FICTION for years 7-9 RESOURCES
August and Jones
Eleven-year-old Jones Kirby has just moved to Sydney from her farm in country New South Wales. She's missing her alpacas and wide-open paddocks and can't get used to her family's tiny city apartment. She's also worried that her vision is blurry - she lost her eye to cancer as a toddler. Could it be another tumour?
We are wolves
Sometimes it's good to be wild.
Sometimes you have to be wild.
When the Russian Army marches into East Prussia at the end of the war, the Wolf family must flee. Liesl, Otto and their baby sister, Mia, find themselves lost and alone, in a blizzard, in the middle of a war zone. Liesl has promised Mama that she will keep her brother and sister safe.
But sometimes, to survive, you have to do bad things. Dangerous things. Wild things.
Sometimes to survive, you must become a wolf.
All the beautiful things
The Nazis want everyone to be the same. If you're different, you don't belong.
Not belonging is dangerous ...
Anna's little sister, Eva, is frail and needs time to learn new things. She has a huge heart and a gift for loving, but Hitler doesn't value such riches. And so she's hidden away. Safe for now, but with the threat of discovery always near.
Anna does her best to bring joy and light to Eva's small life. But soon, more children need hiding. Risks are taken -- by Anna, by her best friend Udo, by a Nazi seamstress and feisty Brunhilde. Until Anna wonders if any of them will make it through the war ...
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Ana's on a wild rollercoaster of life and death, kindness and cruelty, ordinary and extraordinary.
And she's got a few things to do before she exits. . .
Waiting for the Storks by Katrina Nannestad
I don't want to remember the truck, or the night I was taken, or the family I left behind. I am not a sad Polish girl. I am a good and happy German girl.
I am. I am. I am.
It's the Second World War and Himmler's Lebensborn Program is in full flight when eight-year-old Zofia Ulinski is kidnapped by the Germans. She has blonde hair and blue eyes, just like the other Polish children taken from their families and robbed of their names, their language, their heritage.
But when Zofia is adopted into a wealthy and loving German family, it is easier, it is safer to bury her past, deep down, so everything is forgotten. Until the Polish boy arrives.
And the past comes back to haunt her.
Dragon Skin
Pip never wants to go home. She likes to sit at the waterhole at dusk and remember Mika, her best friend. At home her mother's not the same since her boyfriend moved in. They don't laugh anymore and Pip has to go to bed early, turn off her light and pretend she doesn't exist. When she finds a half-dead creature at the waterhole, everything changes. She knows she has to save this small dragon and return it to where it comes from. But how?
Liars: Armageddon
Jarli is convinced that his lost memories hold the key to Viper's real identity. But before he can investigate further, Viper reveals a plan to DESTROY the whole town. Meanwhile, Doug is trapped in Viper's hidden prison. Given up for dead by his family and friends, he is determined to ESCAPE the master criminal once and for all. Everyone seems to have a SECRET, and Viper's spies are everywhere. Can Jarli and Doug distinguish their allies from their enemies in time to thwart Viper's final, terrible scheme? TRUST is more important than TRUTH.
Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief by Katrina Nannestad
Wood splinters and Mama screams and the nearest soldier seizes her roughly by the arms. My sister pokes her bruised face out from beneath the table and shouts, 'Run, Sasha! Run!'
So I run. I run like a rabbit.
It's spring, 1942. The sky is blue, the air is warm and sweet with the scent of flowers.
And then everything is gone.
The flowers, the proud geese, the pretty wooden houses, the friendly neighbours. Only Sasha remains.
But one small boy, alone in war-torn Russia, cannot survive.
One small boy without a family cannot survive.
One small boy without his home cannot survive.
What that small boy needs is an army.