Listly by Deborah Brown
Download an ebook during these holidays and you might discover your next great read. On your phone or tablet, download the eplatform app, sign in with your Monte username and password, and browse a collection of hundreds of ebooks and audiobooks. If the book you want is out on loan, reserve it and you'll get an email when it becomes available. It's a library in your pocket! Let us know what you think at library@monte.nsw.edu.au
You've seen the movie, now read the book (it's always better!) Set in a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her younger sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.
Go back to where it all began: When mysterious letters for Harry Potter start arriving at number four, Privet Drive, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, the giant Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry . . .
Percy is a half-blood - the son of a Greek God. He spends his time fighting with swords, battling monsters with friends and generally trying to stay alive. Now Zeus, God of the Sky, thinks Percy has stolen his lightning bolt - and making Zeus angry is a very bad idea. Can Percy find the lightning bolt before a fully-fledged war of the Gods erupts?
This is book one in the epic series.
In a perfect world, Jonas begins to see the flaws... THE GIVER is the classic award-winning novel that inspired the dystopian genre and a major motion picture adaptation for 2014 starring Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes and Taylor Swift.
Born with a facial difference, shy, bright ten-year-old Auggie Pullman has been home-schooled by his parents for his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the stares and cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, Auggie is being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it.
The internationally bestselling novel for children and adults alike. Genuinely original and brilliantly written This is a story of friendship with the cleverest of plot twists, and descriptions so vivid you can feel the heat of Stanley's desert prison burning off the page. A total must-read.
Will is small for his age, but agile and energetic. All his life, he has dreamed of becoming a great knight like the father he never knew, so he is devastated when he is rejected as an apprentice to Castle Redmont's Battleschool. Instead he is apprenticed to Halt, the mysterious Ranger whose uncanny ability to move unseen is thought to be the result of black magic. Reluctantly, Will learns to use a Ranger's secret weapons: a bow and arrow, a mottled cloak and a stubborn little pony. It may not be the sword and battlehorse he longs for, but when Will and Halt set out on a desperate mission to prevent the assassination of the King, Will finds that a Ranger's weapons are not so useless after all . . .
I have this dream that, secretly, all teenage girls feel exactly like me. And maybe one day, when we realize that we all feel the same, we can all stop pretending we're something we're not... But until that day, I'm going to keep it real on this blog and keep it unreal in real life. Penny has a secret.
This is book one in Zoe Sugg's awesomely popular series.
BEFORE. Miles Halter's whole life has been one big non-event until he starts at anything-but-boring Culver Creek Boarding School and meets Alaska Young. Gorgeous, clever, funny, screwed up and utterly fascinating she pulls Miles into her world, launches him into a new life, and steals his heart. But when tragedy strikes, and Miles comes face-to-face with death he discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally.
AFTER: Nothing will ever be the same.
Poignant, funny, heartbreaking and compelling, this novel will stay with you forever.
Despite the tumour-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
The first in New York Times bestselling author Michael Grant's breathtaking dystopian sci-fi saga, Gone is a page-turning thriller that invokes the classic The Lord of the Flies along with the horror of Stephen King.In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents-unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers-that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: on your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else.
Meghan Chase has a secret destiny--one she could never have imagined...Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school...or at home.When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.But she could never have guessed the truth--that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face...and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.
Told in a moving letter to her captor, sixteen-year-old Gemma relives her kidnapping from Bangkok airport while on holiday. Taken by Ty, her troubled young stalker, to the wild and desolate Australian outback, she reflects on a landscape from which there's no escape. In a story of survival, passion and darkness, Gemma reveals how she had to deal with the nightmare, or die trying to fight it. Sensitive, powerful and beautifully written.
When the doors of the lift crank open, the only thing Thomas remembers is his first name. But he's not alone. He's surrounded by boys who welcome him to the Glade, a walled encampment at the centre of a bizarre and terrible stone maze. Like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they came to be there-or what's happened to the world outside. All they know is that every morning when the walls slide back, they will risk everything-even the Grievers, half-machine, half-animal horror that patrol its corridors-to try and find out.
When Eragon finds a polished stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. Overnight his simple life is shattered.
Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with.
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 Maddie, tiny holes start to appear in the protective bubble her mother has built around her. But does Maddie dare to step outside her comfort zone?
The New York Times bestselling memoir of dance superstar Maddie Ziegler. Maddie Ziegler had hoped to become a star - she just didn't know how soon that day would come. At just eight years old, she was cast on hit reality show Dance Moms and quickly won the hearts of fans everywhere with her natural talent and determination. Soon, she was catching eyes all over - including those of pop superstar Sia, who handpicked her to star in the incredibly popular music video 'Chandelier'. The rest, as they say, was history. In this inspirational memoir, Maddie explains the hard work she put into her rise to stardom and how she keeps her balance along the way. With honesty, charm, and humor, Maddie offers her unique perspective on making her way in the world as a young teenager, reflecting on the lessons she's learned - and preparing for the exciting road ahead.
Meet Skulduggery Pleasant: detective, sorcerer, warrior.
Oh yeah. And dead.
Stephanie's uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn't fiction.
Pursued by evil forces intent on recovering a mysterious key, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source - the wisecracking skeleton of a dead wizard.
When all hell breaks loose, it's lucky for Skulduggery that he's already dead. Though he's about to discover that being a skeleton doesn't stop you from being tortured, if the torturer is determined enough. And if there's anything Skulduggery hates, it's torture... Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to stop it? One thing's for sure: evil won't know what's hit it.
'You're not Mia Thermopolis any more, honey,' Dad said. 'You're Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo. Princess of Genovia.' A Princess?? Me??? Yeah. Right. One minute Mia's a totally normal Manhattan 14-year-old. Next minute she's heir to the throne of Genovia, being trailed by a trigger-happy bodyguard.
This is the first in a royally good series.
Being a Mediator doesn't exactly make Susannah a typical 16 year-old. Her job is to ease the path for the unhappy dead to their final resting place. She finds her skills tested to the maximum in this hilarious tale but will she finally get her ghost?