#Read for Empathy: A selection from the school library
“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” Neil Gaimen
Eve Ainsworth 7 days
Every stories has two sides. Told from the point of view of the bullied and the bully, this is a taut, powerful story of two girls locked in battle with each other and themselves
Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls
A beautifully written and riveting account of a young girl in the grip of anorexia, perfectly capturing the isolation and motivation
Malorie Blackman Cloudbusting
It’s hard to step into the shoes of a bully. Written in verse, this book gives new insights, whilst also being a terrific read.
Malorie Blackman Boys Don’t Cry
Explores the unchartered territory of teenage fatherhood. A gripping story about love and relationships and growing up the hard way
Vanessa Curtis The Baking Life of Amelie Day
The tale of a young baker determined not to let her Cystic Fibrosis condition stop her doing what she wants
Sharon Draper Out of my mind
Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates—the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged, because she cannot tell them otherwise.
Zana Fraillon The bone sparrow
Subhi is a refugee. Born in an immigration detention centre, life behind the fences is all he has ever known. Then he meets Jimmie a scruffy impatient girl from the other side of the fence….
Alan Gibbons The Trap
THE TRAP is a teen thriller about espionage, a missing brother and the ever-raging war on terror
Alan Gibbons avoids the simplicity of a news story and looks at the complex motivations that lead good people to make bad decisions
Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger’s Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings
Kim Hood Finding a voice
Jo could never have guessed that the friendship she so desperately craves would come in the shape of a severely disabled boy. This is the story of how an unusual friendship unlocks the words that neither knew they had.
Penny Joelson I have no secrets
Fourteen-year-old Jemma has severe cerebral palsy. Unable to communicate or move, she relies on her family and carer for everything. She has a sharp brain and inquisitive nature, and knows all sorts of things about everyone. But when she is confronted with this terrible secret, she is utterly powerless to do anything. Though that might be about to change…
Erin Lange Dead ends
Dane Washington lives by two rules: don’t hit girls and don’t hit special kids. Billy D has Down’s Syndrome and thinks a fierce boy who won’t hit him could come in useful. Billy D has a puzzle to solve, after all, and he has the perfect plan to make Dane help him
Harper Lee To kill a mocking bird
Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the American Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice.
Gill Lewis Scarlet Ibis
When a fire leaves twelve-year-old Scarlet in a different foster home than her autistic little brother, she tracks a bird to find her way back to him in this deeply moving novel
R J Palacio Wonder
Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life. Now, for the first time, he’s being sent to a real school – and he’s dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted – but can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, underneath it all?
Kim Slater Smart
There’s been a murder, but the police don’t care. It was only a homeless old man after all.
Kieran cares. He’s made a promise, and when you say something out loud, that means you’re going to do it, for real. He’s going to find out what really happened. To Colin. And to his grandma, who just stopped coming round one day.
Kim Slater A seven letter word
Finlay’s mother vanished two years ago. And ever since then his stutter has become almost unbearable. Bullied at school and ignored by his father, the only way to get out the words which are bouncing around in his head is by writing long letters to his ma which he knows she will never read, and by playing Scrabble online.
Robert Swindells Stone cold
A tense thriller plot is combined with a perceptive and harrowing portrait of life on the streets as a serial killer preys on the young and vulnerable homeles
Robert Talley Lies we tell ourselves
It’s 1959 and the battle for civil rights is raging in the United States. Sarah and Linda are supposed to despise each other. But the more time they spend together, the less their differences matter. And both girls start to feel something they’ve never felt before. Something they’re determined to ignore.
Angie Thomas The hate u give
Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer.
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice.
Lisa Thompson The goldfish boy
An intriguing mystery about a missing toddler, seen through the eyes of Matthew, who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Real emotional insight wrapped into a romping read.
Benjamin Zephaniah Refugee boy
A wry and poignant story of a young refugee left in London is of even more power and pertinence today than when it was first published.
Markus Zusak The book thief
1939 Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.
Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
Lisa Williamson The Art of Being Normal
Two outsiders. Two secrets. David longs to be a girl. Leo wants to be invisible. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms. But things are about to get messy. At Eden Park School secrets have a funny habit of not staying secret for long.
