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. […]
A novel about a curious friendship between a pig, Wilbur, and a spider, Charlotte, living on a farm. When Wilbur realises he is going to be eventually slaughtered, Charlotte promises to save him. She starts weaving words of praise about Wilbur into her web, making him a tourist attraction.
A dystopian novel about conformity and otherness set in a world where every teenager is transformed from an “ugly” into a “pretty” with the help of extreme cosmetic surgery when they turn 16. 15-year-old Tally can’t wait, but her friends Shay and David show her the downsides of their society, which causes her to rebel. […]
This novel portrays abuse, resilience, violence and a girl fighting for her rights. The story follows 15-year-old Aiyana’s escape from a brutal patriarchal riverboat community in Arkansas in the 1930s. Having been denied any education and having suffered from her abusive father, this young heroine sets out to flee with only her grandmother and brother […]
This story about loss and release came second in the Costa Short Story Awards 2019: The reader follows a father and his son on a hike along a mountainous path. What starts as a nice enough pastime quickly makes a turn for the worse…
The young wizard Harry broadens his knowledge and skills in the second volume of the Harry Potter series. Together with his friends Ron and Hermine, he critically investigates Hogwart’s history and the continuing conflict between students from Gryffindor and Slytherin – in which identity seems to play a major role.
A poem on worries, anxieties, fears and other what-ifs. The speaker describes how, at night, he lies awake and asks himself “what if questions”. He doubts himself and worries about all the things that could go wrong in the near future.
A dystopian novel on gender, sex, fertility, rebellion, and love. In the near future, most women have become infertile and the USA have transformed into a theocracy where women are either the wives of party officials, supposed to take care of the household, or have to take part in a bizarre ritual. Offred is one […]
A magical realist novel about dependence and independence, myth and reality, power and self-reflexivity. Saleem is born at midnight, 15 August 1947, which is India’s day of independence. Growing up, he discovers his telepathic abilities and finds out that children born in India on this particular day (so-called Midnight’s Children) are gifted with magical powers. […]
A novel about fate and egotism, hatred and bigotry. Cándido and América are a married couple from Mexico, living unregistered in the suburbs of Los Angeles. One day Cándido is hit by the car of Delaney, a liberal middle-class white man, who reimburses him with a twenty-dollar bill. With Cándido being injured and unable to […]
An intrusion fantasy novel about suffering, isolation, grief, self-awareness, family and growing up. Connor is a 13-year old teenager, whose mother suffers from cancer and is going through chemotherapy. One night he is visited by a monster that claims to be a version of the Green Man, the pagan personification of nature. As Conner is […]
After surviving the adventures in the Harry Potter novels and triumphing over the evil Lord Voldemort, Harry, Hermione and Ron have grown up and find themselves on platform 9 3/4. Together with Rose, the daughter of Harry’s friends and Albus, Harry’s son they wait for the Hogwarts Express to take the children to Hogwarts for […]
A novel navigating peer-pressure, friendship, love, migration and casual racism. Chevalier retells the story of Shakespeare’s play Othello but set in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s. 11 year old protagonist Osei, the son of a diplomat, starts his first day at a new school, the fourth school in six years. Luckily, he finds a potential […]
A modern tragedy negotiating reality and illusion within the pursuit of the American Dream. Willy Loman is a travelling salesman who lives with his wife, Linda, in New York. Besides being constantly stressed out by his job, driving around and earning barely enough money to make a living, he is also disappointed by his son […]
A Gothic novel about advances in science and moral responsibilities they bring about. Victor Frankenstein is a gifted young scientist living and studying in Switzerland. Through the recently discovered ‘wonder of electricity’ he is able to give life to his own creation – a monstrous creature. However, Victor does not take responsibility for the monster […]