Preston Manor School Learning Resources Centre
Books you want to have read before leaving Year 9
HISTORICAL FICTION
Atterton, Julian
The Fire of the Kings
Gleitzman, Morris Once. Then. Now. [a
trilogy]
7th century England
WW2 Germany
Zusak, Marcus
The Book Thief
WW2 Germany
Marryat, Captain
Children of the New Forest
1642–1651 English Civil War
Gavin, Jamila
Coram Boy
18th c. London; slavery
Sutcliff,
Rosemary
The Eagle of the Ninth
Roman Britain
Turnbull, Ann
Forged in the Fire
1665 London; plague
Scarrow, Simon
Gladiator
1st c. B.C., Rome
Magorian,
Michelle
Goodnight Mister Tom
WW2 England; evacuation
Lake, Nick
In Darkness
Haiti: 2012, earthquake and 1800,
slavery
IDENTITY and COMING OF AGE (transition from being a child to being an adult)
Acheampong,
Sophia
Growing Yams in London
2005, Ghana & London
Almond, David
Jackdaw Summer
friendship; summer; right & wrong
Blackman, Malorie
Noughts and Crosses
dystopia, action, romance
Boyne, John
Stay Where you are and the
leave
World War I: fathers and sons
Dickens, Charles
Great Expectations
1861; an orphan’s child to
adulthood
Gardner, Sally
Maggot Moon
dystopic future/past; conspiracy
theory
Gavin, Jamila
Eye of the Horse
1948, India.& England
Hesse, Karen
Letters from Rifka
emigration; Russia to America
Prepared January 2015 by Marion Dunmore, B.A., M.S., Librarian
Preston Manor School Learning Resources Centre
Mendelson,
Charlotte
Almost English
16 years old in west London
Morpurgo, Michael
Kensuke’s Kingdom
World War II; Japanese island
Ness, Patrick
More Than This
dystopic future; U.S.A./Britain
Palacio, R J
Wonder
living with disfigurement
Sutcliffe, William
The Wall
warfare & defence; family &
enemy
CLASSICS OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Aesop
Fables
Aiken, Joan
The Wolves of Willoughby
Chase
mystery, adventure
Burnett, Frances
Hodgson
The Secret Garden
Victorian childhood
Defoe, Daniel
Robinson Crusoe
Doyle, Arthur Conan
The Hound of the
Baskervilles
Sherlock Holmes
Graham, Kenneth
The Wind in the Willows
adventure
Grimm
Fairy Tales
go beyond Disney - really read
them
Lewis, C. S.
The Magician’s Nephew
The last & first of The Chronicles
of Narnia
Nesbitt, Edith
Five Children and It
fantasy
Norton, Mary
The Borrowers
little people under the floor
Pullman, Philip
Northern Lights
Ransome, Arthur
Swallows and Amazons
Rowling, J K
Harry Potter: Philosopher’s
Stone
Stevenson, Robert
Louis
Kidnapped
Tolkien, J R R
The Hobbit
[World War I
White, T H
The Sword in the Stone
Medieval legend of Arthur
Prepared January 2015 by Marion Dunmore, B.A., M.S., Librarian
adventure; Edwardian
Preston Manor School Learning Resources Centre
MOVING ON...ADULT CLASSICS FOR YEAR NINE
Greene, Graham
The Human Factor
AF World War II espionage
Wiesel, Eli
Night
940.02 WWII Holocaust
Johnson, Charles R
Middle Passage
AF 1830, USA; slavery
Levy, Andrea
Small Island
Britain
Hurston, Zora Neale Their Eyes Were Watching God 1940s Florida
Wells, H G
War of the Worlds
early science fiction
SEE MORE SUGGESTIONS at: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/teenagers/booklists/244/
TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT
Top 100 books that students should read before they leave school.
https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/100-fiction-books-all-children-should-read-leaving-secondaryschool-%E2%80%93 [25-01-2016]
TITLE AND AUTHOR
KEY STAGE
18. The Gruffalo. Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
1
56. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Eric Carle
63. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Michael Rosen and Helen
Oxenbury
1
76. Where the Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak
1
90. Room on the Broom. Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
1
25. Matilda. Roald Dahl
2
40. The Twits. Roald Dahl
2
47. George’s Marvellous Medicine. Roald Dahl
2
61. Charlotte’s Web. E.B. White
2
94. Danny the Champion of the World. Roald Dahl
2
96. The Magic Faraway Tree. Enid Blyton
2
03. Harry Potter (series) J.K. Rowling
3
08. The Book Thief. Markus Zusak
3
09. The Hobbit. J.R.R. Tolkien
3
100. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oscar Wilde.
3
12. The Hunger Games (series) Suzanne Collins
3
14. The Chronicles of Narnia (series) C.S. Lewis
3
Prepared January 2015 by Marion Dunmore, B.A., M.S., Librarian
1
Preston Manor School Learning Resources Centre
15. Of Mice and Men. John Steinbeck
3
17. His Dark Materials (series) Philip Pullman
3
24. Lord of the Flies. William Golding
3
32. Kensuke’s Kingdom. Michael Morpurgo
3
33. Goodnight Mister Tom. Michelle Magorian
3
35. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl
3
36. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. John Boyne
3
43. The Wind in the Willows. Kenneth Grahame
3
44. Frankenstein. Mary Shelley
3
60. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll
3
62. Dracula. Bram Stoker
3
70. Skellig. David Almond
3
77. Twilight (series) Stephenie Meyer
3
80. Sherlock Holmes (series) Arthur Conan Doyle
3
88. Anne of Green Gables. L.M. Montgomery
3
91. Private Peaceful. Michael Morpurgo
3
92. Noughts and Crosses. Malorie Blackman
3
97. The Witches. Roald Dahl
3
99. Holes. Louis Sachar
3
01. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen
4
02. To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee
4
04. Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte
4
05. Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte
4
06. Nineteen Eighty-Four. George Orwell
4
07. The Lord of the Rings (series) J.R.R. Tolkien
4
10. The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald
4
11. The Kite Runner. Khaled Hosseini
4
13. The Time Traveller’s Wife. Audrey Niffenegger
4
16. Birdsong. Sebastian Faulks
4
19. The Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger
4
20. Life of Pi. Yann Martel
4
21. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy
4
22. Rebecca. Daphne du Maurier
23. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Mark
Haddon
4
26. Catch-22. Joseph Heller
4
Prepared January 2015 by Marion Dunmore, B.A., M.S., Librarian
4
Preston Manor School Learning Resources Centre
27. Millennium (series) Stieg Larsson
4
28. Animal Farm. George Orwell
4
29. The Handmaid’s Tale. Margaret Atwood
4
30. Persuasion. Jane Austen
4
31. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4
34. The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck
4
37. Little Women. Louisa May Alcott
4
38. One Day. David Nicholls
4
39. We Need to Talk About Kevin. Lionel Shriver
4
41. Wolf Hall. Hilary Mantel
4
42. A Thousand Splendid Suns. Khaled Hosseini
4
45. Great Expectations. Charles Dickens
4
46. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Louis de Bernieres
4
48. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams
4
49. Room. Emma Donoghue
4
50. Anna Karenina. Leo Tolstoy
4
51. Atonement. Ian McEwan
4
52. Emma. Jane Austen
4
53. Middlemarch. George Eliot
4
54. The Shadow of the Wind. Carlos Ruiz Zafon
4
55. The Color Purple. Alice Walker
4
57. Brave New World. Aldous Huxley
4
58. Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen
4
59. The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath
4
64. A Prayer for Owen Meany. John Irving
4
65. The Secret History. Donna Tartt
4
66. The Little Prince. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
4
67. Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoevsky
4
68. The Poisonwood Bible. Barbara Kingsolver
4
69. Jude the Obscure. Thomas Hardy
4
71. The Woman in White. Wilkie Collins
4
72. Gone with the Wind. Margaret Mitchell
4
73. Game of Thrones (series) George R.R. Martin
4
74. David Copperfield. Charles Dickens
4
75. Never Let Me Go. Kazuo Ishiguro
4
Prepared January 2015 by Marion Dunmore, B.A., M.S., Librarian
Preston Manor School Learning Resources Centre
78. Beloved. Toni Morrison
4
79. The Help. Kathryn Stockett
4
81. Half of a Yellow Sun. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4
82. Moneyball. Michael Lewis
4
83. My Family and Other Animals. Gerald Durrell
4
84. Memoirs of a Geisha. Arthur Golden
4
85. On the Road. Jack Kerouac
4
86. Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell
4
87. Wild Swans. Jung Chang
4
89. Les Miserables. Victor Hugo
4
93. Cider with Rosie. Laurie Lee
4
95. Down and Out in Paris and London. George Orwell
4
98. The God of Small Things. Arundhati Roy
4
How to Encourage Your Reader
Provide good lighting, comfy chairs and silence. Create and maintain a reading space.
Visit libraries. Have a home library. Give books.
Reading is always something to be discussed, modelled, nurtured and cultivated within a
family.
Lists challenge some students to stretch to new horizons.
Reading above one’s “level” is generally a good thing; reading beyond one’s maturity is
something to be discussed between parent and child.
It is permissible to read more than one book at a time.
It is permissible to stop reading a book.
It is permissible to read a book again, as long as you like, and as long as it satisfies.
It is permissible to read below one’s ability, to read for fun, to relax.
Acknowledge the variety of ways you read, and extend it to new territories.
Prepared January 2015 by Marion Dunmore, B.A., M.S., Librarian