Ostrich Boys

Keith Gray

It's not really kidnapping, is it? He'd have to be alive for it to be proper kidnapping.' Kenny, Sim and Blake are about to embark on a remarkable journey of friendship. Stealing the urn containing the ashes of their best friend Ross, they set out from Cleethorpes on the east coast to travel the 261 miles to the tiny hamlet of Ross in Dumfries and Galloway. After a depressing and dispiriting funeral they feel taking Ross to Ross will be a fitting memorial for a 15 year-old boy who changed all their lives through his friendship. Little do they realise just how much Ross can still affect life for them even though he's now dead. Drawing on personal experience Keith Gray has written an extraordinary novel about friendship, loss and suicide, and about the good things that may be waiting just out of sight around the corner ...

The Knife that Killed Me

Anthony McGowan

Paul Varderman could be at any normal school - bullies, girls and annoying teachers are just a part of life. Unfortunately 'normal' doesn't apply when it comes to the school's most evil bully, Roth, a twisted and threatening thug with an agenda quite unlike anyone else. When Paul ends up delivering a message from Roth to the leader of a gang at a nearby school, it fuels a rivalry with immediate consequences. Paul attempts to distance himself from the feud, but when Roth hands him a knife it both empowers him and scares him at the same time . . .

This thought-provoking and original novel highlights the terrible consequences of peer pressure and violence, and casts a spotlight on the worrying rise in knife crime among teenagers.

Generation Dead

Dan Waters

Phoebe is just your typical goth girl with a crush.  He's strong and silent.and dead.  

All over the country, a strange phenomenon is happening.  Some teenagers who die aren't staying dead.  They are coming back to life, but they are no longer the same-they stutter, and their reactions to everything are slower.   Termed "living impaired" or "differently biotic," they are doing their best to fit into a society that doesn't want them. 

Fitting in is hard enough when you don't have the look or attitude, but when almost everyone else is alive and you're not, it's close to impossible.   The kids at Oakvale High don't want to take classes or eat in the cafeteria next to someone who isn't breathing.  And there are no laws that exist to protect the differently biotic from the people who want them to disappear-for good. 

With her pale skin and Goth wardrobe, Phoebe has never run with the popular crowd.  But no one can believe it when she falls for Tommy Williams, the leader of the dead kids.  Not her best friend, Margi, whose fear of the differently biotic is deeply rooted in guilt over the past.  And especially not her neighbor, Adam, the star of the football team.  Adam has just realized his feelings for Phoebe run much deeper than just friendship.   He would do anything for her, but what if protecting Tommy is the one thing that would make her happy? 

Creature of the Night

Kate Thompson

I could hear Dennis talking to my ma. 'She was little,' he said. 'Little like me. But old. Older than you. Those words gave me a cold shock. I could see Dennis imagining fairies, but old ones? When Bobby's mother moves the family into a rented house in the country, a neighbour tells him that a child was once murdered there. Bobby doesn't care. All he wants is to get back to Dublin and to resume his wild life there, stealing from the crowded shopping streets and racing stolen cars at night. But getting his old life back doesn't turn out to be so easy, and the longer he spends in the old cottage, the more convinced he becomes that something very strange is going on there. Was there really a murder? And if so, was it the one he has been told about?

 

Carbon Diaries 2015

Saci Lloyd

It’s January 1st, 2015, and the UK is the first nation to introduce carbon dioxide rationing, in a drastic bid to combat climate change. As her family spirals out of control, Laura Brown chronicles the first year of rationing with scathing abandon. Will her mother become one with her inner wolf? Will her sister give up her weekends in Ibiza? Does her father love the pig more than her? Can her band the dirty angels make it big? And will Ravi Datta ever notice her?

In these dark days, Laura deals with the issues that really matter: love, floods and pigs.

The Carbon Diaries 2015 is one girl’s drastic bid to stay sane in a world unravelling at the seams.

 

Bog Child

Siobhan Dowd

Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she's been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him - his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what, a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls. "Bog Child" is an astonishing novel exploring the sacrifices made in the name of peace, and the unflinching strength of the human spirit.

 

One inch from the wall of brown turf, he froze.
'There's something here. In the earth. A hand.'
Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds something that makes his heart stop. Curled up deep in the bog is the body of a child. And it looks like she's been murdered.

As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him - his brother on hnger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his mam and da arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck - a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls.

Set in Ireland in the 1980s, Bog Child is a powerful novel that explores the sacrifices made in the name of peace, and the unflinching strength of the human spirit.