It’s September, it’s Spring and that can mean only one thing – school holidays. Here’s our pick of the best new and awesome books to keep you busy…
1. Nanny Piggins – The Daring Rescue, R.A. Spratt
When Mr Green rings from a tropical island, begging to be rescued, Nanny Piggins first instinct is to say ‘no’. However, a principle is at stake. No-one kidnaps her employer – at least not without written permission from her. So Nanny Piggins sets out to save the hapless tax lawyer, and to do so she must first dabble in a spot of bungy jumping, deceive immigration officials wearing a fake moustache and seduce the President with her most powerful weapon – the dance of the seven cakes.
Age 7+
3. The Word Hunters, Nick Earls & Terry Whidborne. Book 1
Lexi and Al Hunter are twins with almost nothing in common – except their parents and their birthday! At school Lexi hangs with her friends, while Al hides in the library reading about history, battles and faraway places.
When the twins stumble upon an old dictionary their world as they know it changes. They are blasted into history to hunt down the words that threaten to vanish from our past and our present. Their lives and the future of the world are at stake. Can they find a way back home? Or will they be trapped in the past? For once, they’ll need to depend on each other if they want to survive.
Age 8+
3. White Ninja, Tiffany Hall
Roxy Ran is an ordinary thirteen-year-old girl who doesn′t know anything about her ninja powers until a confrontation with the school bully unleashes them.
When new boy Jackson Axe introduces Roxy to the world of martial arts, she learns about the legend of the White Warrior and the powers that are trapped in the Tiger Scrolls. The White Warrior is hunted by both the ninja and samurai clans, and now Jackson and Roxy must find the Tiger Scrolls and unleash the powers of the White Warrior before the samurai do.
And in order to survive, Roxy must unleash her inner ninja.
Ages: 9+
4. Skulduggery Pleasant – Mortal Coil, Derek Landy
Skulduggery Pleasant is back, and reunited with his original head. But all is not well in the magical world – for one thing, foreign powers are conspiring to take over the Irish Sanctuary, and for another thing, Valkyrie has discovered she might be the sorceress set to destroy the world. The problem is, she doesn′t feel she can tell Skulduggery what she′s learned… and that′s how all the trouble starts.
With Valkyrie on a quest of her own, to seal her name and prevent her evil destiny from coming to pass, Skulduggery and the gang are even more vulnerable. Which is a shame, because remember those thousands of remnants, imprisoned in the Midnight Hotel? Well, now they′re out. Not only that but they believe Valkyrie is their messiah. And that means thousands of wicked souls, desperate to get to Valkyrie, willing to kill anyone in their way… Oh, and because they can possess any body, they could be ANYONE.
Now Skulduggery, Valkyrie, Ghastly and Tanith can trust no one. Not even each other…
Age 9+
5. Dead Weather and Sunrise – The Chronicles of Egg, Book 1, Geoff Rodkey
WARNING – violence alert
It’s tough to be thirteen, especially when somebody’s trying to kill you.
Not that Egg’s life was ever easy, growing up on sweaty, pirate-infested Deadweather Island with no company except an incompetent tutor and a pair of unusually violent siblings who hate his guts.
But when Egg’s father hustles their family off on a mysterious errand to fabulously wealthy Sunrise Island, then disappears with the siblings in a freak accident, Egg finds himself a long-term guest at the mansion of the glamorous Pembroke family and their beautiful, sharp-tongued daughter Millicent. Finally, life seems perfect.
Until someone tries to throw him off a cliff.
Suddenly, Egg’s running for his life in a bewildering world of cutthroat pirates, villainous businessmen, and strange Native legends. The only people who can help him sort out the mystery of why he’s been marked for death are Millicent and a one-handed, possibly deranged cabin boy.
Come along for the ride. You’ll be glad you did.
Age 11+
6. Confusion of Princes, Garth Nix
“I have died three times, and three times been reborn, though I am not yet twenty in the old earth years by which it is still the fashion to measure time. This is the story of my three deaths, and my life between. My name is Khemri.”
Taken from his parents as a child and equipped with biological and technological improvements, Khemri is now an enhanced human being, trained and prepared for the glory of becoming a Prince of the Empire. Not to mention the ultimate glory: should he die, and be deemed worthy, he will be reborn…Which is just as well, because no sooner has Prince Khemri graduated to full Princehood than he learns the terrible truth behind the Empire: there are ten million princes, and all of them want each other dead.
Age 13+
7. Friday Brown, Vicki Wakefield
Seventeen-year-old Friday Brown is on the run—running to escape memories of her mother and of the family curse. And of a grandfather who’d like her to stay. She’s lost, alone and afraid.
Silence, a street kid, finds Friday and she joins him in a gang led by beautiful, charismatic Arden. When Silence is involved in a crime, the gang escapes to a ghost town in the outback. In Murungal Creek, the town of never leaving, Friday must face the ghosts of her past. She will learn that sometimes you have to stay to finish what you started—and often, before you can find out who you are, you have to become someone you were never meant to be.
Friday Brown is the breathtaking second novel from the author of the award-winning All I Ever Wanted. Vikki Wakefield is an astonishing talent.
Age 15+
