A Shakespearian comedy on love, jealousy, foolishness, the power of dreaming and the supernatural. In ancient Athens, Egeus wants to force his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius, even though she is in love with Lysander. Helena loves Demetrius but he doesn’t love her back. Hermia and Lysander decide to run away, and Demetrius and Helena […]
A Shakespearian tragedy on hypocrisy, murder, guilt and remorse. Macbeth, the brave Scottish general of King Duncan revives a prophecy by three witches that one day he will become the new king of Scotland. Imbued with ambition he takes the throne and becomes a tyrannic ruler who plunges the land of his people in misfortune […]
This 19th century best-selling novel about human trafficking, violence and slavery follows Tom, a middle-aged, enslaved African-American slave. As Tom is sold again and again, his life fully depends on the mercy and goodwill of his current owner… The novel is praised for having laid the groundwork for the abolition of slavery, but also harshly […]
This powerful novel on violence, betrayal, dehumanisation and redemption follows the life of a child soldier in an unnamed West-African country. Written by an American author of Nigerian parents, this novel tells the story of civil war from the perspective of Agu, a young boy who lives with his family in a small village. One […]
A story about the Troubles in Ireland and an unemployed teenager caught in a bloody conflict. Cal is a member of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland. Like his peers, he goes to school but unlike his peers, he occasionally works as a driver for the Irish Republican Army IRA. This way he becomes complicit […]
An epistolary novel about oppression, abuse and the power of love. Celie is an African-American teenager who grows up in poverty with her younger sister in a small village in Georgia and is raped by her father Alphonso at the age of fourteen. Living around abusive men, Celie builds relationships with other black women and […]
This combination of a graphic novel and historical fiction tells the story of a little boy discovering the evolution of filmmaking. The orphan Hugo lives hidden in a train station in Paris. One day he is caught stealing at a toy booth. He starts to work there and becomes friends with the owner’s goddaughter Isabelle. […]
In this dystopian future set in Australia, there are no more bees in the whole wide world. Children are charged with hand pollination, trying to replace the bees as best they can, but 9-year-old Peony is still too young to take on the job. Nevertheless, she is convinced that she would make a fabulous bee […]
A young adult novel about conflicts and migration, family relationships and a boy fighting for survival. 14-year old Alem is half Ethiopian and half Eritrean. Because his parents countries are at war with each other, his only way to safety leads him to Europe. In London he struggles to be officially recognised as a refugee […]
This poem illustrates why Zephaniah himself rejected the title Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2003: A rhyming critique of authors who work towards and accept awards only to compromise their voice afterwards.
An empowering poem on migration and diversity creating an understanding for the fact that it takes so little to turn a ‘someone’ into a refugee because, following the speaker, we ‘all came here from somewhere’.
A poem calling for justice, respect and equality. Zephaniah reflects on the diverse backgrounds of the people currently living in the United Kingdom, all mixed up in the shape of a recipe.
Powerful teenage fiction about how to not give up in life even though you are facing terminal illness. This young adult novel follows 16-year-old cancer patient Hazel. Reluctantly attending a meeting of her cancer support group, she happens to meet Augustus, a boy she soon feels drawn to, even more so when they discover their […]
A dystopian novel between loyalty and betrayal, publicity and privacy. When Mae is offered to work at The Circle, an influential tech company, she could not be happier. It is only when she realizes the company’s desire to permeate ever more fields of their customers’ lives that Mae starts to wonder where the use of […]
A young adult novel about otherness and isolation. When 15-year-old Bobby wakes up one day and realizes he’s suddenly invisible, he doesn’t know what to do. Everything around him continues, only he’s not there. Then he meets Alicia, who’s blind, and feels seen again. But he has to find out how to undo his invisibility […]
A children’s dark fantasy novel set in a world where societies of witches exist. Their goal is to hunt human children and make them disappear in mysterious ways, but a young boy and his Norwegian grandmother are determined to stop them.
A novel for younger learners of English on power, hierarchy and the value of words and creativity. Protagonist Nick is the class clown at school. When he has to write an essay on where words come from, he gets an idea. This is when he starts calling a pen a frindle. The word spreads quickly, […]
Book one of the series Percy Jackson & the Olympians is an empowering, American fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology. 12-year-old Percy Jackson has ADHD and dyslexia and feels out of place at school. When he discovers he is a demigod, the son of a human and a Greek god, a whole new world unfolds. […]