Cambridge High School Library 2024

By: Jon Klassen Location: PIC KLA Genre: HATS!!!! Two turtles find one hat – and it happens to look great on both of them. I love these books and so do all the students in our library, and staff, and the staff kids.  They are never 'in" someone has them out on loan- probably one of our 17 year olds. They are classic! It is the sublimely subtle story, the  "oh No....but wait". And the eyes, those eyes that tell the story.... Give us more Jon Klassen!!!

By: Hayley Long Location: FIC LON Genre: Young Adult- Contempary- different A remarkable tale of confusion and betrayal - and a very special girl called Sophie. 'Some stories are hard to tell. Even to your very best friend. And some words are hard to get out of your mouth. Because they spell out secrets that are too huge to be spoken out loud. But if you bottle them up, you might burst. So here's my story. Told the only way I dare te ll it.' Sophie Nieuwenleven is sort of English and sort of Belgian. Sophie and her family came to live in Belgium when she was only four or five years old, but she's fourteen now and has never been quite sure why they left England in the first place. Then, one day, Sophie makes a startling discovery. Finally Sophie can unlock the mystery of who she really is. This is a story about identity and confusion - and feeling so utterly freaked out that you just can't put it into words. But it's also about hope. And the belief that,

BY: Sophie Hardcastle Location: FIC HAR Genre: Young Adult- Romance My dad is a twin- his relationship with his brother- born 8 minutes later is tight. They are nearly 80... what a blessing to have a best friend who knows you so well as your brother for 80 years. But sometimes it does not work out.... I wonder how my dad would of coped if his twin had not done lifes journey with him.... They say if you like John Green  and Rowell Rainbow you will love this.... . Nineteen minutes and eleven seconds separated us at birth. On the official documentation, he is older . . . Although it really has nothing to do with age. What it really means is that I am, and have always been, second. Ben and Grace Walker are twins. Growing up in a sleepy coastal town it was inevitable they'd surf. Always close, they hung out more than most brothers and sisters, surfing together for hours as the sun melted into the sea. At seventeen, Ben is a rising surf star, the golden son and the boy all t

By: Emma Green Location: FIC GEE Genre: Science Fiction When we first meet Kit, she's a fox I wonder what I would chose to morph myself into- an owl maybe? Something with a birds eye view anyway. But an Elephant would be pretty good- intelligent, never forgets, family orientated and not too many natural enemies!  This story is about a person  inhabiting  different animals like  seals, snakes, spiders, tigers and polar bears to name a few. I particularly liked Katherine's time as a fox living in an urban environment.  Set at a time slightly in the future where climate change is threatening endangered populations of animals, humans have developed the ability to transfer their consciousness into 3D synthetic living breathing animals. This allows them to live as that animal for short periods and mix with wild populations to study their habitat and ability to find food. Teenagers are generally recruited for this research as their brains are most plastic and able to cope bet

By: James Swallow Location: FIC SWA Genre:  Techo Terroist Thriller FIND THE TRUTH BEFORE THEY FIND YOU A pulse-racing terrorist thriller - perfect for fans of I Am Pilgrim, Bourne, 24 and Homeland Someone has betrayed your country and murdered your friends. You're the only suspect. And the only one who can stop them striking again .  Marc Dane is a MI6 field agent at home behind a computer screen, one step away from the action. But when a brutal attack on his team leaves Marc as the only survivor - and with the shocking knowledge that there are traitors inside MI6 - he's forced into the front line. However the evidence seems to point towards Marc as the perpetrator of the attack. Accused of betraying his country, he must race against time to clear his name. With nowhere to turn to for help and no one left to trust, Marc is forced to rely on the elusive Rubicon group and their operative Lucy Keyes. Ex US Army, Lucy also knows what it's like to be an outsider, an

By: Sarah Ahiers Location: FIC AHI Genre: Fantasy Series:  Assassin's Heart #1 "WITH EVERYTHING LOST, REVENGE IS ALL THAT MATTERS !" With shades of The Godfather and Romeo and Juliet, this richly imagined fantasy from debut author Sarah Ahiers is a story of love, lies, and the ultimate vengeance. In the kingdom of Lovero, nine rival Families of assassins lawfully kill people for a price. As a highly skilled member of one of these powerful clans, seventeen-year-old Lea Saldana has always trusted in the strength of her Family. Until she awakens to find them murdered and her home in flames. The Da Vias, the Saldanas’ biggest enemy, must be responsible—and Lea should have seen it coming. But her secret relationship with the Da Vias’ son, Val, has clouded her otherwise killer instinct—and given the Da Vias more reason than ever to take her Family down. Racked with guilt and shattered over Val’s probable betrayal, Lea sets out to even the score, with her heart set on

By: Ashley Hope Perez location: FIC PER Genre: Contemporary realistic fiction -  After a gang brawl, Azael wakes up in a locked cell. Juvie, he thinks. He can't remember what happened. And this lockup is strange. They just make him watch some white girl in another cell. Somehow, he's connected to her... "There are a lot of heart-wrenching books out there. But there's something special about THE KNIFE AND THE BUTTERFLY. The latest by Ashley Hope Perez, this novel is artfully written, with a voice that reads so authentic the story feels horrifically real. Horrifically because the narrator is a young boy in jail, awaiting sentencing, and knowing something terrible has gone down. Something that cost a life. Azael isn't a bad kid. At least, he doesn't think he is. At 16 he's found himself kinda homeless, abandoned by family other than his brother, and running with a gang. The gang is his family, his brother has recently been brought into the fold, he'

By: Corrine Jackson Location: FIC JAC Genre: Young Adult... oh what to do... “Relationships and their dynamics play themselves out naturally and with satisfying complexity” ( Kirkus Reviews)  in this dramatic and powerful novel that   explores the gray space between truth and perception. This book is interesting, the weird thing is I kind of know how this huge misunderstanding and conflict happened- I have seen something similar. It makes sense- but what doesn't make sense is the way Quinn is treated when perhaps after all- she is more honorable than anyone in the story... and that is all I can say! Cheater. Traitor. Slut. Quinn’s done the unthinkable: she kissed a guy who is not Carey, her boyfriend. And she got caught. Shunned by everyone she knows, Quinn loses her friends, her reputation, and her identity. Because Carey’s not just any guy—he’s a Marine who’s serving overseas, and beloved by everyone in their small, military town. But Quinn didn’t cheat. She could cl

By: Stephen King Location: FIC KIN Genre: Horror “When I was a kid I believed everything I was told, everything I read, and every dispatch sent out by my own overheated imagination. This made for more than a few sleepless nights, but it also filled the world I lived in with colors and textures I would not have traded for a lifetime of restful nights.”  ―  Stephen King ,  Nightmares And Dreamscapes A review by CMT  325 from Goodreads.com because there is no way i am going to even open the cover of this book- I like to sleep "The thing I love about this book is that in most of the short stories, there is no reason for the events to occur- they just DO. And what a frightening concept that is. There is no reason that a man looks down his sink to see a finger sticking out, a finger that continues to grow in size and soon attacks him. There is no reason for dead rock and roll legends to congregate in a town in the middle of nowhere, trap living victims, and force them to listen

By: Tiffany Schmidt Location: FIC SCH Genre; Young Adult This one is entered in my cover of the year competition! Cover Art!!!! In Penelope Landlow's world, almost anything can be bought or sold. She's the daughter of one of the three crime families controlling the black market for organ transplants. Because of an autoimmune disorder that causes her to bruise easily, Penny is considered too "delicate" to handle the family business, or even to step foot outside their estate. All Penelope has ever wanted is independence-until she's suddenly thrust into the dangerous world all alone, forced to stay one step ahead of her family's enemies. As she struggles to survive the power plays of rival crime families, she learns dreams come with casualties, betrayal hurts worse than bruises, and there's nothing she won't risk for the people she loves. "I tore through this retelling of The Princess and The Pea (with organ trafficking) at breakneck spe

By: Jen Malone Location: FIC MAL Genre: Young Adult- Road Tripping in Europe- with a few older folk! “It’s a free-choice afternoon and I choose you.”  ―  Jen Malone ,  Wanderlost I reckon it would be a great job- meandering around Europe as a tour guide for the older folks. Imagine the coffees you would get shouted and the yarns they would spin of war days and young love in their travels. Probably they would know a thing or two as well about the stories and history of all that is Europe. I could do that job- be better than a bus driver for Kon Tiki thats for sure! This is a Europe Road trip book- it tells the stories of the places, the people, those  lovable characters- the senior citizens on the tour and a cute love story chucked in- of course. "Wanderlost is the type of book that falls into the category of  cute, fluffy, adorable and enjoyable  and I really enjoy reading books that fall into these categories. This is the type of YA Contemporary read that make

By; Michael Buckley Location: FIC BUC Genre: Young Adult Urban Fantasy Action, suspense, and romance whirlpool dangerously in this cinematic saga! A bit of Pirates of the Caribbean cross District 9 First, we feared them. Then we fought them. Now they might be our only hope. Sixteen-year-old Lyric Walker’s life is forever changed when she witnesses the arrival of 30,000 Alpha, a five-nation race of ocean-dwelling warriors, on her beach in Coney Island. The world’s initial wonder and awe over the Alpha quickly turns ugly and paranoid and violent, and Lyric’s small town transforms into a military zone with humans on one side and Alpha on the other. When Lyric is recruited to help the crown prince, a boy named Fathom, assimilate, she begins to fall for him. But their love is a dangerous one, and there are forces on both sides working to keep them apart. Only, what if the Alpha are not actually the enemy? What if they are in fact humanity’s best chance for survival? Because the re

By: A.S.King Location: FIC KIN Genre: Young Adult with a touch of magical realism 'FEARLESSLY INVENTIVE" - The New York Times Book Review “Somewhere in every mind is an opening to crawl through.”   — Four teenagers are on the verge of exploding. The anxieties they face at every turn have nearly pushed them to the point of surrender: senseless high-stakes testing, the lingering damage of past trauma, the buried grief and guilt of tragic loss. They are desperate to cope, but no one is listening. So they will lie. They will split in two. They will turn inside out. They will even build an invisible helicopter to fly themselves far away...but nothing releases the pressure. Because, as they discover, the only way to truly escape their world is to fly right into it. "I cannot decide if this was the most bizarre or most brilliant book I have ever read. I think it was about some terribly traumatic things that can happen while you're a teen. I think it was about t

By: Rose Tremain Location: FIC TRE Genre; Historical Fiction What is the difference between friendship and love? Or between neutrality and commitment? Fierce, astringent, profoundly tender, Rose Tremain’s beautifully orchestrated novel asks the question, what does it do to a person, or to a country, to pursue an eternal quest for neutrality, and self-mastery, while all life's hopes and passions continually press upon the borders and beat upon the gate. "The Gustav Sonata  is a novel about lives lived in the past, present, and future. The book follows the structure of a classical music sonata:  The basic elements of sonata form are three:  exposition, development, and recapitulation, in which the musical  subject matter is stated, explored or expanded, and restated. In Part One, we meet Gustav in 1947. He is a quiet kindergarten boy living in Matzlingen, a small municipality, in Switzerland. Next comes Anton, a new classmate from Bern. Anton has trouble coping w

By: Helen Thurloe Location: FIC THU Genre: World culture- Youth Fiction Honour Killings are in the news at the moment. I read about a young woman who was murdered by her family as she married a young man not appropriate to them. He was a Christian but converted to Islam so he could marry the girl he loved- they still shot her dead. About 5,000 women are  murdered  by their families each year, according to the United Nations. The majority of them are South Asian women who defy their family’s wishes around marriage. 'I would do it again 100 times': Muslim father 'murdered his THREE daughters in honour killing for dating wrong boy s' It is a hideous thing and this book tackles the issue of arranged marriages that young woman are forced to enter and therefore the choices they are forced to abandon... Azra is sixteen, smart and knows how to get what she wants. She thinks. When she wins a place in a national science competition, she thinks her biggest problem

By: Traun Shanker and Kelly Zekas Location: FIC SHA Genre: Historical Fantasy Series: These Vicious Masks#1 Cover art!!! "Jane Austen meets the X-Men" “No, the true face is wretchedly simple and empty. The absolute joy in life, in friendship, in love, is learning about a person, deciphering them, taking each and every mask off to find a new one, waiting to be explored and understood. ”   "This was JUST what I was in the mood for when I read it. (And honestly, still is what I'm in the mood for.) Special abilities. Banter. Snark. A heroine who just. Will. Not. Give. Up. Two handsome fellas, both vying for her attention. Fancy balls. Chase scenes. Missing sisters. Reputations damaged beyond repair."- Jen England, 1882. Evelyn is bored with society and its expectations. So when her beloved sister, Rose, mysteriously vanishes, she ignores her parents and travels to London to find her, accompanied by the dashing Mr. Kent. But they’re not the only one

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky Location: FIC TCH Genre: SCI FI " REAL SMART SCIENCE FICTION' -Peter F Hamilton This is the future. This is where mankind takes its next step. This is where we become gods.  The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth “That is the problem with ignorance. You can never tr

By: Frederic S Durbin Location: FIC DYR Genre: Fantasy and WWII- but different. "A gorgeous fantasy in the spirit of Pan’s Labyrinth and John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things." I read about this book and hunted it down- this library needs it! Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, A Green and Ancient Light is the stunning story of a boy who is sent to stay with his grandmother for the summer in a serene fishing village. Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother’s friend Mr. Girandole—a man who knows the true story of Cinderella’­s slipper—and the discovery of a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind grandmother’s house. In a sumptuous idyllic setting and overshadowed by the threat of war, four unlikely allies learn the values of courage and sacrifice "A sweet, beautifully-written, wistful book with the heart and charm of a classic that's emotionally an

By: Clare Furniss Location: FIC FUR Genre: Youth Fiction Our memories are what make us who we are. Some are real. Some are made up. But they are the stories that tell us who we are. Without them we are nobody.   What is my first memory- we just had a discussion in the library office- for one of us it was riding a trike, another was visiting their new baby brother- for me it was a fight with a cousin over a biscuit.... and warm milk in a bottle at playcentre- yuck! I wonder if what we remember is true to the event- or if we somehow morph it into something different. My daughter did some stuff on this at uni and what she recalled as a 5 year old was pretty bang on to my recollections- and those things shape us and mould us and give us our stories! Like this book Hattie's summer isn't going as planned. Her two best friends have abandoned her: Reuben has run off to Europe to 'find himself" and Kat is in Edinburgh with her new girlfriend. Meanwhile Hattie is stuc