For Readers That Need a Little Motivation…..

Sideways Stories from Wayside School       

Louis Sachar

Series: Wayside School

Wayside School was supposed to be composed of thirty classrooms, on one story. However, the builder constructed a thirty story building with an extra large playground (He said he was very sorry). Consequently, everything about Wayside School is topsy-turvy. The higher one climbs, the stranger the people and the weirder the incident. 

This is a laugh out loud children's book!

Other titles in series: Wayside School is Falling Down, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School, More Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School.

Utterly Me, Clarice Bean

Lauren Child

Sassy British girl Clarice Bean loves the Ruby Redfort mystery series. She tells us about the mysteries in her own life: What is Grandpa hiding? Where has her best friend, Betty Moody, gone? Why is her normally smelly and unfriendly brother out of his room and smelling like soap? One by one, Clarice tries to solve these puzzles.

Other titles in series: Clarice Bean Spells Trouble, Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now

The Gizmo

Paul Jennings

Series: The Gizmo

Stephen's bra is starting to slip. His pantyhose are sagging. His knickers keep falling down. Oh, the shame of it. He stole a gizmo-and now it's paying him back.

Yep - it’s wild and wacky!

Other titles in series: The Gizmo Again, Come Back Gizmo, Sink The Gizmo

Horrible Histories

A series of history books  "with the nasty bits left in". The Horrible Histories are full of snot and sweat, bile and blood, puke and poison, as well as lots of appalling jokes, child-friendly cartoons and test yourself (and your teacher) quizzes. As the author puts it in the introduction to every new book: "This book is about really horrible history. It is full of the sort of facts that teachers never bother to tell you. Not just the bits about the kings and queens and the battles and the endless lists of dates - it is also about the ordinary people. People like you and me." The Vile Victorians doesn't just tell you about Queen Victoria, but also about what it was like to work in a sweatshop or a factory. It tells you about Victorian government, but also about Victorian sewerage.

Kids LOVE these books – they think they are ‘naughty’ and they love the all the gory details! Great books to hook in the kids to reading.

Horrible Science

These books are designed to get children interested in science by concentrating on the trivial, unusual, gory, or just plain unpleasant and gory! It’s the horrible bits of science all squished into a book and yes it is messy! The books are filled with fantastic fact files, quirky quizzes, humorous cartoons and easy-to-understand text, it makes science pretty horrible, but great fun.

Kids LOVE them and keep going back for more!

Horribly Famous

Introduce history’s biggest, funniest and scariest personalities with these horribly entertaining books. From scientists and writers to warriors and kings, find out how they got so horribly famous! In these lively, irreverent biographies you can meet all kinds of famous folk, from quirky Queen Cleopatra to British Bulldog Winston Churchill and our old poetic pal Will Shakespeare. Inspect King Tut’s tomb, step into Roald Dahl’s life story, and get to grips with Darwin’s dotty ideas! You have to do something explosive to be remembered by history – so read on to find out what these horribly exciting, horribly famous folk did!

Unreal

Paul Jennings

"Cow Dung Custard" and a "Skeleton on the Dunny” are just some of the things you will encounter in this collection of wildly funny and downright strange short stories. Guaranteed to hook any child into reading!

Other titles in series: Unbelievable!, Quirky Tails,  Uncanny!, Unbearable!, Unmentionable!, Undone!, Uncovered!, Unseen! 

For Kids That Love a Good Book!

Hatchet

Gary Pulsen

Series: Brians Saga

Hatchet is about a boy named Brian whose parents are divorced. While on a trip to visit his father, Brian's plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness, leaving him alone to survive only with the hatchet given to him by his mother. Injured, hungry, and without shelter, Brian must face the darkness of the forest, swarms of insects, and an angry moose. How will Brian survive on his own? 

A gripping read of survival…

Other titles in series: The River, Winter, The Return, Brian's Hunt

Silverfin

Charlie Higson

Series: Young Bond

Meet James Bond the teenager! In the 1930s in the Scottish Highlands, fourteen year old Alphie Kelly sneaks under a fence that contain dead animals and other keep out trespassing notices to go fishing at Loch Silverfin. However, strangely behaving eels attack the lad…

At the same time that Alphie vanishes, James Bond enters Eton after spending the last couple of years living with his Aunt Charmian following the deaths of his parents in a mountain climbing incident. Trouble follows James and when he goes to Scotland to spend the Easter holidays with his beloved aunt he befriends Red Kelly who is heading to the same area to search for his missing cousin….

Other titles in series: Blood Fever, Double or Die, Hurricane Gold

Stormbreaker

Anthony Horowitz

Series: Alex Rider

Could you save the world, if you really had to? Could you escape from a car crushing machine with seconds to spare, complete an SAS training course, dive through freezing underground waters in pitch darkness, parachute out of aeroplanes over London, shoot your enemies, tussle with man-killing jellyfish, and more? Alex Rider can, but only because he has to. It isn't a deliberate career choice, exactly… He’s a reluctant teenage spy!

Other titles in series: Point Blanc, Skeleton Key, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel, Snakehead, Crocodile Tears, Scorpia Rising

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

JK Rowling

Series: Harry Potter 

We all know Harry Potter so I don’t need to say much. A book that takes the reader into a world where good overcomes evil and friends are the foundation to your world.

Great language, amazing imagery, gripping read!

Other titles in series: The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire, The Order of the Phoenix, The Half Blood Prince, The Deathly Hallows

Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism

Georgia Byng

Molly Moon is an orphan living at Hardwick House Orphanage in Briersville, England. She lives a "boring and plain" life with her best friend Rocky Scarlet (also an orphan). Her life is made miserable by Ms. Adderstone, the woman in charge of the orphanage, and Hazel, a snobby orphan girl. During a cross-country race at school, Molly and Rocky have a fight so she storms away to a library in town. She settles down in the warm, dark, secluded restricted section of the library and finds a book on hypnotism. Intrigued, she sneaks it out of the library and takes it home and this is the beginning of an adventure that changes her life…

Other titles in series: Molly Moon Stops the World, Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel, Molly Moon, Micky Minus, & the Mind Machine Adventure, Molly Moon & the Morphing Mystery

Toad Rage                                    

Morris Gleitzman

A very funny book told through the eyes of a cane toad.

Limpy is an Australian cane toad who has lived with his parents and his stunted sister Charm ever since his leg was run over by a car. Limpy is getting tired of collecting the dead bodies of his hundreds of relatives who are flattened on the highway on a regular basis and wants to know why the humans hate the cane toads so much. Not happy with his parents’ answers and worried that his parents or Charm may be the next road casualties, Limpy decides to make it his quest to find out why humans hate them and how he can change their minds…

Other titles in series: Toad Heaven, Toad Away, Toad Surprise

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief          

Rick Riordan

Series: Percy Jackson

Percy Jackson is dyslexic and hot-headed and he finds it hard to stay out of trouble. But strange things are happening around him, and soon he finds himself at Camp Half-Blood, a refuge and training ground for children of the Greek gods, who are still around and causing trouble for humans. He discovers that his dyslexia is caused by his brain being hardwired for Greek, and his hot-headedness is because, well, he's a hero. Percy Jackson enters the world of the Greek gods… in fact he is the son of Poseidon (one of the ‘big three’) and he has five days to save the world!

Other titles in series: The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian

Artemis Fowl

Eoin Colfer

Series: Artemis Fowl

Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is the most ingenious criminal mastermind in history. With two trusty sidekicks in tow, he hatches a cunning plot to relieve the fairyfolk of their pot of gold. Of course, he isn't foolish enough to believe in all that "gold at the end of the rainbow" nonsense. Rather, he knows that the only way to separate the little people from their stash is to kidnap one of them and wait for the ransom to arrive. But when the time comes to put his plan into action, he doesn't count on the appearance of the extra small, pointy-eared Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaisance) Unit and her senior officer, Commander Root, a man (sorry, elf) who will stop at nothing to get her back…

Other titles in series: The Arctic Incident, The Eternity Code, The Opal Deception, The Lost Colony, The Time Paradox, Atlantis Complex

Beyond the Deepwoods         

Paul Stewart

Series: The Edge Chronicles

Take your imagination to THE EDGE! Abandoned at birth in the perilous Deepwoods, Twig is brought up by a family of Woodtrolls. One cold night, Twig does what no Woodtroll has ever done before - he strays from the path. So begins a heart-stopping adventure that will take Twig through a nightmare world of goblins and trogs, bloodthirsty beasts and flesh-eating trees. One desire drives Twig on: the longing to discover his true identity and his destiny...

Other titles in series: Stormchaser, Midnight Over Sanctaphrax, The Curse of the Gloamglozer, The Last of the Sky Pirates, Vox, Freeglader, The Winter Knights, Clash of the Sky Galleons, The Immortals

The Iron Giant

Ted Hughes

A giant metal machine falls to Earth in 1950s Maine, frightening townspeople. However, the robot befriends a nine-year-old boy named Hogarth who must save it from the prejudices of the townspeople and from a government agent intent on destroying the robot.

2 Much4U

Vince Ford

Summer. A time for swimming, tennis, picnics and fun for everyone. Everyone, that is, except Davin. He has to work to earn money to buy his mother a new car. The other car had an accident, and although his mother believes she left the handbrake off, Davin knows that he is responsible.



Feeding fierce dogs, riding horses, spraying ragwort - these are just some of the jobs he gets offered in answer to his advertisement. 2MUCH4U is a great way to make money, but The Great Car Challenge sounds like the perfect answer. Bullies, cheats and first love conspire against him but Davin knows he must win. Holding onto a car for the longest time – no problem.

Other titles in series: Possum 2U, SoMuch2Do

For Advanced Readers

Lion boy

Zizou Corder

Charlie Ashanti can speak Cat. He takes it for granted, but when his mum and dad go missing, the cats are the only friends he can turn to. Setting out to find his parents, Charlie stows away on a circus ship. On board he meets six lions that need his help. They embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

Other titles in series: The Chase, The Truth

The Ruins of Gorlan

John Flanagan

Series: Rangers Apprentice

Will is small for his age, but fast and quick-witted. All his life, he has dreamed of becoming a great knight like the father he never knew, so he is devastated when he is rejected by Castle Redmont's Battleschool. Instead he is apprenticed to Halt. Reluctantly, Will learns to use a Ranger's secret weapons: a bow and arrow, a mottled cloak and a stubborn little pony. It may not be the sword and battlehorse he longs for, but when Will and Halt set out on a desperate mission to prevent the assassination of the King, Will finds that a Ranger's weapons are not so useless after all . . .

Other titles in series: The Burning Bridge, The Icebound Land, The Battle for Skandia, The Sorcerer in the North, The Siege of Macindaw, The Erak's Ransom, Kings of Clonmel, The Halt's Peril, The Emperor of Nihon-Ja.

The Bad Beginning

Lemony Snicket

Series: A series of Unfortunate Events

Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning introduces the Baudelaire children, three wealthy kids who have their lives changed forever when their parents are killed in a house fire. From there, things don't get much better for Violet, an inventive 14 year-old, her younger book-obsessed brother, Klaus and their younger sister, Sunny, who likes to chew things. The three young orphans are sent to live with a distant relative, Count Olaf, a despicably dirty person who makes the children cook and clean for him, and his completely untalented theatre troupe. He wants their fortune and will stop at nothing to get it…. Yes it is a series of unfortunate events!

Other titles in series: The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill, The Austere Academy, The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, The Carnivorous Carnival, The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto, The Penultimate Peril, The End