school

Tom Gates; Yes! No. (maybe…) by L Pichon

“Sometimes making up my mind isn’t easy to do. Especially when my grumpy sister Delia is looming over me. Mum’s on a mission to tidy up the whole house. She says if I can’t decide what to get rid of – she’ll do it for me. Which would be a disaster! Luckily for me the fossils come to my rescue (more than once).”–Back cover.

Emily Sparkes and the Friendship Fiasco by Ruth Fitzgerald

Emily Sparkes thinks having your best friend move to Wales at the same time as your parents decide to have a new baby is probably more trauma than anyone should have to cope with. But things go from bad to worse when she’s paired with revolting Gross-Out Gavin for the school trip. Emily is determined to escape him, and when glamorous new girl Chloe Clarke turns up it seems her prayers might be answered. Unfortunately, everyone has gone Chloe Clarke mad and Emily finds her ‘sworn enemy’ Zuzanna has had the same idea. Getting and keeping Chloe as a friend proves a lot more troublesome than Emily anticipated and leads her into a whole new set of disasters.

The Nowhere Emporium By Ross MacKenzie

When the mysterious Nowhere Emporium arrives in Glasgow, orphan Daniel Holmes stumbles upon it quite by accident. Before long, the ‘shop from nowhere’ – and its owner, Mr Silver – draw Daniel into a breathtaking world of magic and enchantment. Recruited as Mr Silver’s apprentice, Daniel learns the secrets of the Emporium’s vast labyrinth of passageways and rooms – rooms that contain wonders beyond anything Daniel has ever imagined. But when Mr Silver disappears, and a shadow from the past threatens everything, the Emporium and all its wonders begin to crumble. Can Daniel save his home, and his new friends, before the Nowhere Emporium is destroyed forever? Scottish Children’s Book Award winner Ross MacKenzie unleashes a riot of imagination, colour and fantasy in this astonishing adventure, perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Corneila Funke and Neil Gaiman

The Adventures of Shola by Bernado Atxaga

While Shola may look like an ordinary little white dog, she and her long suffering owner know that she is in fact a highly cultivated creature. Shola is always ready to find her inner lioness or lead a wild boar hunt but still likes her home-made cheese and home-cooked chips.

The Dream Snatcher by Abi Elphinstone

Twelve-year-old Molly Pecksniff wakes one night in the middle of the forest, lured there by a recurring nightmare – the one with the drums and the rattles and the masks. The Dreamsnatcher is waiting. He has already taken her dreams and now he wants her life. Because Moll is more important than she knows…The Oracle Bones foretold that she and Gryff, a wildcat that has always been by her side, are the only ones who can fight back against the Dreamsnatcher’s dark magic. Suddenly everything is at stake, and Moll is drawn into a world full of secrets, magic and adventure.