Harry, The Poisonous Centipede
Lynne Reid Banks

As soon as their two little heads poked out of the tunnel, they saw it - a thing, a monster. Harry may be a poisonous centipede, but he's not very brave. He would be quite happy never to venture into the dangerous no-top-world above, where flying swoopers, furry biters, belly wrigglers and the dreaded Hoo-Mins live.

Whispering to Witches
Anna Dale

A fantasy writing with strong plot and vivid characters.

Scarecrow And His Servant
Philip Pullman

A tale of two friends: a scarecrow made of straw and turnip, and his servant, a clever little boy named Jack. Their journey of discovery takes them into hilarious situations and terrifying dangers, but Jack's common sense always saves the day. This is a story of friendship and love for younger readers.

Amazing Story Of Adolphus Tips
Morpurgo, Michael, M.B.E.

Set against the backdrop of the Second World War, this story is about lifelong friendship and one adventurous cat! It's 1943, apart from her father being away, Lily Tregenze's life is scarcely touched by the war. Until one day, Lily and her family, along with 3000 other villagers, are told to move out of their homes - lock, stock and barrel.

Best Friends
Jacqueline Wilson

Gemma and Alice, born on the same day, have been devoted best friends ever since. Despite Gemma's larger-than-life personality and Alice's quieter, calmer character, the two are inseparable -- until Alice has to move house, all the way to Scotland.

Chocolate Money Mystery
Alexander McCall Smith

The first of two hilarious detective mysteries starring Max and Maddy Twist.

Witch In The Classroom!
Ghillian Potts

Abigail is thrilled when she discovers that she's a witch - at last she can get her own back on her bullying classmate, Ryan. With help from her pet rat, Gnasher, Abigail turns Ryan into a frog, but that's when disaster strikes.

Time Wreccas
Val Tyler

When the Wreccas, who populate the Underneath, send Snot to steal the Tick, their only intention is to wreak havoc on the Guardians who live Topside. They don't expect Snot to find out that she feels more at home Topside and that she really likes Tid who she has to trick. And little do they know that without the Tick, time will stop forever.

Double Fudge
Judy Blume

Pete's little brother Fudge has a new obsession. He's mad about money and he wants loads of it. In fact, he's going to print a hundred million trillion 'Fudge Bucks' and buy the whole world. He's driving Pete nuts. Will Fudge ever stop being the most embarrassing brother on the planet?

Mouse Noses On Toas
Daren King

Gathering his friends - Sandra the Christmas tree decoration, Rowley Barker Hobbs, the sheepdog, and the Tinby, a kind of monster - Paul becomes determined to find the truth. So begins an adventure involving mouse activists, the prime minister, cheese addicts and a wildly insane Tinby. Will they survive with their whiskers intact?

Facing The Demon Headmaster
Gillian Cross

The man everyone wants to see is DJ Pardoman whose face keeps changing from Elvis to Madonna to Brad Pitt. His electronic mask is mesmerizing but no one knows who he really is. And there's an online competition - the person who finds out about him will be allowed to lift off the mask. Dinah thinks it's all weird, but she's also curious.

Friendly Matches
Allan Ahlberg

A collection of football poems covering many aspects of the game. They are written in a variety of styles - including sonnets and rhyming couplets.

How The Camel Got His Hump
Rudyard Kipling

A wonderful classic to delight all readers.

Journey To The River Sea
Eva Ibbotson

It's 1910 and Maia, orphaned at 13, travels from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She befriends Finn, a mysterious Indian boy who lives with the local Indians. But they are forced to flee up river when his past life catches up with him.

Hacker
Malorie Blackman

When Vicky's father is arrested, accused of stealing over a million pounds from the bank where he works, she is determined to prove his innocence. But how? There's only one way - to attempt to break into the bank's computer files. Even if Vicky is the best hacker in the world, will she find the real thief before they find her?

Wreck Of The Zanzibar
Morpurgo, Michael, M.B.E.

Life on the Sicily Isles in 1907 is bleak and full of hardship. Laura's twin brother, Billy, disappears, and then a storm devastates everything. It seems there's little hope... that is until the Zanzibar is wrecked on the island's rocks and everything changes.

Krindlekrax
Philip Ridley

Who is more likely to get the part of the hero in the school play? Ruskin or Elvis? Under Lizard Street lurks the mysterious Krindlekrax. And when Krindlekrax threatens Lizard Street, Ruskin has the chance to prove he's the stuff heroes are made of!

Elidor
Alan Garner

On a gloomy day in Manchester, Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David are lured into a ruined church, where the fabric of time and place is weak enough to allow them into the twilight world of Elidor.

Capricorn Bracelet
Rosemary Sutcliff

From the fall of Londinium to the building of Hadrian's Wall, and the final departure of the Romans from Britain, this collection of stories, set at the time of the Roman occupation of Britain, follows the fortunes of a family over three hundred years. All soldiers, they are linked by the Capricorn bracelet, first worn by the centurion Lucius.

Jacqueline Wilson's Superstars The Suitcase Kid And The Lottie Project
Jacqueline Wilson

This omnibus edition gives two of the best from the author's work. In The Suitcase Kid Andy is always moving from A to B; one week with Mum, one week with Dad. In The Lottie Project Charlie finds her double, whose life is much tougher than her own, back in Victorian times.

Wolves Of Willoughby Chase
Joan Aiken

1832 - a period of English History that never happened. Good King James III is on the throne and the country is ravaged by wolves which have migrated through the newly-opened Channel Tunnel. When Sylvia and Bonnie fall into the hands of evil Miss Slighcarp, they must use all their wits to escape unscathed.

Granny
Anthony Horowitz

Twelve-year-old Joe Warden isn't happy. He has rich, uncaring parents and is virtually a prisoner in the huge family mansion, Thattlebee Hall. Worst of all, though, is his granny. Not only is she physically repulsive, she's horribly mean.

Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett

After the death of her parents, Mary Lennox is brought back from India as a forlorn and unwanted child to live in her uncle's great lonely house on the moors. Then one day, she discovers the key to a secret garden and, as if by magic, her life begins to change.

Anne Of Green Gables
L.M. Montgomery

When Anne Shirley erupts into the Cuthberts's lives, they don't realize how fond they will become of the red-haired orphan. Both entertained and exasperated by her constant chatter and imaginings, they soon find it hard to remember what Green Gables was like without its adopted daughter.

Clockwork
Philip Pullman

From the master storyteller comes a tale of gothic mystery as elegantly crafted as the most intricate clockwork. A tormented apprentice clock-maker - and a deadly knight in armour.

Forever X
Geraldine McCaughrean

It's not the greatest start to a summer holiday. The car breaks down, miles from anywhere, and suddenly Joy and her family are stuck in the first bed-and-breakfast they can find. And it's no ordinary place. Forever X, says the sign on the house. That's strange enough. But inside, everything is even weirder. Then the police arrive...

Johnnie's Blitz
Bernard Ashley

A soon-to-be classic! This is a must-read book.

Talking Turkeys
Benjamin Zephaniah

This collection of rap poetry covers subjects such as politics, racism, green issues and others.

Becky Bananas
Jean Ure

The second in the series of stories written in the form of diaries and letters. Becky Bananas is 11 years, nine months, three days and 14 hours old and her great ambitions include visiting the Wonderland theme park, starring on the TV programme This Is Your Life and beating leukaemia.

Double Image
Pat Moon

David is resentful at having to spend a week with his grandad after his grandma has died, but discovers a story which his grandfather has kept hidden for many years.

It's Ok, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers
Louise Rennison

Georgia's protestations on being forced to emigrate to New Zealand with her parents are so successful that soon she's on her way back to Britain to stay with her grandparents. Her life becomes even more mad than when she stayed with her parents.

Journey To The River Sea
Eva Ibbotson

It's 1910 and Maia, orphaned at 13, travels from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She befriends Finn, a mysterious Indian boy who lives with the local Indians. But they are forced to flee up river when his past life catches up with him.

Only You Can Save Mankind
Terry Pratchett

As the mighty alien fleet from the latest computer game thunders across the screen, Johnny prepares to blow them into the usual million pieces. And send him a message: We surrender. They're not supposed to do that! They're supposed to die. And computer joysticks don't have 'Don't Fire' buttons ..

Silverfin
Charlie Higson

James Bond is back, aged 13 years. The original superspy. A global phenomenon . A hero every boy wants to be, and every girl wants to know.

There's A Boy In The Girl's Bathroom
Louis Sachar

A boy who fights with his school mates, and makes it difficult for anyone to like him, learns how to be accepted. A story of isolation, bravery and gradual acceptance told with humour by Louis Sachar, the author of The brilliant holes.

Mates, Dates And Cosmic Kisses
Cathy Hopkins

Izzy is an independant thinker, interested in all things New Age . However, when she falls for the dishy Mark, things start to go very wrong. She turns to astrology for guidance and to try to understand, and starts to rely on it more and more.

Ruby Holler
Sharon Creech

A novel of family life by Carnegie award winning author.

Magicians Of Caprona
Diana Wynne Jones

In the worlds of Chrestomanci, anything can happen. This adventure takes place in the Italian Dukedom of Caprona, where spells are as slippery and as tricksy as spaghetti!

Ropemaker
Peter Dickinson

The magic in the Valley is dying. The age-old spell can no longer protect the land from its enemies. Four companions must find the sorcerer who conjured the ancient power. Their journey is desperately dangerous, and the travellers are shadowed by a mysterious figure. Is the shape-changing Ropemaker their ally? Or a deadly enemey?

Private - Keep Out!
Gwen Grant

Growing up in a North Midlands colliery town just after the war, the narrator, youngest in a family of six, is never out of trouble. High-spirited, impulsive and often exasperated by her elders, this young female is determined to keep her end up.

Raspberries On The Yangtze
Karen Wallace

The Yangtze is not a river but a magical place in the Canadian countryside on the outskirts of a small town. There, in the 1950s, a group of children look forward to what promises to be a glorious summer.

Milkweed
Jerry Spinelli

This is the true story of Jews and Gypsies in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation.But it is also the story of a street orphan who survives on quick thinking schemes to find food, who believes in bread, mothers and angels. A tragic but beautiful account through the eyes of the innocent, about the Holocaust.

Other Side Of Truth
Beverley Naidoo

Twelve-year-old Sade and her brother Femi have to flee Nigeria when their mother is killed and their father won't stop criticizing the military rulers. The woman paid to bring them to London as her children abandons them and they are alone in a new, often hostile, environment.

Stop The Train
Geraldine McCaughrean

It's 1893 and Cissy and her family, prepare for business alongside the Red Rock Railroad track. But the railroad company wants to buy the land for itself - and when the settlers refuse to sell, the railroad boss swears his trains will never stop in Florence again. So Cissy, her friends, family, and neighbours resolve to stop that train.

Chinese Cinderella
Adeline Yen Mah

The story of a Chinese woman and how she suffered appalling emotional deprivation and rejection by her family as a child growing up in China and Hong Kong. She tells of the consequences in her adult life, above which she rose to make a happy marriage and become a successful doctor in the USA.

Sorceress
Celia Rees

Alison Ellman is still searching for information about Mary Newbury, she has a diary and some information about other people in Mary's life, but Mary has disappeared into the forests and Alison has no way of following her. But when she meets Agnes Herne, Alison encounters the person who is going to tell her all about Mary's life.

Haroun And The Sea Of Stories
Salman Rushdie

An adventure novel about a son's attempt to rescue his father and return to him a special gift. The father is a professional storyteller. One day his wife leaves him to run off with a little clerk. The author also wrote Grimus , Midnight's Children , Shame and The Satanic Verses.

Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents
Terry Pratchett

Maurice, a streetwise tomcat, has come up with the perfect scam. Inspired by the Pied Piper tale, cat and kid lead a band of rats from town to town to fake invasions of vermin. The rewards to get the rats out of town are plentiful. It works perfectly - until their little con game is sussed.

Stravaganza
Mary Hoffman

Georgia is desperate to buy a little, dusty winged horse that has appeared in a local antique shop. This tiny, winged horse will prove to be the talisman that will transport Georgia to Siena - right into the rivalries and the high-octane excitement of the hugely competitive Stellata horse race - and more.

Wind Singer
William Nicholson

This trilogy is in a similar vein to Phillip Pullmans "His Dark Materials" trilogy. A great read for young and not-so-young alike. This first book deals with interesting ideas such as the nature of testing and constantly being assessed.The characters are assigned different levels of housing and opportunities etc. to their performance in a range of tests.

Stronger Than Mountains
Rachel Anderson

Can Ruth and her sister Mary discover lasting love amid the chaos of their large bohemian family? And what about their eccentric mother, could they find her a new love too? As Ruth stands at the altar, she makes a secret vow to set down everything of the past and the reality of her girlhood.

Life Of Pi
Yann Martele

A tale of disaster at sea. The only survivor from the wreck of a cargo ship on the Pacific, 16-year-old Pi spends 221 days on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal Tiger called Richard Parker.

At The Sign Of The Sugared Plum
Mary Hooper

A historical novel set at the time of The Great Plague in London.

Across The Nightingale Floor
Lian Hearn

In his black-walled fortress at Inuyama, the murderous warlord, Iida Sadamu, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Constructed with exquisite skill, it sings at the tread of each human foot. No assassin can cross it unheard. What happens when Takeo's supernatural powers lead him there?

Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time
Mark Haddon

A murder mystery like no other, this novel features Christopher Boone, a 15 year-old who suffers from Asperger's syndrome. When he finds a neighbour's dog murdered, he sets out on a journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

Book Of Dead Days
Marcus Sedgwick

Set in dark threatening cities and the frozen countryside in a distant time and place of the author's making, 'The Book of Dead Days' conjures a spell-binding story of sorcery and desperate magic as Valerian, Boy and Willow Smallbone battle to stop time and cling to life.

Pig Heart Boy
Malorie Blackman

Cameron is thirteen and in need of a heart transplant when a pioneering doctor approaches his family with a startling proposal. He can give Cameron a new heart - but from a pig. I Cameron is fed up with just sitting on the side of life, always watching and never doing. He has to try - to become the world's first pig-heart boy.

Malarkey
Keith Gray

Brook High is a great grey concrete ants' nest of a school. John Malarkey is the new kid, thrown in at the deep end of Year 11. He's the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time. Through what at first appears to be a random meeting, he helps a girl called Mary out of tricky situation, but is subsequently accused of stealing report cards.

Letters From The Inside
John Marsden

Two girls begin a friendship - two strangers exchanging letters, getting to know each other a little better every time they write. Sometimes writing's easier than talking. Secrets and fears seem safer on paper. And both girls have plenty of each - fears they hardly dare to confront; secrets that could blow their lives apart.

Postcards From No Man's Land
Aidan Chambers

Jacob Todd is abroad on his own for the first time, visiting his grandfather's grave at the annual commemoration of the Battle of Arnhem in Amsterdam. There, he meets Geertrui, an ill old lady, who tells a story of love and betrayal, which overturns Jacob's view of himself and his country, and leads him to question his place in the world.

Stone Diaries
Carol Shields

Shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize, this book is the story of a woman's ordinary life, from her birth to her death.

English Patient
Anthony Minghella, Michael Ondaatje

From the novel by Michael Ondaatje, the author's screenplay is a adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning story of love, betrayal and loss set against a background of war, spies, and intrigue.

Time's Arrow Or The Nature Of The Offence
Martin Amis

The story of a life told backwards. Its narrator, Doctor Tod T. Friendly, trapped and hurtling towards a terrible secret, moves out of the blackest sleep to find himself surrounded by doctors and on the deathbed of a man in whose body he is imprisoned.

Tom Stoppard Plays Arcadia, Real Thing, Night And Day, Indian Ink, Hapgood
Tom Stoppard

A fifth volume of Stoppard's work, with an introduction by the author. The five plays included are Arcadia, The Real Thing, Night & Day, Indian Ink and Hapgood.

Behold, Here's Poison
Georgette Heyer

When Gregory Matthews, patriarch of the Poplars is found dead one morning, imperious Aunt Harriet blames it on the roast duck he ate for supper, after all, she had warned him about his blood pressure. But a post-mortem determines that the cause of death is much more sinister. Murder by poison.

David Guterson Omnibus Snow Falling On Cedars, East Of The Mountains
David Guterson

Contains two classics by David Guterson.

Sea
John Banville

When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace twins, Myles and Chloe, fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, and what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years.

Brick Lane
Monica Ali

Keeping house and rearing children, Nazneen does what is expected of her. Into that fragile peace walks Karim, raising questions of longing and belonging that open her eyes to surprising truths. While Nazneen struggles in Tower Hamlets, her sister Hasina has her own dreams back home in Bangladesh.

Achebe's Things Fall Apart
Ode Ogede

Chinua Achebe's remarkable novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is probably the best known African novel and has become one of the world's most influential literary masterpieces. This guide to the text sets Things Fall Apart in its historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, offering analyses of its themes, style and structure.

Myth Of Sisyphus
Albert Camus

Written during the bleakest days of the Second World War, this volume argues for an acceptance of reality that encompasses revolt, passion and, above all, liberty. It also contains several other essays, including lyrical evocations of the sunlit cities of Algiers and Oran, and the settings of other novels, such as The Outsider and The Plague.

Lord Of The Flies
William Golding

Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear turns into something deeper and more primitive.

Color Purple
Alice Walker

The 25th anniversary edition of the classic, Pulitzer-Prize winning novel that made Alice Walker a household name.

War Of The Worlds
H.G. Wells

The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. At first, naive locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag only to be quickly killed by a heat-ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon, the whole of human civilisation is under threat.

One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich
Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn

The story of a typical day in a Stalinist labour camp as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.

I, Robot
Isaac Asimov

A collection of robot stories.

Titus Groan
Mervyn Peake

Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born, he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone.

Catch-22
Joseph Heller

Features a satirical indictment of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. This work tells a tale of the dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to survive.

Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Mildred D. Taylor

The Mississippi of the 1930s was a hard place for a black child to grow up in, but still Cassie didn't see why farming his own land meant so much to her father. Then, when the night riders were carrying hatred among her people, she learned when it was worth fighting for a principle.

Moonstone
Wilkie Collins

Described by T S Eliot as the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels , this title is also a precursor of the modern mystery and suspense genres.

Across The Barricades
Joan Lingard

In these terrifying days in Belfast, no Protestant girl like Sadie could go out with a Catholic boy like Kevin without resentment or even murderous violence flaring up around them. They were made for each other, they knew that, but what would happen if they went on seeing each other?