Good Reads: The William Allitt School
Chosen by pupils from The William Allitt School, Swadlincote, Derbyshire.
Thanks to Lynn Webster, School Librarian.
Artemis Fowl
Eoin Colfer, Puffin, 0 14 131212 2, £5.99 pbk
Artemis Fowl is the first in a series written by Eoin Colfer. It is about a twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis who is incredibly interested in fairies. The story starts when Artemis goes to visit a fairy with his manservant and best friend Butler. They manage to get the fairies’ holy book – one problem is that it is written in Gnomish. However, when Artemis manages to translate it, he kidnaps a fairy captain – Holly Short of the LEP recon unit. Just as the book states, these are not the fairies of bedtime stories, they are armed and dangerous and so when Artemis thinks he’s got them where he wants them, he could be very sadly mistaken with explosive results.
This book will get you reading as once you’ve started you won’t be able to put it down and then you will want to read the next!
Other books in the series are The Arctic Incident and The Eternity Code!
Jack Edwards, Year 9
The Suitcase Kid
Jacqueline Wilson, Corgi Yearling, 0 440 86311 2, £4.99 pbk
The book is about a 10-year-old girl called Andrea, Andy for short. Since her parents split up Andy has spent her life living between houses, one week at her Mum’s and one at her Dad’s. The only thing that she can rely on is her toy rabbit called Radish.
When Andy is at her Mum’s house she has to live with her stepfather ‘Bill the Baboon’ (called this because he has thick black hair and a squashed up face, Andy also imagines that there are other similarities namely things that baboons are famous for) and his three kids, Katie a 10-year-old baby, Paula who insists on playing her extremely loud music regardless of other people and Graham who tends to lock himself in his room. At her Dad’s she has to live with his pregnant new wife Carrie (an anti junk food hippie) and her 5-year-old twins Zen and Crystal.
The book explores the way Andy is torn between both parents while all Andy wants is for things to go back to how they were. Andy’s way of coping is to escape back to the house she once shared with her parents, where she is befriended by elderly neighbours who help Andy realise that she has to make the best of both families if she still wants to see both of her parents.
Katie Meadows, Year 7
The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold, Macmillan, 0 330 48538 5, £7.99 pbk
Murdered and raped by a neighbourhood recluse, Susie Salmon dies a horrific death on December 6th, 1973. Brutally descriptive, The Lovely Bones could pull on even the toughest heartstrings, yet this compelling novel grasps you to read on as Susie watches her grief-stricken friends and family cope with their heartbreaking loss. As her parents become torn apart and her elder sister Lyndsey forgets her, Susie can do nothing but observe their everyday lives from her own special heaven. Even her old school friends seem to be forgetting her and living their own individual lives away from the torment they once suffered.
But there is one man who’ll never forget her; the last man whose eyes she gazed into, as he lay on top of her – her murderer, Mr Harvey. Forced to watch him go about his life as though nothing ever happened, Susie seethes as he walks free despite her own father’s suspicions. Will she ever see justice?
It is impossible to simply enjoy this book when Sebold writes with such beauty that you become transfixed on every single page.
Laura Draycott, Year 10
