RECOMMENDED READING – YEAR 10

PLEASE USE THE FOLLOWING FORMAT IF YOUR BOOK SUITS THIS YEAR LEVEL
NAME (Surname, First), TITLE, PUBLISHER, KEY THEMES, ONE SENTENCE DESCRIBER MAX. TRY TO INSERT YOUR NAME ALPHABETICALLY TO KEEP SEARCHING EASIER.

Betts, AJ; WAVELENGTH; Fremantle Press. Themes: identity, school, career, pressure, ambition, family, forgiveness. All Oliver can think about is his upcoming Year 12 exams and the stress of reaching his goals…until he spends study week in Busselton with his father and he learns more lessons than he bargained for.

Betts, AJ; ZAC & MIA; Text Publishing. Themes: friendship, courage, beauty, identity, illness, survival. A contemporary realistic novel about two teenagers who meet in a cancer ward, and how their relationship follows them into their altered, unexpected futures.

Chebatte, Helen: BRO; Hardie Grant Egmont. Australian identity, multiculturalism, teen Violence, racial rivalry, mateship, loss, grief, first love, family. BRO is about the consequences of a fight club in a racially divided boys high school.

Doyle, Trinity, PIECES OF SKY, Allen & Unwin, themes: identity, grief, mental health, family, A strong atmospheric novel about Lucy, a sixteen-year-old competitive swimmer in a coastal town who is grappling with a fear of water after the untimely death of her surfer brother.

Fusillo, Archimede, DEAD DOG IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT-Ford Street Publishing…FAMILY, RELATIONSHIPS, LOYALTY, DUTY, DIMENTIA AND OLD AGE, COURAGE, IDENTITY… When Primo decides to take his absent father’s treasured Fiat 500 Bambino out for a joy ride without permission so as to impress his girlfriend Maddie, he sets in motion a chain of events that link a damaged car,a dead dog, a broken relationship, and a man in a nursing home back to a potentially fatal decision made years earlier by another member of the family-and which now threatens to shatter the veneer of what had appeared to all to be a functional family.

Gardiner, Kelly, ACT OF FAITH, HarperCollins, History, Books, Ideas, Censorship, Refugees, Girls’ education. Set in Cambridge, Amsterdam and Venice in the mid-seventeenth century, ACT OF FAITH (and its sequel THE SULTAN’S EYES) follow the adventures of Isabella Hawkins and her friends as they write and publish books full of dangerous ideas and face a backlash from the Spanish Inquisition.

Hayes, Nicole, ONE TRUE THING, Random House. Themes: MUSIC, POLITICS, THE MEDIA, PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE, FRIENDSHIP, FAMILY, SECRETS, SEXUALITY. Sixteen year old Frankie MUST deal with the public and personal fallout when photos of herpolitician mother in a secret rendezvous with a much younger man go viral.

HOLOHAN, Amanda; UNWANTED; Penguin Books. Themes: class, race, self-empowerment, betrayal, loss, gender, love and sacrifice.  In a city besieged by a terrifying enemy, Bea Azaeli wants nothing more than to protect her people and earn the coveted ink of a Dread warrior; but one impulsive act is about to change everything.

Howell, Simmone, GIRL DEFECTIVE, Pan Macmillan, Themes: family life, identity, gentrification, music, may be of interest to gay/questioning teens or those looking for depictions of ASD: Skylark Martin lives in St Kilda with her misfit family above their fledgling record store in contemporary St Kilda.

Howell, Simmone, EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL, Pan Macmillan. Themes: Faith, Sexuality, identity, Body Image. Incredible true romance between angry atheist girl and despondent wheelchair boy at Christian camp in Nhill, Australia.

Howell, Simmone, NOTES FROM THE TEENAGE UNDERGROUND, Pan Macmillan: Themes: friendship, feminism, film-making, image, identity, creativity. Gem Gordon wants to lose her virginity and make an underground film …not necessarily in that order.

Kalkipsakis, Thalia; LIFESPAN OF STARLIGHT, Hardie Grant Egmont, TECHNOLOGY, CLIMATE CHANGE, TIME TRAVEL, MATERNAL SACRIFICE, RESOURCE RATIONING, IDENTITY. Fourteen-year-old Scout is an illegal who survives on half her mother’s rations in water-scarce 2084. When she steals a microchip, Scout gains access to the privileges of Australian citizens, but she also discovers a skill inherent in all human beings: the ability to travel through time.

Lawson, Sue, FREEDOM RIDE, Black Dog Books (Walker Books). Themes: racism, identity, friendship, family.
The summer of 1965 – is a time of Oz, The Beatles, Victor Lawn Mowers, Bandstand and endless heat.
For Robbie Bower, it’s a time of discovery and change. Everything he thought to be real and true will be ripped apart when secrets, lies and a busload of university students collide in a small country town.
And there’s no going back.

Pryor, Michael, 10 FUTURES, Random House Australia, Sustainability, Future Trends, Relationships, Change. Ten linked stories looking at possible futures for us over the next hundred years told through the eyes of two best friends. Teachers’ Notes available.

Wang Gabrielle, LITTLE PARADISE, Penguin Books. Themes: war, love, identity both personal and national, friendship, family. Amidst the seething chaos of post WWII Shanghai, as the civil war escalates, a young ChineseAustralian girl from Melbourne must decide whether to flee to safety with her baby or stay and find her lover, a Chinese intelligence officer being hunted by both sides.