Discovery HSC English: Rites of Passage

Unimagined is the beguiling memoir of a Muslim boy born in Pakistan, who moves to London aged two and grows up to embrace the West.

Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school. This heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written tale, coupled with poignant drawings that reflect the character's art, is based on the author's own experience and chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he seems destined to live. It is illustrated in a contemporary cartoon style by Ellen Forney.

Peter Allison was only nineteen when he left Australia for Africa, thinking he might travel around and see a bit of the country before going home to a 'proper job'. But Africa worked its magic, and Peter ended up falling, quickly and completely, in love with the country and its wildlife. Landing in a game reserve in the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta, he became a safari guide and, some twelve years later, his short holiday in Africa isn't over yet. Whatever You Do, Don't Run is his guide's-eye view of living in the bush, confronting the world's fiercest animals and, most challenging of all, managing herds of gaping tourists.

Set in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains. For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorise human thoughts and desires.

Adelaide, 1977. It is the year Elvis died but for twelve-year-old Jake Taylor that doesn't really mean much. His world revolves around school; Rose Avenue, the street where he and his mum, Harry, live; and the courthouse where Harry is a barrister. His best friend, Robbie Duncan, lives only a few houses away and for them the Christmas holidays are for cricket, tennis and swimming at the pool or the beach. But then Rory Macbeath moves into the red brick house at the end of the avenue and everything starts to change. Rory and his family have emigrated to Australia from Glasgow and he and Robbie hit it off instantly. Jake has his doubts. But after long days and nights of swimming, fishing and daring each other into trouble, Jake comes to know Rory has talents and courage beyond anyone he has ever known. Like Harry, Rory Macbeath stands up to bullies. Harry does it in the courtroom. Rory does it closer to home. After a fishing trip with Robbie's dad, Mr Duncan brings Rory and the boys back to his house for dinner. But Rory disappears and everyone on Rose Avenue is about to discover why. For Jake and Rory nothing will ever be the same.

Trapped in a car wreck, upside down, bleeding, broken and in pain, Tristan and Grace are staring at death.
As they await their fate, with only a glimmer of hope they might be seen and rescued, we discover the stories of their lives, the sequences of events that brought them together and the shocking truth behind the cause of their crash.

March, 1986: the Swedish prime minister, Olof Palme, has been assassinated, and a young boy and his father are on the move again. Travelling from Sweden to the outskirts of Denmark and into the heart of Copenhagen, the two live an itinerant life on the margins of society. The father, an eccentric, restless man, takes a series of odd jobs — from making antique furniture, to landscaping, to working as a bouncer at a strip club. By day, he home-schools his son. At night, he weaves a fairy tale about a prince and a king on a secret mission. But one day, their adventure takes a dark, unpredictable turn.

In 1987, Cola Bilkuei, a young boy from the Dinka tribe in the southern Sudan, was forcibly recruited into Sudan People's Liberation Army. For three months, he and hundreds of other children from his tribe were marched from southern Sudan to a military training camp inside Ethiopia.
Once they arrived at the camp, exhausted and terrified, they were systematically brutalised as SPLA officers began to turn them into child soldiers. The children were taught how to handle a rifle, how to fight and how to kill.

You're waiting for the postman - he's bringing your A level results. University, a career as a journalist - a glittering future lies ahead. But when the doorbell rings it's your old girlfriend; and she's carrying a baby. Your baby. You're happy to look after it, just for an hour or two. But then she doesn't come back - and your future suddenly looks very different.

Two young people are forced to make a stand in this thought-provoking look at racism and prejudice in an alternate society.
Sephy is a Cross -- a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a Nought -- a "colourless" member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood, but that's as far as it can go. In their world, Noughts and Crosses simply don't mix. Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum -- a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger. Can they possibly find a way to be together?

Alex's class-clown antics make him a target for bullies, but he's never been afraid until now. The Jockey, the older boy Alex inadvertently betrayed to the police, is back from juvenile detention. But the Jockey seems to want to resume their friendship and to teach Alex real toughness. So Alex agrees to "sleep rough" with the Jockey, surviving the dangerous city streets with only his wits, to prove himself. As the night unfolds, Alex finds that the Jockey isn't interested in teaching him at all-he wants revenge.

All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school—and life in general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Which totally sucks. Hope arrives in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination with a bad sugar habit.

Sixteen-year-old Robert lies anaesthetised. A routine procedure has just gone wrong. As Robert slowly wakes, he can hear, he can feel, but he can't scream. The operation isn't over, but life, as Robert knows it, is. Robert goes on the run, terrified and desperate for answers. But what if the answers are too terrifying to face?

Pete Boland was busy doing nothing that summer. Long, stiflingly hot, lazy days stretched ahead of him. Then she called. 'Listen Pete . . . you know that funfair, up at the recreation ground . . . I thought we could all meet up . . . You know, for old times' sake.' But, where there are old times, there are old tensions. And as secrets, bitterness and jealousies resurface, five old friends are plunged into the worst night of their lives . . .

Joe is boring. He lives in a comfortable London suburb. He does all right in school, but shows no real promise. He plays in a band, but is less than passionate about music. Then he meets Candy. She is 16, beautiful, addicted to heroin, and a prostitute. She's also the only girl ever to look at him twice. He convinces himself that he loves her, and tries to get her off smack and the streets. Her enormous, terrifying pimp is very unhappy with Joe, and tries to murder him and everyone he loves.

Dawn Bundy is fifteen. She doesn't fit in and she couldn't care less. Dawn has other things on her mind. Her dad disappeared two years ago and it's all God's fault. When Dawn's dad found God, it was the worst time ever. He thought he'd found the answer to everything. But that wasn't the end of it.

In Moo Nelson's life it rains every day - a constant rain of spite and derision. His only refuge is the bridge, where he spends time thinking and dreaming. Until the night he witnesses a car chase and a murder - or does he? Moo must decide between truth and lies, loneliness and loyalty.

I first saw Lucas on a fine afternoon at the end of July last summer. Of course, I didn't know who he was then...in fact, come to think of it, I didn't even know what he was.

Late one night, two brothers learn that their sister has died in the worst imaginable way. She's found, strangled, in a desolate place hundreds of miles from their East London home. Ruben and Cole Ford set out to find their own answers. Ruben is the smarter of the two, with a gift for getting into other people's hearts and feeling what they feel; Cole may be older, but he's a dark-eyed devil's angel who doesn't care if he lives or dies. Together they retrace their sister's final journey to a remote Dartmoor village with a dark, menacing core. This is a heart-stopping, heart-breaking thriller about three ill-fated siblings and the love, and blood, that runs between them.

They were four boys who shared everything - the laughter and bruises of an impoverished upbringing in New York's West Side. Then one of their pranks misfired - a man nearly died and they were sent away to a reformatory school. Then they suffered the worst abuse the guards could inflict on them. They were forever scarred by their experiences. Eleven years later: two of them became killers for the mob. They met the ringleader of the guards who abused them - and shot him dead in front of several witnesses. No one thought they would see the outside of a prison again - but the four friends banded together once more and in one last, audacious stand brought their own vengeance to the courtroom.

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Ender Wiggin wins all the games. They call him a genius, and he is smart enough to know that time is running out. But is he smart enough to save the planet?

Through the story of three generations of women -- grandmother, mother and daughter -- 'Wild Swans' tells nothing less than the whole tumultuous history of China's tragic 20th-century, from sword-bearing warlords to Chairman Mao, from the Manchu Empire to the Cultural Revolution.

Charlie is a shy and introspective teenage boy, a wallflower always standing on the edge of the action. We learn about him through the letters he writes to someone of an undisclosed name. Charlie encounters many of the struggles familiar to everybody from their school days, from making friends, first crushes, experimenting with drugs and sexuality, but he must also deal with his best friend's suicide and a shocking realisation about his beloved late Aunt Helen which challenges his very grip on reality.

The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist.

This book follows the story of outcast high school senior Carson Phillips who blackmails the most popular students in his school into contributing to his literary journal to bolster his college application; his goal in life is to get into Northwestern and eventually become the editor of The New Yorker.

In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she volunteers to take her younger sister's place.

Born in South Africa which is divided by racism and hatred, little six-year-old Peekay learns one day that small can beat big. Armed with his knowledge, he resolves to take on the injustices of his country, and sets his heart on becoming the welterweight champion of the world.

There's a myth in Esperance that's been around for years, apparently going back as far as the arrival of the first Europeans. The locals think there's a huge bird, big enough to carry away adult humans....

Sebastian Pringle is 17, overweight and self-conscious. He chooses an Outward Bound trip to Bird Island to be near the lovely Natasha, but things go terribly wrong as he is caught up with some rowdy mates in a horrific massacre of the sea birds that inhabit the island.

Boy is the story of Roald Dahl's very own boyhood, including tales of sweet-shops and chocolate, mean old ladies and a Great Mouse Plot - the inspiration for some of his most marvellous storybooks in years to come.

Intimately rooted in the author's own biography and written as a first-person narrative, "David Copperfield" charts a young man's progress through a difficult childhood in Victorian England to ultimate success as a novelist, finding true love along the way.

A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman.

Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. But nothing - not murderous pirates, nor the imminent threat of death by hunger, disease or dehydration as they drifted for days - could quench their desire to make a better life in the country they had dreamed about.

Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family - acne-ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog - take off for the island of Corfu.
In a series of colourful villas, the Durrells give a sometimes reluctant home to a trail of local fauna, among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies. Recounted with immense humour and charm, this is a wonderful account of a rare and magical childhood.

Australian teenager Dan Bancroft had a choice to make: go to Geneva with his parents for a year, or move into a house with his bass-playing aunt Jacq and her friend Naomi. He chose Jacq's place, and his life will never be the same. This action-packed and laugh-out-loud-funny novel navigates Dan's chaotic world of calculus, roommates, birds, and love.

"Pasadena" tells the story of Linda Stamp, a fishergirl born in 1903 on a coastal onion farm, and the three men who change her life: her jealous brother, Edmund; Bruder, the orphan Linda's father brings home from World War I; and a Pasadena orange rancher named Willis Poore. The novel spans Linda's adventurous and romantic life, weaving the tales of her Mexican mother and her German-born father with those of the rural Pacific Coast of her youth and of the small, affluent city, Pasadena, that becomes her home.

This is an extraordinary life of an ordinary man. It is the story of Albert Facey, who lived with simple honesty, compassion and courage. A parentless boy who started work at eight on the rough West Australian frontier, he struggled as an itinerant rural worker, survived the gore of Gallipoli, the loss of his farm in the Depression, the death of his son in World War II and that of his beloved wife after 60 years of devotion, yet felt that his life was fortunate.

Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910.
His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experience of the war itself.

At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master magician -- and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever. Suddenly the peace of the Kingdom is destroyed as mysterious alien invaders swarm the land. Pug is swept up into the conflict but for him and his warrior friend, Tomas, an odyssey into the unknown has only just begun. Tomas will inherit a legacy of savage power from an ancient civilization. Pug's destiny is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.

This is the story of Al 'Crow' Fletcher who, as a young teenager, was placed in the state reformatory for boys at Westbrook, near Toowoomba in Queensland. What follows is the harrowing description of life inside one of Queensland's most feared institutions for orphaned, disadvantaged and Aboriginal youth. Brutal is the story of every boy's worst nightmare come true. Thousands of children spent their formative years in fear and misery. All were scarred by the experience. Some perished. Many 'graduated' to adult institutions. Crow Fletcher survived to tell his tale. This is it

Set amid the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, where survival is the primary objective, Tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader. When we meet Tsotsi, he is a man without a name (tsotsi is Afrikaans for "hoodlum") who has repressed his past and now exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. When he inadvertently kidnaps a baby, Tsotsi is confronted with memories of his own painful childhood, and this angry young man begins to rediscover his own humanity, dignity, and capacity to love.

The story of Adam Prince, an eighteen year old who wants more than a job at the local sawmill of small town Splitters Creek. Adam wants to escape and find a future worth dreaming about.

When Aaron gets a job at a funeral home, he surprisingly takes to it. But there are dark secrets hidden in Aaron’s subconscious. He experiences dangerous bouts of sleepwalking, memories he can't recover and recurring dreams he can’t explain: a lifeless hand, a lipsticked mouth, a man, a gun... Can he piece the clues together and figure out the truth of his past?

Golding's best-known novel is the story of a group of boys who, after a plane crash, set up a fragile community on a previously uninhabited island. As memories of home recede and the blood from frenzied pig-hunts arouses them, the boys' childish fear turns into something deeper and more primitive.

Colin Singleton believes he is a washed-up child prodigy. A graduating valedictorian with a talent for creating anagrams, he fears he'll never do anything to classify him as a genius. To make matters worse, he has just been dumped by his most recent girlfriend (all of them have been named Katherine), and he's inconsolable. What better time for a road trip! He and his buddy Hassan load up the gray Olds (Satan's Hearse) and leave Chicago. They make it as far as Gutshot, Tennessee, where they stop to tour the gravesite of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and meet a girl who isn't named Katherine. It's this girl, Lindsey, who helps Colin work on a mathematical theorem to predict the duration of romantic relationships.

Miles Halter′s whole life has been one big non-event, until he meets Alaska Young.
Gorgeous, clever and undoubtedly screwed-up, Alaska draws Miles into her reckless world and irrevocably steals his heart. For Miles, nothing can ever be the same again.

Quentin Jacobsen - Q to his friends - is eighteen and has always loved the edgy Margo Roth Spiegelman. As children‚ they'd discovered a dead body together. Now at high school‚ Q's nerdy while Margo is uber-cool.
One night‚ Q is basking in the predictable boringness of his life when Margo‚ dressed as a ninja‚ persuades him to partake in several hours of mayhem. Then she vanishes. While her family shrugs off this latest disappearance‚ Q follows Margo's string of elaborate clues - including a poem about death.
Q's friends‚ Radar‚ Ben and Lacey‚ help with the search‚ and a post turns up on a website: Margo will be in a certain location for the next 24 hours only. The race is on!
After an epic drive through the night‚ they catch up with Margo‚ and Q learns first-hand that the way you think about a person isn't the way they actually are.

'Deadly, unna?' He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them. Dumby Red and Blacky don't have a lot in common. Dumby's the star of the footy team, he's got a killer smile and the knack with girls, and he's a Nunga. Blacky's a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to say, and he's white. But they're friends... and it could be deadly, unna? This gutsy novel, set in a small coastal town in South Australia is a rites-of-passage story about two boys confronting the depth of racism that exists all around them.

Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley's finest novel, encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend's beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years.

Takeo is raised among the Hidden, whose beliefs forbid them to kill. When his family falls victim to religious persecution at the hands of Lord Iida of the Dairyo clan, he is rescued and adopted by the warrior, Shigeru, of the Otori clan. Defeated ten years before by the Dairyo, many of the Otori still want revenge and look to Shigeru, the rightful heir, to lead them.

Greasers, Rockers, different place, different name - but wherever they are, they're outsiders; the rough, tough, long-haired boys from the other side of town, with little hope of Mustangs, madras shirts and the good things of American life in the Sixties.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban.

‘I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment, that did not affect me.’ In the first instalment of Clive James’s memoirs, we meet the young Clive, dressed in short trousers, and wrestling with the demands of school, various relatives and the occasional snake, in the suburbs of post-war Sydney. His adventures are hilarious, his recounting of them even more so, in this – the book that started it all . . .

Two unlikely friends are drawn into a dramatic series of events through their mutual mistrust of their new English teacher. From the moment Miss Payne (The Hound of the Baskervilles, The English Teacher from Hell, Pitbull!) walks into their classroom, Calma and Kiffo know she will have to go. After doing a bit of, late-night sleuthing, they decide whe is certainly a drug dealer. But the more they work to prove Miss Payne is crooked, the more evidence they find of her innocence. And then everything falls apart.

A romantic comedy about a movie geek and the dream girl he refuses to fall in love with. Sam Kinnison is a geek, and he's totally fine with that. He has his horror movies, his nerdy friends, World of Warcraft, and until Princess Leia turns up in his bedroom, worry about girls he won't. Then Camilla Carter arrives on the scene. She's beautiful, friendly and completely irrelevant to his plan. Sam is determined to ignore her, except that Camilla has a plan of her own, and he seems to be a part of it! Sam believes that everything he needs to know he can learn from the movies. But perhaps he's been watching the wrong ones.

In Scar Tissue Anthony Kiedis, charismatic and highly articulate frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recounts his remarkable life story, and the history of the band itself.

This is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

School days evoke strong memories - flashes of reward and punishment, joy and sorrow. This intriguing collection provides a glimpse into how these Australians have been influenced by their schooling - whether in poverty or wealth, city or country, Australia or overseas. The stories give insights into the ways school days can define how, as adults, we connect to our peers and friends, parents, communities and society.

Joe Brickman is looking forward to his year as captain of the Lawndale High soccer team - and to a blooming relationship with his neighbour Kristine. But when the social structure of the school begins to crumble, Joe finds himself on the wrong side of the new order. Violence has always been part of school life - especially at Lawndale. It goes back generations. But as the brutal, tribal rules that govern the school are exposed, Joe has to find the courage to break free.

In this taut and powerful novel, a young teenager is confronted by a terrible moral dilemma following a firearms accident at his home. Coerced by his mother to lie about his role in the incident, he finds he has nonetheless earned the admiration of a sinister group of boys at his school ́ calling themselves "American Youth", they subscribe to a twisted notion of traditional, puritanical values. As he gets sucked into their orbit, and entangled with the girlfriend of the group's leader, he struggles to hold on to a sense of right and wrong. Set in a New England town riven by social and ideological tensions ́ as newcomers encroach on an old rural culture ́ this is a classic portrait of a boy's rites of passage in an America ill at ease with itself.

In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake a boy is trapped beneath the rubble of a ruined hospital: thirsty, terrified and alone. ‘Shorty’ is a child of the slums, a teenage boy who has seen enough violence to last a lifetime, and who has been inexorably drawn into the world of the gangsters who rule Site Soleil: men who dole out money with one hand and death with the other. But Shorty has a secret: a flame of revenge that blazes inside him and a burning wish to find the twin sister he lost five years ago. And he is marked. Marked in a way that links him with Toussaint L’Ouverture, the Haitian rebel who two-hundred years ago led the slave revolt and faced down Napoleon to force the French out of Haiti. As he grows weaker, Shorty relives the journey that took him to the hospital, a bullet wound in his arm. In his visions and memories he hopes to find the strength to survive, and perhaps then Toussaint can find a way to be free . . .

A story of a lonely 423-pound boy everyone calls 'Butter'. Worse than being ridiculed for his size at high school, he is simply ignored. Desperate, he pledges to eat himself to death live on the Internet, and everyone will watch. When he makes this announcement online, he expects pity, insults, or possibly sheer indifference. Instead, his classmates become morbid cheerleaders for his deadly plan. Yet as their dark encouragement grows, it begins to feel a lot like popularity. And that feels good. But what happens when Butter reaches his suicide deadline? Readers will be surprised to find themselves identifying with both the bullied and the bullies.

Micah Wilkins is a liar. But when her boyfriend Zach, dies under brutal circumstances, the shock might be enough to set her straight. Or maybe not. Was Micah dating Zach? Did they kiss? Did she see him the night she died? Where does the truth actually lie?

Evan is haunted by the loss of his best friend, but when mysterious photographs start appearing, he begins to fall apart as he starts to wonder if she has returned, seeking vengeance.

The true story of a poor Chinese peasant boy who, plucked unsuspectingly at age 10 from millions of others across the land to be trained as a ballet dancer, turned the situation to his advantage to become one of the world's greatest ballet stars. Li tells his story with simplicity and charm, with humour and compassion, and at times with great drama. After seven lonely years of gruelling training at the Peking Dance Academy, Li was selected, at age 18, to perform at the Houston Ballet's summer school, which led to a dramatic defection, assisted by his friends and contacts, including George and Barbara Bush.

Josephine Alibrandi is 17, and in her final year of school. Dealing with her mum and the ways of her Nonna are daunting enough as she prepares for her exams. But Josie is about to discover real life gets in the way of her carefully-made plans. She suddenly has to deal with having her father around for the first time in her life, falling in love and uncovering her family's secret background. Despite all the turmoil, this is the year Josie discovers that emancipation doesn't mean escaping from your past. Sometimes you need to face up to who you are in order to set yourself free.

Thomas Mackee wants oblivion. Wants to forget parents who leave and friends he used to care about and a string of one-night stands, and favourite uncles being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world. But when his flatmates turn him out of the house, Tom moves in with his single, pregnant aunt, Georgie. And starts working at the Union pub with his former friends. And winds up living with his grieving father again. And remembers how he abandoned Tara Finke two years ago, after his uncle's death. And in a year when everything's broken, Tom realises that his family and friends need him to help put the pieces back together as much as he needs them.

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

Gordon Matthews was a boy who never belonged. Adopted at birth, he grew up in the 1950s in the leafy suburbs of Melbourne. While he had every comfort, colour set Gordon apart and he had no answers to the crucial questions of who he was and where he came from. An Australian son described an incredible journey of self-discovery - a deeply moving and courageous story which strikes at the heart of Australia's own struggle for identity.

Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in late 30s and in Ireland in the 40s. It is a story of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums - too many children, too little money, his mother Angela barely coping as his father Malachy's drinking bouts constantly brought the family to the brink of disaster. It is a story of courage and survival against apparently over-whelming odds.

It's Scotland, 1953. Sixteen year-old Andrew Kinnear's dream is to start his apprenticeship at the Dalrossan Dockyard, and work his way up to an engineer who will travel the world on those big ships he so admires. But his dream of adventure and comaraderie is about to be shattered when he comes face to face with workplace bullying.

So far, Marc E. Jarvis has lost a white football boot, a school tie and a best friend. But there's more in store for him when he completes Work Experience at a local car yard - where his world is truly rocked, shocked and shaken. Then Marc meets Electra. And nothing will ever be the same again . . . A story of true friends, crazed coaches, shooting stars, and loves lost and found.

When 17 year old Isabella Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her father she expects that her new life will be as dull as the town. But in spite of her awkward manner and low expectations, she finds that her new classmates are drawn to this pale, dark-haired new girl in town. But not, it seems, the Cullen family. These five adopted brothers and sisters obviously prefer their own company and will make no exception for Bella. Bella is convinced that Edward Cullen in particular hates her, but she feels a strange attraction to him, although his hostility makes her feel almost physically ill. He seems determined to push her away - until, that is, he saves her life from an out of control car. Bella will soon discover that there is a very good reason for Edward's coldness. He, and his family, are vampires and he knows how dangerous it is for others to get too close.

Skip's an outsider, a quiet observer. He draws pictures to make sense of the world. He's never fitted in. So he takes to the streets. Life there may be hard, but it's better than the one he's left, especially when he teams up with old Bill. Then come the bombs which leave little Max in his care, and also Tia, the sad dancer, with her sweet baby, Sixpence. Scavenging for food, sheltering in an empty fun fair, living on love and imagination ...how long can Skip's fragile new family hold out as war grips the city?

Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982.

Xavier is in his final year at school, and all his energies are focussed on becoming a member of the first XV. However, the outside world intrudes on even the most dedicated of players and Xavier becomes infatuated with a girl from the local high school.

Sixteen year old Brett Dalton is a tough guy: hardened, angry, uncaring and always ready to use his fists. That's how he gets into trouble. When the world hates you, you might as well hate back. But when Brett is nabbed by the cops for stealing and sent to a juvenile rehabilitation centre, he's trapped in a grave new world.

Dean Mason is a boy with many secrets. On the run from the law, he gets a job as a rouseabout on a sheep farm, the first of a number of local jobs. Dean bunks down in the shearers' quarters, where he finds a series of letters, the first ones written during the Second World War, left by an old guy, Clive, who used to live there and has recently died. Dean eventually discovers that Clive had only pretended to go to war, lifting sections from a pal's letters in order to persuade his girlfriend and family that he was really fighting for his country.

When Nick heads west with his best mate Robbie, he expects to make some money and have some fun. He doesn't expect to fall for Jude or her rockabilly songs; he doesn't expect her to bite so hard; and he certainly doesn't expect to have his secret desires exposed by the strange people in the orthopedics ward. It's not easy being adrift. There are signs that you misread, or don't even see coming.

Joe King is in year twelve. He is the younger brother of two overachieving siblings, has no idea of what he is going to do with his life and he has just discovered that the girl he is love with is going out with his best friend.

A sixteen-year-old Portland, Oregon skateboarder is engulfed by guilt and confusion when he accidentally kills a security guard at a train yard.

Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him -- something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.

When Saigon fell to the Viet Cong in April, 1975, Kien Nguyen was there. He watched the last US Army helicopter leave without him, without his brother, his mother or his grandparents. More at risk than most in the decimated country, with his odd blond hair and light eyes, he was the most "unwanted" - an American. This is a memoir by an Amerasian who stayed behind in Vietnam and is now living in America.

Matt Donaghy has always been a big mouth. But it's never got him into trouble - until one day when two detectives escort him out of class for questioning. The charge? Matt has been accused of threatening to blow up Rocky River High School.

When Chris wakes up in hospital, Emily is the first person he asks for. She is the love of his life. But Emily is dead, and Chris is the sole witness to what happened in the park that night. He claims it was a suicide pact: they were both meant to die. Then the investigation turns up motive for murder, and there is only one suspect ...

Tom Henderson is small, skinny and awkward, and pretty much feels like an idiot most of the time. But when he discovers his father's copy of "The Catcher in the Rye", it changes his world. It puts him in the middle of several interlocking conspiracies and at least half a dozen mysteries involving dead people, naked people, fake people, ESP, blood, guitars, monks, witchcraft and rock and roll. It's the tip of a very odd iceberg of clues that could help Tom unravel the puzzle of his father's death, and - bizarrely - reveal the secret of attracting semi-hot girls....

Asher Lev is the artist who painted the sensational 'Brooklyn Crucifixion'. Into it, he poured all the anguish and torment a Jew can feel when torn between the faith of his fathers and the calling of his art. Here Asher Lev plunges back into his childhood and recounts the story of love and conflict which dragged him to this crossroads.

Many stories of two Jewish boys in New York who become friends -despite differences in loyalties and events. Out of a baseball game that nearly becomes a religious war, two Jewish boys become friends. Danny comes from the strict Hasidic sect that keeps him bound in centuries of orthodoxy, Reuven is brought up by a father patiently aware of the 20th century. And, as six million Jews go to their deaths in Europe and the State of Israel first draws breath, their friendship is battered by conflicting loyalties and beliefs.

Boori Monty Pryor's career path has taken him from the Aboriginal fringe camps of his birth to the runway, the catwalk, the basketball court, the DJ console, and now to performance and story-telling around the country. "You've got to try and play the whiteman's game and stay black while you're doing it," his brother used to tell him. With writer and photographer Meme McDonald, Boori leads you along the paths he has travelled, pausing to meet his family and friends, while sharing the story of his life, his pain and his hopes, with humour and compassion.

The year is 1954, the setting a vibrant Chicago neighbourhood. Daniel Dorsey learns at the age of seven the intimate meaning of death when his parents are killed in a car crash. Taken in by his extended, at times crazy, and always tender and caring family, Daniel learns that even the deepest sorrows and hurt can be healed.

In April 2003, Aron Ralston, a 27 year-old outdoorsman and adventurer, set off for a day's hike through a remote part of Utah. Eight miles from his truck, a large rock came loose and pinned Aron's right arm against the canyon wall. After five days of dehydration, starvation and sleep deprivation, Aron used the rock's vice-like hold to break his arm bones and then proceeded to cut off his arm. This brave, honest and inspiring account of one man's valiant effort to survive is destined to take its place amongst adventure classics such as 'Touching the Void' and 'Into Thin Air'

Ruth Reichl is the restaurant critic for the New York Times and recognised as one of the world's leading food writers. This is her memoir of a life determined, enhanced and defined by a passion for food, unforgettable people and the love of tales well told.

A moving and blackly funny story of growing up with Asperger's syndrome at a time when the diagnosis didn't even exist. It was not until he was forty that Robison was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, transforming the way he saw himself and the world.

Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and bestselling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals-also by chemical reactions (the louder and smellier the better), photography, squids and cuttlefish, H.G. Wells, and the periodic table.

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent". Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his 16-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive), capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

How do you come back from the point of no return? Seth McCoy was the last person to see his best friend, Isaac, alive, and the first to find him dead. It was just another night, just another party, just another time when Isaac drank too much and passed out on the lawn. Only this time, Isaac didn't wake up. Convinced that his own actions led to his friend's death, Seth is torn between turning his life around . . . or losing himself completely. Then he meets Rosetta: so beautiful and so different from everything and everyone he's ever known. But Rosetta has secrets of her own, and Seth soon realizes he isn't the only one who needs saving.

In 1971 Mao's campaign against the intellectuals is at its height. Our narrator and his best friend, Luo, distinctly unintellectual but guilty of being the sons of doctors, have been sent to a remote mountain village to be 're-educated'. The kind of education that takes place among the peasants of Phoenix Mountain involves carting buckets of excrement up and down precipitous, foggy paths, but the two seventeen- year-olds have a violin and their sense of humour to keep them going. Further distraction is provided by the attractive daughter of the local tailor, possessor of a particularly fine pair of feet. Their true re-education starts, however, when they discover a comrade's hidden stash of classics of great nineteenth-century Western literature - Balzac, Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy and others, in Chinese translation.

Donald Zinkoff is a one-off. He loves school - even gets there two hours early. To Zinkoff every new experience is a pleasure. But to his classmates he's Loser and no-one wants to be friends with a loser. Soon they'll know that any name can be replaced with hero.

Stargirl. From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of " Stargirl, Stargirl." She captures Leo Borlock's heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first. Then they turn on her. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal.

Life's not easy for 15-year-old Sami Sabiri, especially as the only Muslim kid at his private school. And when Sami catches his father in a lie, everything he's ever known comes into question. Despite the strained relationship between them, he risks his life to uncover the truth when his father is implicated in a terrorist plot.

Life as a student is good for Flynn. As one of the top pianists at the Royal College of Music, he has been put forward for an important concert, the opportunity of a lifetime. But beneath the surface, things are changing. On a good day, he feels full of energy and life, but on a bad day being alive is worse than being dead. Sometimes he wants to compose and practise all night, at other times he can't get out of bed. His flatmate Harry tries to understand but is increasingly confused by Flynn's erratic mood swings. His friend Jennah tries to help, but Flynn finds it difficult to be around her as he struggles to control his feelings and behaviour. With the pressure of the forthcoming concert and the growing concern of his family and friends, emotions come to a head. Sometimes things can only get worse before they get better.

When Swofford went to the Gulf as a nineteen-year-old scout-sniper in the Marines, he had been trained to kill with a single shot. To kill would mean he was a good soldier. When he came back, he had lived through weeks of rear and boredom in the desert, under enemy and friendly fire, surrounded by men reduced to their basest instincts. The person he had come closest to killing was himself.

Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It's their getaway, their refuge. Rosie's friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different. Rose's mom and dad won't stop fighting, and when Rose and Windy seek a distraction from the drama, they find themselves with a whole new set of problems.

Josh Swensen is not your average 17-year-old. At the age of two, he was figuring out algebraic equations with colored magnetic numbers. He is a prodigy who only wants to make the world a better place. Josh́ s wish comes true when his virtual alter ego, Larry, becomes a huge media sensation. Larry has his own Web site where he posts sermons on anti-consumerism and has a large following of adults and teens. Meanwhile, Larrý s identity is a mystery to everyone. While it seems as if the whole world is trying to figure out Larrý s true identity, Josh feels trapped inside his own creation. What will happen to the world, and to Larry, if he is exposed?

Huckleberry Finn had a tough life with his drunk father until an adventure with Tom Sawyer changed everything. But when Huck's dad returns and kidnaps him, he must escape down the Mississippi river with runaway slave, Jim. They encounter trouble at every turn, from floods and gunfights to armed bandits and the long arm of the law.

After a chance encounter with a mysterious woman one night, Cal's life is changed forever. He's been infected with an insidious parasite. The good news: he's only a carrier. The bad news: he's infected all his former girlfriends - and now they've turned into what Cal calls 'Peeps'. The rest of us know them as vampires. And it's Cal's job to hunt them down, before they create even more of their own kind . . .

Abel Jackson has lived by the sea at Longboat Bay ever since he could remember. He helps his mother each day and loves to dive. One day he meets Blueback, the biggest and most beautiful fish he's ever seen. When Abel's mother is approached by developers she decides she must do something to protect their fragile piece of coastline, But can Abel and his mother save Blueback and Longboat Bay in time?

A tale of adventure, intrigue and murder when, as a direct result of a crime in an English country house, the Geste brothers find themselves forced to flee the country and enlist in the French Foreign Legion.

The adolescent Chinese-American experience through three separate but interwoven stories. All Jin Wang wants to do is fit in, which is difficult as he is one of the only Chinese-American students at his California high school. Jocks and bullies pick on him constantly, and then to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl... The story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Adored by his subjects, master at kung-fu, and all powerful - but he wants to be hailed as a god... Chin_kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he is ruining his cousin Danny's life. These three apparently unrelated tales come together in an astonishing climax - all with a mighty blast of humour, surprising poignancy and skilled artistry.

It's just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusaḱ s ground breaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meagre existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can't resist . It is a book. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbours during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
The Book Thief will be produced by Karen Rosenfelt at Fox 2000 and directed by Brian Percival. It will star Sophie Nélisse (Liesel), Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson (foster parents), Ben Schnetzer (Max), and Nico Liersch.