Oracles and Miracles by Stevan Eldred-Grigg

First published in 1987 and still a great read, Stevan Eldred-Grigg tells the story of Fag and Ginnie, growing up in working class Christchurch during the 1930s and 40s.

Rise of the Blood Moon by Alan Gibbons

Each month at the rise of the Blood Moon, the lost souls come by night. Each person they sink their teeth into, dies and joins the ranks of demons. And now, the lord Darkwing is commanding this army and the whole Sol-ket empire is threatened with invasion.

Three people - the slave Cusha, the prisoner Vishtar and the warrior Gardep - must follow their individual destinies, not just to defeat Darkwing, but to bring about peace and justice for the Helat - the slave people the cruel Sol-ket have subjected.

Wilderness by Roddy Doyle

This is two stories in one. Whilst her stepmother and stepbrothers go on holiday, dogsledding in Finland, eighteen year old Grainne is to meet the birth mother who abandoned her when she was three.

As Grainne battles her inner anger and resentment, her stepmother's sled doesn't make it back to the lodge - she's lost and it's up to the boys to find her.

21&linkCode=xm2&camp=1634&creativeASIN=1407102311

Girl Missing by Sophie Mckenzie

'Who am I?' A hard essay question for someone who knows she's adopted but whose parents won't talk. Why not? Desperately seeking more information, Lauren looks on the net and discovers she may have been snatched from an American family when she was a baby! She and her friend Jam, hatch a plan to uncover the truth and in doing so, put themselves in terrible danger.

'Urgum the Axe Man' by Kjartan Poskitt, illustrated by Philip Reeve

The blurb on the back says: "A riotously funny saga packed with barbarians on horseback, bizarre creatures, interfering gods, man-eating plants and a very digusting lavatory. You'll laugh your head off!"

'Skin Deep: Stories That Cut to the Bone' edited by Tony Bradman

Each of the short stories in this book is about racism.

Written by major authors such as Alan Gibbons, the stories are set in many different places - New York, nineteenth century Australia, Israel, India and Brazil. They're all easily read and powerful stories.

'Over a thousand hills I walk with you' by Hanna Jansen

"Based on the true story of Jeanne, an 8-year old girl who survived the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the only member of her family who did. Her her adoptive mother Hanna Jensen retells her story with a clarity and honesty that is at once moving and inspiring. It was one of the world's most recent and bloody periods of history."

Ribbons of Grace by Maxine Alterio

A good read if especially if you are looking for something from a different cultural perspective for NCEA. Ming Yuet travels from China to the goldfields of Otago. In the nineteenth century Chinese were openly discriminated against and worse. So, when Ming Yuet and Conran (from Scotland's Orkney Islands) fall in love, the affair must be kept very secret.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

This is a children's book first published in 1911, so it's not for everyone but it really is a good story. Spoilt and neglected Mary is orphaned and sent from India to live with her uncle in a mansion on the wild Yorkshire moors.

She is miserable - disliked by everyone, lonely and alone.

The mansion is vast and secretive. Someone cries in the night, and there's a garden she must never go in. But slowly, Mary adjusts and then she meets Dickon and Colin and together they pull off a miracle.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Would you like to look like a supermodel? No matter what you did, you'd always look stunning. At 16, in Tally's world, everyone has an operation which turns them from an Ugly into a Pretty and Pretties have it easy - parties, clothes and fun. Sounds good, until Tally meets Shay and Shay doesn't want a surgically enhanced face and body. Shay is happy as she is and wants to run away.

But running away puts Tally into a dreadful situation and she discovers life in the Pretty world isn't quite as charmed as she imagined.

This is the first book in a trilogy.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

When he was ten Gerald Durrell went with his mother, brothers and sister to live on the Greek island of Corfu. Later in life, Gerald was to become a famous collector of animals and an early conservationist. He had his own zoo on Jersey. He wrote this book to tell about how he discovered the wild life of Corfu, but as he says, he " made the grave mistake of introducing his family into the book, and then having got themselves on paper, they proceeded to establish themselves and invite various friends to share the chapters." What follows is a very funny book.

The Devil's Breath by David Gilman

It's night and you are out running, training for a triathlon, when you hear a click, a strange metallic click. Luckily, Max Gordon recognises the sound - otherwise he'd be dead. In next to no time, Max not only evades the assasin's bullet but he discovers his father is missing believed dead.

Thus begins a story of non-stop action as Max goes to search for his father and to discover the secret his father had discovered. This journey takes him to Namibia in Africa where he meets the legendary Bushmen.

First Crossing ed. Donald R Gallo

Each year thousands of families move to the United States. Some arrive as refugees, forced to leave their home countries; others move for a better life.

Being a teenager is hard enough without having to leave your friends and everything you know to start life anew in a land where you may not even speak the language.

The authors of the stories in this book come from a huge variety of backgrounds. All the stories are fiction but they have their basis in real-life events.

Lessons to learn, by Natasha Judd

A novel about choices. After a tragedy, Charlotte leaves New Zealand to teach in Korea. Her only previous experience has been teaching Sunday School. Korea brings huge cultural challenges and as well, Charlotte has to deal with issues in her past.

'Singing for Mrs Pettigrew: a storyteller's journey' by Michael Morpurgo

How do you become a writer? Where do you get your inspiration? In this book Michael Morpurgo explains with stories written through, and about, his life.

Unheard Voices ed. Malorie Blackman

Stories and poems collected together by Malorie Blackman to mark the 200th anniversary of British legislation which banned the slave trade.

There are real accounts as well as extracts from books written by authors such as Benjamin Zephaniah, Gary Paulsen and Malorie Blackman herself.

Double or die by Charlie Higson

This is the third book in the Young Bond series, which tell about the adventures of the young James Bond at school in the 1930s. Not that he spends much time at school - you can't when one of your masters has gone missing and the only clue is a mysterious letter. If you have ever wanted to know more about how to solve cryptic crosswords, then this book gives you a lot of information. Probably, crosswords aren't your thing. In which case, 'Double or Die' is action from beginning to end and you'll really enjoy it.

Taking off by Janice Marriott

Life isn't always fun; sometimes rotten things happen, and then how do you cope? For Alana it's the possibility of going blind. For Tommy it's having no father and a mother who's too spaced out to care. And for Amira it is the struggle to make a new life in a land where you don't even speak the language.

Janice Marriott sets her story in an isolated New Zealand community on an estuary. There's lots of information about birds and flying - information which in the end becomes a matter of life and death.

Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams

Will Burroughs and his father have one thing in common - they like digging! Usually their digs and tunnels turn up bits and pieces of junk like bottles or broken tools but this time they come across something else entirely. And then Will's father disappears. Not only that, but their tunnels do too.

What's happening and why? Their search puts them in deadly danger.

What I Was by Meg Rosoff

A story about first love. He's been kicked out of two boarding schools and he's now at St Oswald's - terrible food, bullying and tired, tyranical masters.

Finn, mysterious, and totally self-sufficient, living alone in a little hut on the Sussex coast is everything he would like to be. Or is he?

'Apache: Girl Warrior' by Tanya Landman

I will die proud.

I will die free.

But first I will live,

and I will fight.

I am Apache.

'My Swordhand is Singing' by Marcus Sedgwick

You know those bodies that rise from graves and come in the night to get 'ya? Well, this is what this book is about.

'The Road of Bones' by Anne Fine

'Road of Bones' tells the story of Yuri, from his home-life, with its ever increasing restrictions imposed from outside, to his initial evasion of capture from the authorities before an eventual internment in a labour camp, and his subsequent efforts to survive. Although the characters have Russian names, neither Russia nor the Soviet Union are actually mentioned by name as the location of the book. The setting, instead, is an imagined totalitarian state, but it's one whose circumstances have clearly been based on history - and powerful history it is too. This is extremely evocative and compelling stuff, nowhere more so than the frightening conclusion which demonstrates the potential power of context over objective thought - good, no matter how pure, can be twisted and warped to mirror its opposite if given no encouragement beyond itself.

'Dragon Rider' by Cornelia Funke

Firedrake, a brave young dragon, his loyal friend Sorrel and a lonely boy called Ben are united as if by destiny. Together, they embark on a magical journey to find the legendary place where silver dragons can live in peace forever. With only a curious map and the whispered memories of an old dragon to guide them, they fly across moonlit lands and seas to reach the highest mountains in the world. Along the way they discover extraordinary new friends in unlikely places and a courage they never knew they had. Just as well, for the greatest enemy of them all is never far behind - a heartless monster from the past who's been waiting a very long time to destroy the last dragons on earth.

'Sure Fire' by Jack Higgins with Justin Richards

The mother of fourteen-year-old twins Rich and Jade dies in a car crash and they are told they must go and live with their estranged father, who they have never met before. Neither the children nor their father get on, but when Rich and Jade witness him being kidnapped they are drawn into a dangerous crisis that could engulf not just their family but the whole world!

'Avenger' by Andy McNab and Robert Rigby

Danny and Elena are now working for the Firm, desperately attempting to track down the vengeance-seeking Black Star before more 'Angels of Death' suicide bombers are despatched. Elena is the key to discovering the bomb-master's whereabouts as she has already made Deep Web contact. The plan is simple - locate Black Star and kill him - at whatever cost. While Fergus is forced to remain in England, confined to a wheelchair as he recovers from his injuries, the hunt takes Danny and Elena to New York on a covert mission led by Marcie Deveraux. Despite Black Star's trickery and deception, the net gradually closes. Fergus travels to the US to help, but Elena is drawn into terrible danger, and only Danny can save her. Using the skills his grandfather has taught him and his own initiative, he must stop the avenging bomb-master from wreaking further destruction...

"Tom's Midnight Garden" by Philippa Pearce

Tom is sent away to his aunt and uncle's flat to escape catching measles. Angry and alone Tom is bored with no garden and no friends. Then, one night he hears the grandfather clock striking thirteen.The hour thirteen brings an escape to a magical garden with trees, a river,bushes, a sundial and a large lawn. Tom's meets people there and makes a friend called Hatty. But there is a disagreement between which of them is a ghost?

This is a classic children's novel first published in 1958. It won the Carnegie Medal.

'Just in Case' by Meg Rosoff

David Case is a boy plodding through life until his baby brother almost falls out of a window. Then he starts looking at the way in which fate seems to have singled him out. He decides that in order to avoid fate he would change himself, become Justin Case. Try new things, break out of the cocoon he's been living in and become someone else. During this he finds things out about himself and those around him and what fate has in store for him.

This novel didn't get the best of reviews. Meg Rosoff's first book 'How I Live Now' was a hard act to follow, but read this and see what you think.

'Bunker 10' by J A Henderson

At eight o'clock in the evening, on Friday 24th December 2007, Pinewood Military Installation exploded. The blast ripped apart acres of forest and devastated the remote highland valley where the base was located. No official cause was given for the incident. Inside Pinewood were 185 male and female military personnel - a mixture of scientists and soldiers. There were also seven teenagers there. This is the story of their last day...

If you enjoy the mental games involved in time travel this novel will intrigue. Almost immediately the reader becomes sympathetic with the teenagers who may as well have been hostages to the British military. A very satisfying twist at the end - Derek Neal.