Abdel-Fattah, Randa
Where the streets had a name
Marion Lloyd – 2009
9781407112145
To save her Grandmother, Hayaat needs to get to the other side of the wall that separates her Bethlehem home from Jerusalem – it’s a short but very dangerous journey.
Acheampong, Sophia
Ipods in Accra
Piccadilly – 2009
9781848120174
London girl Makeeda is crushed when she has to spend her summer holidays visiting relatives in Ghana. Then she starts to learn about herself, reconciling her two cultures, and maybe finding true love where she least expects it.
Almond, David
Jackdaw summer
Hodder – 2009
9780340881996
Near an army training ground readying itself for Iraq, Liam and Max follow a jackdaw to an old farmhouse and discover an abandoned baby. They wonder if the bird led them to the abandoned baby in the old farmhouse on purpose, and so follows a story of good and evil, innocence and betrayal.
Anderson, Laurie Halse
Chains
Bloomsbury – 2010
9780747598060
It’s 1776 in New York and Isabel’s cruel owners sell off her sister Ruth. Furious and grieving, Isabel agrees to spy on her Loyalist owners, risking her future for the sake of a better life.
Arbuthnott, Gill
The Keepers’ daughter
Chicken House – 2009
9781905294947
Nyssa has a tattoo that may explain why she was orphaned as a baby, but it shows only one half of the message. Her future depends on finding the other half, and with it the truth.
Beake, Lesley
Remembering green
Frances Lincoln – 2009
9781845079628
200 years in the future sea levels have risen to cover most of the land. The ‘Tekkies’ barely survive on their dying technology. Does the answer to rebalancing the world lie with the girl, Rain, or is there no turning back?
Bennett, Sophia
Threads
Chicken House – 2009
9781905294985
Three best friends with very different interests meet a young African refugee girl who just might help them make all their dreams come true.
Bowler, Tim
Bloodchild
Oxford University Press – 2009
9780192728715
Will has an accident and loses his memory. As he pieces together his life he realizes he has enemies, a lot of them, and something terrible is happening in town. Now he must find answers before it’s too late.
Brennan, Sarah Rees
The Demon’s lexicon
Simon and Schuster – 2009
9781847382894
Nick’s brother Alan has been marked by a demon. Only Nick can save him, but on the way he’ll battle magicians and encounter things he’d never dreamed of.
Breslin, Theresa
The Nostradamus prophecy
Corgi – 2009
9780552557214
Melisande is the daughter of a minstrel of King Charles of France. The prophet Nostradamus trusts her with some very special parchments, and she must protect them and evade her enemies until the massacre on St Bartholemew’s night changes everything.
Brooks, Kevin
Killing God
Puffin – 2009
9780141319124
Two years ago Dawn’s father said he’d found God and then disappeared. Dawn isn’t sure God exists, but she’d sure like to kill him.
Cassidy, Anne
The Dead house
Hodder – 2009
9780340932285
Growing up with the knowledge of how your mum and sister died is the stuff of nightmares, but somehow Lauren has to learn the truth and how to live with it.
Christopher, Lucy
Stolen
Chicken House – 2009
9781906427139
Gemma thinks Ty is pretty cute when he helps her out in the airport coffee shop. Then he drugs and kidnaps her and holds her captive in the Australian outback. She must try to escape while he attempts to convince her that she’s already home.
Dessen, Sarah
Lock & key
Puffin – 2009
9780141324937
Ruby looked after her mother for years, until one day her mother disappears. Claimed by her sister, taken to a gated community and enrolled in a prep school, can Ruby see past first impressions and defeat her insecurities?
Dhami, Narinder
Bang, bang, you’re dead!
Corgi – 2009
9780552560436
There’s a gunman in the building and Mia has a horrible feeling she knows who it is – her brother has been acting very strangely recently, but can she get to him in time?
Dogar, Sharon
Falling
Chicken House – 2009
9781905294695
Neesha hasn’t spoken since her father died. Her childhood friend Sammy and a newly-discovered love might save her, but nightmares about another girl, long ago and far away, threaten to overwhelm her and force her to replay a tragic story.
Donaldson, Julia
Running on the cracks
Egmont – 2009
9781405222334
Leonora is a runaway, hiding from her bullying uncle and trying to discover the secret of her Chinese father’s family feud while living on her wits in Glasgow. She’s helped by a colourful cast of characters in this taut thriller.
Dowswell, Paul
Auslander
Bloomsbury – 2010
9780747594192
14-year-old Peter is orphaned and recruited into the Hitler Youth, but he doesn’t want to be a Nazi, and he risks everything to help bring to aid to persecuted Jews still surviving in Berlin.
Gaiman, Neil
The Graveyard book
Bloomsbury – 2009
9780747594802
Nobody Owens is a perfectly normal boy, except that he lives in a graveyard, raised by ghosts, and his family was killed long ago by a mysterious man named Jack. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, with supernatural creatures instead of animals.
Grant, Michael
Gone
Egmont – 2009
9781405242356
Every person over 15 years old suddenly disappears from a small town in California. Cut off from the outside world, some survivors have mutant power and the future might now be in their hands.
Gray, Keith
The Return of Johnny Kemp
Barrington Stoke – 2009
9781842996140
Dan got Johnny Kemp, the toughest kid in school, expelled. Now Johnny wants revenge and no one else is watching. What will Dan do?
Green, Julia
Breathing underwater
Bloomsbury – 2009
9780747595465
Last year Freya’s older brother died in a boating accident. But Freya isn’t sure it was an accident, and upon returning to the island she will have to work out what happened and save herself and her family from the grief that torments them.
Hooper, Mary
Newes from the dead
Random House – 2009
9781862303638
The true tale of a girl who survived the gallows. In 1650, Anne Green was sentenced to death when she could not prove that her baby had been stillborn.
Howell, Simmone
Everything beautiful
Bloomsbury – 2009
9780747597858
Rile Rose doesn’t want to go to summer camp. But the friends she makes and secrets she discovers make it a summer that changes her life.
Jauncey, James
The Reckoning
Young Picador – 2009
9780330454025
When 18-year-old Fin Carpenter sees a body falling from a bridge he’s convinced that it wasn’t an accident. But the more he investigates, the more he discovers that there’s something rotten at the heart of the remote island community where he lives.
Jinks, Catherine
The Reformed vampire support group
Quercus – 2009
9781847247780
15-year-old Nina has been a vampire since 1973 and she hates it. But now an unknown vampire slayer is threatening her and those she loves, and she’s thrown into a quest to save them while “life” gets a lot more interesting.
LaFleur, Suzanne M.
Love, Aubrey
Puffin – 2009
9780141327044
A tragic accident leaves Aubrey alone. She thinks she can survive that way, with television and Spaghetti-Os, but the love of her Grandmother and new friends helps her heal and rejoin the world.
Landman, Tanya
Mondays are murder
Walker – 2009
9781406314601
Poppy Fields didn’t believe in ghosts until she visited a remote Scottish island and people started dying. She and her new friend Graham must find out if it’s a spirit taking revenge, or something even more sinister. After this, read Dead Funny, Dying to be Famous and The Head is Dead
Mitchell, Jane
Chalkline
Walker – 2009
9781406315172
Nine-year-old Rafiq is recruited and trained to kill by Kashmiri Freedom Fighters who raid his village. His sister Jameela keeps his memory alive. Will they even know each other when they finally meet again?
Mitchell, Pratima
Indian summer
Walker – 2009
9781406308174
Sarla, a Londoner, spends the summer with her cousin Bina in Daroga, India. When Sarla learns that Bina has a deep, dark secret – concerning her mother, a murder and bandits in the surrounding hills – she is determined to find out exactly what it is.
Peck, Dale
Sprout
Bloomsbury – 2009
9780747577621
How can a gay New York lad fit in in rural Kansas? Sprout finds out that it’s actually not that hard!
Perera, Anna
Guantanamo boy
Puffin -2009
9780141326078
A regular kid, 15-year-old Khalid from Rochdale plays war-like video games with his friends. Then he’s kidnapped and tortured by security forces until he signs the pre-prepared confession, and held in Guantanamo Bay for 2 years without charge.
Pratchett, Terry
Nation
Corgi – 2009
9780552557795
The tsunami quite literally turned everything upside down – Mau and the trouserman girl are heading for a big adventure
Promitzer, Rebecca
The Pickle king
Chicken House – 2009
9781906427016
The gang were bored and wanted something to happen, but none of them expected a real-life dead body with a missing eyeball! Soon the mystery of who killed Herman, owner of the giant pickle factory, becomes a crazy adventure.
Sanchez, Alex
The God box
Simon Pulse – 2009
9781416909002
Paul has been taught that homosexuality is a sin, and he and his girlfriend seem good together. When Manual joins the school, an openly-gay Christian, it forces Paul to re-evaluate his views and his sexuality, and to take a stand before the bullying gets out of control.
Tamaki, Mariko
Skim
Walker – 2009
9781406321364
After a boy at her school takes his own life, Wiccan teen Kimberly (a.k.a. Skim) journals her reaction to the suicide, the drifting away from her best friend and to falling in love for the first time – with her teacher.
Valentine, Jenny
The Ant colony
HarperCollins – 2009
9780007283590
Teen runaway Sam needs a place to disappear, and 10-year-old Bohemia is desperate for a home. But everyone has something to hide at 33 Georgiana Street. Full of streetwise Londoners, this is a sharp look at unlikely friendships and making things right.
Vejjajiva, Jane
The Happiness of Kati
Allen & Unwin – 2009
9781741147537
Thailand, and every morning Kati is woken by the clatter of Grandma’s spatula and every night she goes to bed wishing for her mother. Beneath her peaceful life is an undercurrent of mystery. Why has her mother stayed away for so long, and where is the father Kati has never known?
Volponi, Paul
Hurricane song
Speak – 2009
9780142414187
After his mother remarried Miles went to live in New Orleans with his father, but they don’t get along. Hurricane Katrina hits and they must survive together in the Superdome, making choices that will change their lives forever.
Ward, Rachel
Numbers
Chicken House – 2009
9781905294930
Jem can tell the day you’ll die by looking in your eyes. On a day out with her friend Spider she witnesses a disaster that she knew would happen, and then they’re on the run for their lives.
The Schools Library Service is delighted to announce that Street Heroes, by Joe Layburn won the 2011 Tower Hamlets Book Award. A thought-provoking book of great relevance to children in Tower Hamlets, it looks again at the story behind the battle of Cable Street in 1936.
Shortlist:
