Deborah Brown
Christmas is not complete without the telltale wrapped rectangular shape of a book under the Christmas tree. Here are the Monte Library's suggestions for new-release or massively popular books as borrowed from the Monte Library by Year 7 and 8 students in 2022. You should be able to find any of these in your local bookshop or your favourite online book seller.
This is the second year that this book has been hugely popular at Monte. It will make you laugh...and cry.
Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there's no delete button. She's the smartest kid in her whole school—but no one knows it. Most people—her teachers and doctors included—don't think she's capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows . . . but she can't, because Melody can't talk.
Madeline Whittier is allergic to the outside world. So allergic, in fact, that she has never left the house in all of her seventeen years. But when Olly moves in next door, and wants to talk to Maddy, tiny holes start to appear in the protective bubble her mother has built around her. Olly writes his IM address on a piece of paper, shows it at her window, and suddenly, a door opens. Maddy is certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It's almost certainly going to be a disaster.
Morrigan Crow may have defeated her deadly curse, passed the dangerous trials and joined the mystical Wundrous Society, but her journey into Nevermoor and all its secrets has only just begun. And she is fast learning that not all magic is used for good. This is the sequel to last year's fantasy hit, Nevermoor.
This book is incredibly popular at Monte. The students love that it is based in a true period of history, World War II.
*Berlin, 1942: *When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance.
But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.
Do I have the best job in the world? Possibly. I'm surrounded by books and technology in an environment that values lifelong learning and forward-thinking change. There are so many books that I hav...
