Whispers in the Graveyard

Author	Pauline Clarke
ISBN	0698201175

Beneath a floorboard in the old farmhouse into which his family has just moved, eight-year-old Max Morley discovers twelve time-worn wooden soldiers. Under his careful watch, the "Twelves" come to life, each possessing a name and a distinct personality. As Max soon learns, they share a history filled...

Author	Andrew Matthews
ISBN	0746067941

Inspired by the classic ghost stories of M.R. James, The Shadow Garden is a chilling and compelling tale by critically acclaimed author, Andrew Matthews.

Matty Brand can see the spirits of the dead, and when she moves to Tagram House with her mother, her psychic powers reveal that two murdered...

Author	K.M. Peyton
ISBN	0192750232

Christina and Will have escaped Flambards for London with their heads full of dreams, only to find a whole new set of problems. Not only the basic ones of work and a place to live, but Will's single-minded ambition to desing and pilot flying machines, which terrify Christina every time he leaves the ground....

Author	Gene Kemp
ISBN	0745103308

An interesting children's book from the 1970s, which succeeds largely on the strength of it's fine grasp of child psychology and language, and its naturalistically rambling, inconclusive plot. I liked it as a child because it felt less like a "story", and more like a slice of life of a real person - albeit...

Author	Karleen Bradford
ISBN	0140383719

Ursula is different. With her book learning and outspoken manner, she doesn't fit in, and her spirited way's get her into trouble. When a neighbor accuses her of being a witch, her only hope to save herself is to march in the holy People's Crusade to Jerusalem. Along with thousands of other pilgrims, Ursula...

Author	Margaret Mahy
ISBN	0140363254

If I could use one word to describe this novel... it would be - odd. Which makes it genuinely discordant and spooky for a psychological drama, dotted with very beautiful chilling descriptions... but the strange choice to make the novel carry itself entirely on dialogue means it runs out of steam very...

Author	Tim Bowler
ISBN	0689848048

Fifteen-year-old Jess's grandfather has just had a major heart attack, but he insists he finish his painting, River Boy. At first, Jess cannot understand why this painting is so important to her grandfather, especially since there doesn't seem to be any boy in it at all. But while swimming in the river...

Author	Eric Linklater
ISBN	1590171004

Winner of the Carnegie Medal

In the English village of Midmeddlecum, Major Palfrey asks his two daughters to behave themselves while he is off at war. Sighs Dinah, "I think that we are quite likely to be bad, however hard we try not to be," and her sister Dorinda adds helpfully, "Very often, when...

Author	Peter Dickinson
ISBN	0552528129

An attack in the dark, screams, burning huts...Thirteen-year-old Theodore crouches under the trees. His father's Mission has been destroyed. His father is dead. Theodore is on his own, fleeing the Chinese rebels of the Boxer uprising.Then Mrs Jones appears. A botanist, Mrs Jones is a feisty, aging,...

Author	Susan Price
ISBN	0571153402

“In a place far distant from where you are now grows an oak-tree by a lake.
Round the oak’s trunk is a chain of golden links.
Tethered to the chain is a learned cat, and this most learned of all cats walks round and round the tree continually.
As it walks one way, it sings songs.
As it walks...

Author	Gillian Rubinstein
ISBN	0689806027

After Tod's father abandoned the family, his mother moved them into their grandmother's crowded house. Overwhelmed at school, Tod finds himself lagging behind his classmates and becoming entangled in a destructive gang. After Tod compassionately buries a dead fox, a fox-spirit offers him the chance...

Author

Robert Westall

The Scarecrows is creepy, but behind it all there's a moral about anger, frustration and how you should face it rather than run away from it. The main character's eerie adventure as he holes up in an abandoned mill is easy for readers to relate to. Everyone has something that they want to run away...

Author	Ursula Dubosarsky
ISBN	1596432659

Funny, tough-minded and tender, this is the story of Matilda and her two sisters growing up in Sydney, Australia, in the early 1950s. Their father is mentally unstable and largely absent, their mother is possibly in the thrall of his brother, and a headline-making Russian spy defection is taking...

Author	Cynthia Harnett
ISBN	0140301534

Considering how important the wool trade was to the development of early-modern Britain, it is surprising how few novels deal with the business of wool. Those written for young readers are even scarcer. The Wool-Pack helps fill the gap.

This is historical fiction rather than history, written...

Author	Malika Ferdjoukh
ISBN	2211069576

Enid doit faire dix-sept pas de l’abribus jusqu’à l’impasse de l’Atlantique qui mène à sa maison, la Vill’Hervé. Un de moins que l’automne dernier. La preuve que ses jambes allongent, donc qu’elle a grandi. N’empêche qu’elle est toujours la plus petite des cinq sœurs Verdelaine....

Author	Tessa Duder
ISBN	0553290207

'I have always known that in another life I was-or will be-a dolphin. I am a pink human, caught in a net of ambition and years of hard work. In a few minutes I will dive into artificially turquoise water waiting at my feet. A minute later I'll either be ecstatic or a failure.'Fifteen-year-old swimming champ...

Author	David Hill
ISBN	0140370560

See Ya Simon is the kind of book that everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.

While reading See Ya Simon I fell in love with both Simon and Nathan, they are both really great guys and the best friends that could ever exist. All of the characters are that great.

This book is relatively...

Author	Lucy M. Boston
ISBN	0152025898

L. M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, have been entertaining readers for half a century. Now the children of Green Knowe--both alive and ghostly--are back in appealing new editions.
The spooky original...

Author	Geraldine McCaughrean
ISBN	0192752030

Ailsa doesn't trust MCC Berkshire, the mysterious man helping out in her mother's antique shop. He tells wonderful stories about all the antiques, and his stories persuade the customers to buy the items he talks about, but everything he says is a pack of lies. Isn't it?

The story of Ailsa and...

Author	Anne Fine
ISBN	0140340718

"Growing up is a long and confusing business. I try to show that the battle through the chaos is worthwhile and can, at times, be seen as very funny" (Fine, 1994.)

I recall reading this book in year five and feeling really grown up; it was and still is more of a mature take on children’s literature....

Author	Gary Crew
ISBN	1863301135

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

On 4 June 1629 the Dutch vessel Batavia struck uncharted rocks off the Western Australian coast. By the time help arrived over 120 men, women and children had met their deaths - not in the sea but murdered by two fellow survivors, Wouter...

Author	Henning Mankell
ISBN	0385734972

Joel Gustafson makes three important New Year's Resolutions in the cemetery at midnight: (1) he will toughen up and live to be 100, (2) he will see the sea, and (3) he will see a naked lady. Then he sets out to try to make them all come to fruition. Along the way, he introduces us to all the quirky people in his...

Author	Berlie Doherty
ISBN	0141311762

There are literally no redeeming qualities about this book.

The plot wasn't interesting, I couldn't sympathise with the characters, and it honestly felt like I was reading a first draft. Also, there seems to be a distinct aversion to commas, what did the comma ever do to you?

It also...

Author	R.L. Stine
ISBN	0064408426

The wind whispered through the vines, making them quiver and bend. The scarecrows creaked, shaking their arms as if waving us away. A large pumpkin came bouncing down a hill. Thud thud thud! A child loses his head inside a pumpkin. A skin-crawling spider spell is cast on a sorcerer's apprentice. A visit...

Author	Betty Ren Wright
ISBN	0823419789

When her uncle decides to buy the Crandalls' old mansion and make it a bed-and-breakfast, twelve-year-old Charli is all for it, at first. She even volunteers to help clean out the dilapidated building. Then strange things begin to happen. Charli hears someone singing--but no one is there. She sees...