Cambridge High School Library 2024

I am off to India and I will be visiting the craziest bookshop ever in a place called Mousserie or Queen of the Hills. If you want a book at the bottom of the pile- well you have to unstack the pile until your chosen book can be plucked out to safety. The books in India are so much cheaper than here in New Zealand and the publishers get books earlier there- so I will come home with a selection of new titles- can't wait. In the mean time- have a great holiday break, enjoy the winter reading weeks and if you find any good books I need to know about send a message on our library Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cambridge-High-School-Library/565905160095501  or leave a comment below. The blog will be back again on July 20th and over the holidays I am expecting a stack of new titles to arrive! Until then- Alavidā and Acchī taraha paṛhēṁ. Goodbye and read well!

By: Rob Stevens Location: FIC STE Genre: Funny, Family and Real "I've spent too long watching life from the sidelines. Now it's time to get in the game." Stanley 'Carrot' Harris is ginger, tubby and definitely not cool. And he has a secret: he's adopted, and this makes him feel like he's never quite fitted in. On his thirteenth birthday, he receives the one thing he's been waiting his whole life for: a card from his long-lost birth mother, asking to meet up. But Stanley isn't sure: what if he's a big disappointment to her? So he hatches a plan - and he's going to need a stand-in Stanley, someone who is handsome, sporty and God's Gift to Mothers. What Stanley doesn't realise is he's about to have the most confusing time of his life . . . just who is the real Stanley Carrot? "Would the Real Stanley Please Carrot Stand Up? was a heartfelt novel that featured doubts and fears of one that has been adopted and the i...

By: Sharon M Draper Location: FIC DRA Genre: Overcoming Obstacles “We all have disabilities. What’s yours?”  Imagine being able to listen, think, watch but never vocally respond. Imagine having amazing ideas and contributions to a conversation- but never be able to share them. Imagine  being able to solve people conundrums and watch as they never solve them themselves. Imagine all this and then imagine what it would be like for those people to think you can't... do.... anything....think...anything....process .....anything.     They think you cant think! But you can- you are a genius- you just cant speak!                                                                                                   ...

By: Eve Ainsworth Location: FIC AIN Genre: Youth Fiction- Bullying I was bullied at school- no fun. I was the geeky new kid at the new school who would not go down to the back field and smoke. That was a recipe for months of torment and mocking that led to a decent black eye and the perpetrator being expelled from school. Being bullied is consuming, it is utterly destructive, it is dehumanizing and it leaves you just not wanting to be! I got over it- made some good mates, finished my Yr 13 and have a life. The bully- did not finish school and ended up a teenage mum with a not much support and mates that lead her down a futile path- at the end of the day she has suffered far more than I did. This bold, compelling and topical story about bullying is told from the perspective of the bully and the bullied. You won't be able put it down until you've reached the conclusion. Jess's life is difficult enough without Kez picking on her – it’s turning school from a safe plac...

By: Val Pierce Location: NF 746.43 PIE Genre: Cute and Cuddly 20 cute crocheted Bears- one for every person you know! This is a weird word- crochet!   I would make the guitar one for my son who plays guitar.  The Book Bear for Sarah my daughter who is an English teacher and devours books and Mr Groom Bear for my other son who is getting married. If only there was a Hockey bear and I could make three of them- one each! And if there was a bear on a Unicycle then I would make him for my hubby. Only problem is I cant crochet!

By: Ally Carter Location: FIX CAR Genre: Contemporary-YA, Spy Thriller and Romance! Series: Embassy Row DANGER. GLAMOUR.  FUN.  EVERYTHING A GIRL NEEDS! Believe it or not this book has   inter-political plots between countries with some espionage thrown in. It is not as light and fluffy as you might think. It is set in the Middle East in a country that borders  Iran in the midst of  an area filled with  Embassies. “We must respect our host country and we must respect our neighbours.”… “Sometimes the walls that stand between us and our neighbours are all that stand between our country and war.”  There is a love interest- he is Russian and a murder to solve! This book squeezes a lot of stuff in it and does it well! Grace can best be described as a daredevil, an Army brat, and a rebel. She is also the only granddaughter of perhaps the most powerful ambassador in the world and Grace has spent every summer of her childhood running acros...

By: Neal Shusterman Location: FIC SHU Genre: Dystopia, Apocalyptic  Series: 4 titles in the series  -  #1 Unwind. #2 Unwholly. #3Unsouled and #4 Undivided MOVIE COMING IN 2016 READ THE SERIES FIRST!!! MISS KEMP SAYS YOU HAVE TO!!! Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice. When does life start? It even makes you think about your views on life. So many of us are pro-life, but only think about it in terms of abortion. This book reinforces (what should be a widely held belief) that all lives are valuable. This includes the unborn child and the prisoner on death row.  Three thrilling books in Neal Shusterman’s  New York Times  bestselling Unwind trilogy, together in our library.  After the Second Civil War, the Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. However, a loophole allows parents to retroactively get rid of a teenager through a process called “unwinding.” ...

By: Elissa Sussman Location: FIC SUS Genre: Fairy story x Disney x Fantasy I am grateful for my father, who keeps me good and sweet. I am grateful for my mother, who keeps her own heart guarded and safe. I am grateful for my adviser, who keeps me protected! I am grateful for the Path, which keeps me pure.  "Ever After" A beautifully tender, magical debut, Stray completely stole my heart--I loved it! Highly recommended for fans of high fantasy, fairy tales, and stories with strong heroines! Wonderful!   Kels STRAY is the first in a collection of intertwined stories, all set in a world where magic is a curse that only women bear and society is dictated by a strict doctrine called The Path. A cross between The Handmaid’s Tale and Wicked, with a dash of Grimm and Disney thrown in. STRAY is a fascinating fairy tale about a world where only the women had magic but they aren't allowed to use it. They are punished for any magic they do. They are supervised by fairy godm...

By: Keren David Location: FIC DAV Genre: Well it is not a love story but it is. LGBTG I like Amsterdam far more than London. I can see why moving from  London to Amsterdam is a good move and would jump at the chance if it was me. But shifting when you are 16 is tough- I know I have done it, I was a bit younger,and it is no fun, you have to inflict a persona on yourself that is not who you really are in the hope that the class of faces gazing at the "new kid" will find you acceptable. Bad days!  Kitty shifts too and she also goes on a journey of self discovery in her new world. Will this be her opportunity to make her life picture perfect?  In Amsterdam she meets moody, unpredictable Ethan, and clever, troubled Theo. Two enigmatic boys, who each harbour their own secrets. In a beautiful city and far from home, Kitty finds herself falling in love for the first time.  With love triangles, the exploration of  diverse sexuality, set within a Jewish culture i...

By: John Ironmonger Location: FIC IRO Genre: Fiction with a dab of a post apocalyptic story and set in a very English Cornwell! This is a kind of book I will chuck at Miss Featonby, Ms Bigge, Mr Mannins or Miss Bichan!! They say this book may restore your faith in human nature! Intimate, funny and deeply moving, NOT FORGETTING THE WHALE is the story of a man on a journey to find a place he can call home. When a young man washes up, naked, on the sands of St Piran, he is quickly rescued by the villagers. From the retired village doctor and the schoolteacher, to the beachcomber and the owner of the local bar, the priest's wife and the romantic novelist, they take this lost soul into their midst. But what the villagers don't know is that Joe Haak worked as an analyst and has fled the City amid fears of a worldwide banking collapse caused by a computer program he invented. But is the end of the world really nigh? And what of the whale that lurks in the bay?  "This is...

By: DK Location: NF- 629.22TRA Genre: Tractors!  I grew up on a farm. we were Massey Ferguson people. Fords were cheap, John Deeres were nasty!. And Masseys were named after a real prime Minister so they had to be better. That is what I thought as a kid! We had a Massey TEA- the best little tractor ever made, you started it by using the gear lever, my brothers would jump on the tow bar so when I was driving the front wheels would lift off the ground- they were so mean. That tractor went for eternity. Ask all those fisherman that use them for boats all over NZ. ICONIC. Sir Ed used one even in Antartica! We had a Massey 35 - a bit bigger and newer and then Dad bought a 165-it had a cab!! I loved driving our tractors and did so from 4 years of age, while Dad feed out the hay! This book has tractors and gives a nod to less superior ones like Fords and John Deere as well. It looks at 450 types of tractors from all around the world and all stages of development. It is a very co...

By: Gary Gibson Location: FIC GIB Genre: Sci Fi Do you avoid reading SCI FI- then this book is a great place to dip your toe in and give this genre a go! "A riveting, action-packed, post-apocalyptic survival story from a master of SF" When your life is based on lies, how do you hunt down the truth?  Jerry Beche should be dead. Instead, he's rescued from a desolate Earth where he was the last man alive. He's then trained for the toughest conditions imaginable and placed with a crack team of specialists on an isolated island. Every one of them is a survivor, as each withstood the violent ending of their own alternate Earth. And their new specialism? To retrieve weapons and data in missions to other apocalyptic versions of our world. But what is "the Authority," the shadowy organization that rescued Beche and his fellow survivors? How does it access timelines to find other Earths? And why does it need these instruments of death? As Jerry struggles to ...

By: Neil Shusterman Location: FIC SCH Genre: Fantasy, Life after Death, Paranormal Series: #1 Everlost. #2 Everwild. # Everfound This series gets better and better and the ratings just go up and up until the third book gets 4.3 on Goodreads.com with over 6000 reviews- believe  me that is very good. I believe in the afterlife- heaven actually- but this series is about the afterlife in another spot and in another way! Neal Shusterman explores questions of life, death, and what just might lie in between. Nick and Allie don't survive the car accident.. Everlost is the in-between world of being alive and being in heaven. For some reason, kids are the only ones that get lost on their way to the light. When they awake nine months later, they find a coin in their pockets and a blurry world where the living continues around them. The only places where the children are safe are the places where a death has occurred. Standing too long in any other place causes the kids to slowly s...

By: Huntley Fitzpatrick Location: FIC FIT Genre: ya-contemporary ,  ya ,  siblings ,  romance ,  mental-illness ,  high-school ,  contemporary This novel: is layered,  beautifully written,  has an incredible setting,  contains rich prose,  has emotionally charged characters,  explores deep relationships,  shows family complexities,  shows the differences between working class/upper class, explores sexuality and the power and influence it has on one's life,  explores "just sex" (hookups) versus sex with someone you love, shows embarrassment/shame/humiliation and the pain "hookups" can cause, shows how sex can be used as a weapon to hurt someone you care about, shows the complexity of love,  explores the power of lies and secrets & how they deeply effect people, shows how communication is critical in relationships, includes a special needs child & some of the dynamics that go with taking care of an...

By: Chelsea Cain Location: FIC CAI Genre: Dark Action Series:- Kick Lannigan #1 This is a very gritty book, the tension palpable, quick moving with plenty of action. But a warning, the subject is raw (it explores the issues and impact of child pornography), the violence explicit and graphic. Yet, the characters are so darn addicting. The beginning of a new series by this author and one I am looking forward to reading. Kick Lannigan, 21, is a survivor. Abducted at age six in broad daylight, the police, the public, perhaps even her family assumed the worst had occurred. And then Kathleen Lannigan was found, alive, six years later. In the early months following her freedom, as Kick struggled with PTSD, her parents put her through a litany of therapies, but nothing helped until the detective who rescued her suggested Kick learn to fight. Before she was thirteen, Kick learned marksmanship, martial arts, boxing, archery, and knife throwing. She excelled at every one, vowing she would ...

By: Daniel Herborn Location: FIC HER Genre:    Boy meets Girl with Music I play the ukelele- kind off! At the end of the day I sit on the sofa and have a strum, it soothes my soul and helps me chill before |I find my electric blanket heated bed! Music is something that just lets me be in a different place and a different world. Set in the cafes pubs and dives of Sydney's Inner West YOU'RE THE KIND OF GIRL I WRITE SONGS ABOUT is a ballad to that time of your life when you are trying to work out who you are, what it is you want and what will it take to get you there. "You’re a recalcitrant, Tim. Always will be.’ ‘I don’t know what that means,’ I say. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ ‘I thought this was a geography class, not a pretentious words class.' "Told in short, snappy back-&-forth chapters, alternating Mandy then Tim, it's a homage to old rock, punk rock, new style rock and the people who embrace it. Mandy is having a gap year, which tur...

By: David Vann Location: FIC VAN Genre:  Coming of age- contemporary - literature "This book reminds me of why I love literature. It's just  brilliant. Vann is a storyteller extraordinaire". . Debbie In crystalline and graceful prose, Aquarium takes us into the heart of a brave young girl whose longing for love and capacity for forgiveness transform the damaged people around her. Relentless and heartbreaking, primal and redemptive, Aquarium is a transporting story from one of the best writers working today.  A twelve-year old girl tells her story of discovery and hope in the context of a disturbing family drama in contemporary Seattle. Her single mom, Sheri, works hard at a container shipping facility, and each day Caitlin spends her afternoons grooving on the wonders at the aquarium. Her life may suffer from the grimness of poverty and the constraints of a tiny apartment in an industrial neighborhood, but she thrives through her imagination. The many strange cr...

By: Chris Bradford Location: FIC BRA Genre:     Adventure/ Action packed and AFRICA Series: BodyGuard # 3 What a day for the BLOG- Two much awaited books that our students have been drooling over! well let the issuing scrap begin! HUNTER. KILLER. SURVIVOR The world is a dangerous place.  Connor Reeves is the BODYGUARD. From the writer of the hugely popular  Young Samurai Series comes  the third in the Bodyguard series- AMBUSH! This one is set in Africa-  on safari. Oh I have done one of those- our truck broke down in a ditch, it got axled in a hole. We had to pile off and wait on the savannah plains and less 1 km away was a pride of hungry lions! I tell you getting back on the truck was a very good thing to do!! Connor  and his friends has a lot more than one hour to survive in the craziness of the African plains! Did I ever tell you about the scorpion I nearly sat on... In Africa only the strong survive! Teenage martial arts expert Con...

By: Sarah Dessen Location: FIC DES Genre: YA Contemporary- LIFE!! If you love Pizza and French Fries this book is for you- it is often set in a pizzeria and it describes those delicious yummies to the point where you will be  speed dialing 0800 838383   s. “There is a weird thing that happens when something goes from a one-time thing to a habit. Like the problem is no longer a temporary houseguest but has actually moved in.” I reckon none of my siblings read this blog so I am safe to be a bit vulnerable. I am the youngest of 4 - with two high achieving brothers and a sister who has always been close to our parents I reckon due to a childhood illness- I came last and often it felt it. I am sure they would yell and scream and say I was the spoilt youngest- but I felt I  was truly the tag along, left out one stuck at the far end. None of your achievements count- they have all been done before you, it is difficult to cut your g...

T HE DARK;   JUMANJI;   SHHHHH WE HAVE A PLAN ;   FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR MORRIS LESSMORE;  THE PERFECT PERCIVAL PRIGGS ;  S TUBBY- THE DOG SOLDIER WORLD WAR 1 HERO; FREE FALL Location: Picture Books Genre: Picture Books    JUST LOVING GETTING NEW PICTURE BOOKS FOR OUR LIBRARY

By: Pam Munoz Ryan Location: FIC RYA Genre: Fantasy- Fairytale- Historical F iction- Holocaust Our fate is not yet sealed. Even in the darkest night, a star will shine, A bell will chime, a path will be revealed. Lost and alone in a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.   Decades later, Friedrich in Germany, Mike in Pennsylvania, and Ivy in California each, in turn, become interwoven when the very same harmonica lands in their lives. All the children face daunting challenges: rescuing a father, protecting a brother, holding a family together. And ultimately, pulled by the invisible thread of destiny, their suspenseful solo stories converge in an orchestral crescendo.  Friedrich in Germany lives with a visible birthmark that causes others to prematurely judge him as "genetically damaged." His world is dominated by Hitler's rise to power and the ...

By: Sabaa Tahir Location: FIC TAH Genre: Epic Fantasy   “This life is not always what we think it will be,” Cain says. “You are an ember in the ashes, Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.”   When I research different books and read the reviews, I  immediately connect them with some of you readers. This one is a book our Deputy Head Boy will devour and James who was at school last year would be fighting him for it. One suspects though that our Head Librarian -Philipp will steal it for the weekend so long as Mr Manins doesn't come over and second-it for himself first. Why? Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, An Ember in the Ashes is an epic fantasy debut about an orphan fighting for her family and a soldier fighting for his freedom. It's a story that's literally burning to be told. LAIA is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Mar...

By: Neal Shusterman Location: FIC SCH Genre: Young Adult Mental Health  "Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug."  I have watched a teenager that I know and love battle with the forces of mental illness. I have watched her succumb to her inner demons and then rise to try and fight them again. I have restrained her, held her, watched over her as she decides if her life is worth living, I have sat in a padded room with her and stroked her wrists as they lie carved up, tied to a bed. Youth mental illness is no joke and neither is this book! Laurie Halse Anderson, award-winning author of Speak, calls Challenger Deep "a brilliant journey across the dark sea of the mind; frightening, sensitive, and powerful. Simply extraordinary."   Challenger Deep does for Mental Illness what Fault in our Stars does for Cancer. They shed an almost positive and hopeful light on their respective subjects. They cha...