Friends, family, and other disasters!

Here’s the second in our Fabulous fiction for terrific teens! series of great contemporary fiction titles with a focus on YA years 9 -13. These have been developed by our New Schools adviser. Welcome to friends, family, and other disasters!

Problem child. James Roy. St Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland, 2007.
Max Quigley doesn’t think he’s a bully, but one day he goes too far when he shuts the school nerd, Triffin Nordstrom, in a fire escape on a school trip. Max and Triffin are then forced to spend time together, and they discover they have more in common than they thought. Suggested level: primary, intermediate.

Shadow of the mountain. Anna Mackenzie. Dunedin, N.Z.: Longacre Press, 2008.
Geneva’s world has been blown apart by loss. Maybe that’s why her decisions are not always the sharpest. One thing she knows: there’s no way back to the person she once was. When Angus appears in her orbit it seems an omen that things are changing, but life is never that simple. Suggested level: intermediate, secondary.

The Wednesday wars. Gary D. Schmidt. New York: Clarion Books, 2007.
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker’s classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in. Suggested level: intermediate, junior secondary.

Allie McGregor’s true colours. Sue Lawson. Fitzroy, Vic.: Black Dog Books, 2006.
Allie McGregor’s list of problems is longer than a list of movie credits. She has to share a room with her little sister, her little brother is plain gross, and her best friend Lou is fighting with her new friend, Romy. And Allie’s mum has cancer. Suggested level: intermediate, secondary.

Lonesome howl. Steven Herrick. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2006.
Jake’s dad saw the wolf, before Jake was born. They say wolves don’t live in this country, yet in the night Jake hears it howling, long and lonely. When Jake and Lucy hike to Sheldon Mountain in search of the wolf, Jake is out to prove his dad right or wrong; Lucy is escaping her father’s cruelty. Both are tested physically, emotionally, spiritually, but what they find on that dangerous, dark mountain surprises them both. Suggested level: secondary.

Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac. Gabrielle Zevin. London: Bloomsbury, 2007.
After a nasty fall, Naomi realizes that she has no memory of the last four years and finds herself reassessing every aspect of her life. Suggested level: secondary.

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