10 futures by Michael Pryor
Sam and Tara are best friends. Best friends in a future when artificial intelligence organises our lives, and micropets are the latest craze. Best friends when rationing means cold showers and no internet. Best friends when genetic matching makes asking a girl on a date a minefield of epic proportions. But will they still be best friends in a future when plague wipes out most of humanity? Or a future when the Inquisitor asks Sam to choose one betrayal over another?
ABC Grandstand's Unsung Sporting Heroes by ABC Grandstand
Location: online (view by clicking the image above) or TFTS (Ture Stories) ABC
UNSUNG SPORTING HEROS is a collection of more than 30 stories of courage, sportsmanship and having a go. ABC Grandstand's broadcasters - such as Jim Maxwell, Debbie Spillane, Amanda Shalala, Peter Wilkins and Shannon Byrne - join the winners of the inaugural sports writing short story competition to bring you heart-warming tributes to their personal unsung sporting heroes. From Kokoda veteran, ted Howe, who returned to his hometown of Penguin to become an integral part of the Penguin Football Club for an astonishing 66 years; to Paul Wade, the former Socceroos captain, who we all know rocked a great mullet, but who also battled with epilepsy, a condition he overcame with characteristic Wade humour and humility - this collection pays tribute to community heroes alongside elite athletes who all share a common ambition to contribute, achieve and love their sport.
Balzac and the Little chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Location: audio (listen by clicking the image above) or SF (Fiction) DAI
In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for reeducation during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.
Daughter of smoke and bone by Laini Taylor
Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters - the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known.
Esty's gold by Mary Arrigan
Esty's Gold explores the links between Ireland and Australia through the eyes of a young girl. It was a tough period in history, both in Ireland and on the goldfields. In Australia though, Esty hard work and not a little luck can lead to a new life,a new future. Esty might be the youngest of her family (which includes her mother, grandfather, May, a fellow worker and John Joe, a stablehand) but it is she who binds the family together.
Going vintage by Lindsey Leavitt
Sixteen-year-old Mallory loves her boyfriend, Jeremy. Or at least likes him more than she's ever liked any other boy. She's sure he feels the same way. Until discovers he's cheating on her ... online. Mallory's life is falling apart and technology is the cause. And then she finds a list, written by her grandma when she was Mallory's age. All her grandma had to worry about was sewing dresses and planning dinner parties. And there's nothing on the list that Mallory couldn't do herself. Maybe it's time for Mallory to go vintage and find the answers to her modern-day problems.
Jacko Moran : sniper by Ken Catran
Adventure story for young adult readers set during the First World War. Before the war, Jacko Moran was a street fighter living in the slums, but his initiation into the destruction of warfare causes him to grow up very quickly. As he gets older he reflects on war and his development from boy soldier to sniper hero.
Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
Location: online (view by clicking the image above) or TFOT (Other Times) TAL
In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever.
Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily.
Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept separate but equal.
Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.
Boldly realistic and emotionally compelling, Lies We Tell Ourselves is a brave and stunning novel about finding truth amid the lies, and finding your voice even when others are determined to silence it.
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Location: online (view by clicking the image above), Audio through the Wheelers website, DVD through ClickView, SFMS (Mini-Sets) MINIS PIC or SF (Fiction) PIC
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged... until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.
A provocative novel that raises some important ethical issues, My Sister's Keeper is the story of one family's struggle for survival at all human costs and a stunning parable for all time.
Northern lights by Philip Pullman
When Lyra's friend Roger disappears, she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, determine to find him. The ensuing quest leads them to the bleak splendor of the North, where armoured bears rule the ice and witch-queens fly through the frozen skies - and where a team of scientists is conducting experiments too horrible to speak about. Lyra overcomes these strange terrors, only to find something yet more perilous waiting for her - something with consequences which may even reach beyond the Northern Lights.
One perfect pirouette by Sherryl Clark
Attending the National Ballet School is every aspiring dancer's dream. It's been Brynna's for as long as she can remember.
When her parents move her family to Melbourne so Brynna can attend a top ballet school, it looks like her dream is about to become reality. But why does she feel so awful about the move? Her brother Tam is angrier than she has ever seen him and her mother is working hard to keep the family afloat.
Will every step towards success come at a price? For Brynna to realise her heart's desire, something has to give. But will it be her family?
Ranger's Apprentice 1: The Ruins Of Gorlan by John Flanagan
Location: online (view by clicking the image above) or TFFA (Fantasy) FLA
They have always scared him in the past — the Rangers, with their dark cloaks and shadowy ways. The villagers believe the Rangers practice magic that makes them invisible to ordinary people. And now 15-year-old Will, always small for his age, has been chosen as a Ranger's apprentice. What he doesn't yet realize is that the Rangers are the protectors of the kingdom. Highly trained in the skills of battle and surveillance, they fight the battles before the battles reach the people. And as Will is about to learn, there is a large battle brewing. The exiled Morgarath, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, is gathering his forces for an attack on the kingdom. This time, he will not be denied....
Sprite Downberry by Nette Hilton
Right now, Sprite Downberry's life is pretty tough. Her dad is busy and away a lot, and her mum, Sunny, is very moody and unpredictable, so Sprite feels she can't tell her about the nasty girls at school. Sprite is also worried about her little brother, Mozz. He can't talk properly and he's supposed to be starting school soon. Now Dad has taken off, and Sunny's so unhappy she won't even get out of bed. Will she figure out how to get her family back together - and handle the friendship problems at school?
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
Location: online (view by clicking the image above), DVD Display V 791.43 FAU, TFMS (Mini-Sets) MINIS GRE or TFSO (Social Issues) GRE
"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once."
Despite the tumor-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.
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
The fool's girl by Celia Rees
Violetta and Feste are in London, the year is 1601 and William Shakespeare is enjoying success at the Globe Theatre. But Violetta is not there to admire his plays; she is in England to retrieve her country's greatest treasure, stolen by the evil Malvvolio, and she needs help. In an adventure that stretches from the shores of Illyria to the Forest of Arden, romance and danger go hand in hand. In a quest that could mean life or death, can Violetta manage to recover the precious relic and save her country and herself?
The ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan
Mill is small for his age, but fast and quick-witted. 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 by 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 litttle 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.
The Selection by by Kiera Cass
Location: online (view by clicking the image above), TFMS (Mini-Sets) MINIS CAS or TFPP (Person to Person) CAS
For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.
But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.
Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself—and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.
The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Location: online (view by clicking the image above) or TFWA (War) BRA
An exceptionally moving story of triumph against all odds set during World War 2, from the acclaimed author of Jefferson’s Sons and for fans of Number the Stars.
Nine-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him.
So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?
This masterful work of historical fiction is equal parts adventure and a moving tale of family and identity—a classic in the making.
