| 9781406373554 | The Secret Horses of Briar Hill | Megan Shepherd | Britain is at war. Emmaline has been evacuated away from the bombs to Briar Hill Hospital in Shropshire. When she gets there she discovers a secret. It’s not to be shared, not to be told to anyone, even her friend Anna. |
| 9781406379907 | The Wonderling | Mira Bartok | Number 13, a one-eared foxlike boy lives trapped in The Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures, run by the evil Miss Carbunkle. When he recieves two gifts – a name and a best friend – he finds the courage to escape into the world on a path to his true destiny. |
| 9781783446735 | Things a bright girl can do | Sally Nicholls | Through rallies and marches, in polite drawing rooms and freezing prison cells and the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote. But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May and Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice? |
| 9781406366938 | Truth or Dare | Non Pratt | Sef is desperate to raise money to somehow reverse the brain damage done to his big brother, Kam, when he fell into a river. Claire is a willing accomplice on his mission to create a you-tube channel “truth or dare” – after all, Claire would do anything for Sef. But they are not making enough money, so Sef comes up with the biggest dare yet – one story through two people’s eyes. |
| 9781408878880 | We come apart | Sarah Crossan | Jess would never have looked twice at Nicu if her friends hadn’t left her in the lurch. Even when they’re picking up litter in the park for community service. He’s so not her type. Appearances matter to Jess. She’s got a lot to hide.Nicu thinks Jess is beautiful. His dad brought Nicu and his mum here for a better life, but now all they talk about is going back home to find Nicu a wife. The last thing Nicu wants is to get married. But his dad’s fists are the most powerful force in Nicu’s life. |
| 9781926890142 | When morning comes | Arushi Raina | It s 1976 in South Africa, and four young people are living in Johannesburg and its black township, Soweto: Zanele, a black female student organizer; Meena, a South Asian girl working at her father’s shop; Jack, an Oxford-bound white student; and Thabo, a teen-gang member, or tsotsi. From each of their points of view, this book explores the roots of the Soweto Uprising and the edifice of apartheid in a South Africa about to explode. |
| 9781474921145 | Where the World Ends | Geraldine McCaughrean | Be taken to the end of the world, a lonely rock stack in the midst of rough seas, to hunt for its only inhabitants, the seabirds whose meat, oil and feathers help to keep your community alive. When no one keeps back to take you home, how would you keep up your spirits amongst the desparate and despairing group? A lyrical, harsh and enthralling story of survival and resilience. |
| 9781781126950 | Worry Angels | Sita Brahmachari | Amy May knows about webs of worries – so many people she meets are caught in them, from her own artist dad to newly arrived refugee Rima and her family. By being brave enough to open up her own worry box, can Amy May help those around her to find a way forward? |
| 9781509812509 | Tender Earth | Sita Brahmachari | Laila Levenson has always been the baby of the family, but now with her older siblings, Mira and Krish, leaving home just as she starts secondary school, everything feels like it’s changing… can the reappearance of Nana Josie’s Protest Book and the spirit it releases in Laila, her friends and her local community, help her find her own voice and discover what she truly believes in? |
