S4 (Year 10) Reading List

This reading list is designed for boys in S4 in Scotland (and Year 10 throughout the rest of the UK.)  But don't worry if you don't fit into any of these catergories you are still allowed to read these books...you rebel...

BLACKMAN, Malorie

Boys Don’t Cry

In Boys Don't Cry, bestselling author Malorie Blackman explores the unchartered territory of teenage fatherhood.  You're waiting for the postman - he's bringing your A level results. University, a career as a journalist - a glittering future lies ahead. But when the doorbell rings it's your old girlfriend; and she's carrying a baby. Your baby.  You're happy to look after it, just for an hour or two. But then she doesn't come back - and your future suddenly looks very different.


DASHNER, James

The Maze Runner
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.

NESS, Patrick

The Kife of Never Letting Go

While this novel is again set in another version of our dystopian future this new author for young adults presents an unusual and original twist. Germ warfare, it is believed, has killed all the women and subsequently there will be no more children. The hero Todd is the only boy left in his community and his story is told through his unique voice (using obvious spelling mistakes/text language as a device). Not only have all the women died but the men have acquired the ability to read thoughts (both human and animal) and it is this lack of privacy and constant noise that compounds the nightmare future. It is only when Todd experiences a moment of silence and briefly sees a young woman that he decides to escape the world of dying men, taking with him his faithful dog Manchee. This is a hugely exciting, violent and very clever satire of modern life based on an imagined future; it is also an excellent teenage thriller.

PEET, Mal
Life: An Exploded Diagram
Clem Ackroyd lives with his parents and grandmother in a claustrophobic home too small to accommodate their larger-than-life characters in the bleak Norlfolk countryside. Clem's life changes irrevocably when he meets Frankie, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and experiences first love, in all its pain and glory. The story is told in flashback by Clem when he is living and working in New York City as a designer, and moves from the past of his parents and grandmother to his own teenage years. Not only the threat of explosions, but actual ones as well, feature throughout in this latest novel from one of the finest writers working today.

PITCHER, Annabel

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece
Ten-year-old Jamie Matthews has just moved to the Lake District with his Dad and his teenage sister, Jasmine for a 'Fresh New Start'. Five years ago his sister's twin, Rose, was blown up by a terrorist bomb. His parents are wrecked by their grief, Jasmine turns to piercing, pink hair and stops eating. The family falls apart. But Jamie hasn't cried in all that time. To him Rose is just a distant memory. Jamie is far more interested in his cat, Roger, his birthday Spiderman T-shirt, and in keeping his new friend Sunya a secret from his dad. And in his deep longing and unshakeable belief that his Mum will come back to the family she walked out on months ago. When he sees a TV advert for a talent show, he feels certain that this will change everything and bring them all back together once and for all.

SEDGWICK, Marcus

Blood Red, Snow White
This is a wonderful mixture of fairy story, thriller, historical novel and spy story.  It explores a lesser known aspect of Arthur Ransome’s life as he travelled in Russia in 1913 in search of stories for his famous collection of Russian Fairy Tales. With the lightest of touch Sedgwick covers the events leading to the Russian Revolution and the later Russian Civil War. The design of the book is a pleasure in itself with maps of Russia of the period and good-quality knife cut cream paper. This is a marvellous read and the portrait of the enigmatic Ransome is fascinating. A very readable and thought-provoking book that will stay in the reader’s mind for a long time.
ARMITAGE, Simon
Little Green Man

A funny, touching, sometimes alarming account of male friendship and the rivalries that drive men apart.  It explores the darker side of men and their relationships and is sensitive not sentimental with real humour, horror, tension and tenderness.

BROOKS, Kevin
iBoy

Before the attack, sixteen-year-old Tom Harvey was just an ordinary boy.  But now fragments of a shattered iPhone are embedded in his brain and it's having an extraordinary effect . . .

BROOKMYRE, Christopher
Quite Ugly One Morning

A wickedly entertaining and vivacious thriller, full of acerbic wit, cracking dialogue and villains both reputed and shell-suited. It’s very violent and very funny.

BROWN, Dan
The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol has incorporated all the elements that so transfixed readers in The Da Vinci Code: a complex, mystifying plot (with the reader set quite as many challenges as the protagonist); breathless, helter-skelter pace (And, of course, the winning central character, resourceful symbologist Robert Langdon, is back, risking his life to crack a dangerous mystery involving the Freemasons.

HARRIS, Robert
Fatherland

Set in an alternative world where Hitler has won the Second World War, Robert Harris has recreated the whole structure of a totally corrupt society in a way that makes the flesh creep.

HORNBY, Nick
Fever Pitch

Fever Pitch is both an autobiography and a footballing bible rolled into one.  It reveals the very special intricacies of British football, which readers new to the game will find astonishing, and which Hornby presents with remarkable humour and honesty.

RANKIN, Iain
Tooth and Nail

When Rebus is offered a serial killer profile of the Wolfman by an attractive female psychologist, it's too good an opportunity to miss. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack…
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