Age Group: KS3 (Ages 11-14)

Circling the Stars

Poetry, Verse novel

Dad has moved out and Ani is struggling to accept his absence. Her mysterious neighbour, Nando, and his secret nocturnal trips provide a welcome distraction.

An enchanting tale of secret nighttime walks, a mysterious fox and finding friendship in the most unexpected of places.

When Ani follows Nando in the dead of night, she doesn’t expect to come face-to-face with the wild fox he has befriended. During each nighttime visit they learn a little more about the fox, and each other.

But are Ani and Nando ready for the new challenges this friendship brings? And can caring for another creature bring more harm than good in this strange secret world?

The Wild Ones

Steve Cole

Chapter book

This book is a unique take on a survivor story. It’s the story of a group of animals who are trying to find their way because a catastrophic event happens. This book follows the lives of a group of different pets that all live in a pet care centre. They are quite happy and content being looked after by a human until one day their world changes and all the humans are gone. The pets have to look after themselves in a much scarier world.

Their safe haven is then invaded by ‘The Things’. The things are starving and desperate so the pets have to run from their safe place and try to find another. They have lots of different things to overcome from betrayals to drownings as they go on their journey. Finally finding somewhere they can call home.

On this journey, the pets transform into wild animals that no longer rely on a human, but can survive on their own. With plenty of perilous moment, this book is best suited to older primary readers. It is a great story of bravery, determination and friendship, which are all brilliant themes to teach to children.

We Need to Talk About Cancer

Anna Shepeta & Sanjay Juneja

Non-fiction

A compassionate guide to understanding cancer, written by a medical oncologist for children aged 10-14.

This is a book for children affected by the Big C. Whether they have cancer, or they know someone with cancer, they will have a lot of questions. And even for adults cancer is a really hard thing to talk about! Luckily Dr Sanjay Juneja is an expert at having these tricky conversations.

In this book, featuring sensitive illustrations by Anna Shepeta, readers will get the answers to questions such as:

Why does some people’s hair fall out when they have cancer?
How can I support someone with cancer?
What can I expect in hospital?

Taking a fact-based approach, the book will explain what cancer is, highlight the different types of cancer, introduce the medical staff that help patients on their journey, and look at different types of treatment.

This honest and reassuring resource helps kids and families navigate cancer diagnosis and treatment together. It’s also made by experts. Author Dr Sanjay Juneja takes care of people with blood diseases and cancer. Dr Ben Pickwell-Smith, the consultant on this book, is a Clinical Lecturer and Medical Oncology Registrar at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Also available in this critically-acclaimed series: We Need to Talk About Vaginas, We Need to Talk About Divorce, We Need to Talk About Death

Stone Warriors

Elizabeth Barber

Chapter book

The hunters from the Roaring Bears’ tribe are away, and when they return they find their camp invaded by the fierce Crow’s Claw warriors.

Their people are overpowered and held captive, but one young person, Ekri, manages to escape with a guide, Norak, and they set off to seek help from their friends in other tribes.

With courage and deception, will they be able to outwit the notorious Crow’s Claw before it is too late and the Roaring Bears are destroyed?

Branching Out: Books for Fans of The Hunger Games

If you like The Hunger Games, try these…

Hugely popular with YA readers, The Hunger Games is set in a post-apocalyptic society, featuring themes of survival, morality and media control.

We’ve put together a list of ten similar books for fans of The Hunger Games.

Readers looking for more stories of quests for survival might enjoy James Dashner’s bestselling The Maze Runner or Monique Turner’s sinister reality TV-inspired debut, Island of Influencers. Two survival stories that have stood the test of time are Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, which starts with a crash-landing, and Robert Swindells’s Brother in the Land, with its nuclear war backdrop.

For more titles that explore dystopian societies, we recommend the gripping, futuristic New You For Ever by Steve Cole, alongside Veronica Roth’s Divergent, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, and Soyoung Park’s Korean YA thriller, Snow Globe.

To further explore the theme of rebels taking on the establishment, young adult readers could try Malorie Blackman’s classic Noughts & Crosses, or Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines.

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Branching Out: Books for Fans of Skandar

If you like Skandar, try these…

A. F. Steadman’s Skandar saga offers a blend of adventure, magic, danger and destiny, set in a world where unicorns are dangerous and powerful beasts. The series is an enormous hit with readers who enjoy adventures in fantasy worlds with magical creatures.

We’ve put together a list of ten similar books for fans of Skandar. Readers who love stories that feature mythical, fantastical creatures might enjoy Magicalia, Dragonborn or Dracula and Daughters or Katherine Rundell’s incredibly popular Impossible Creatures.

Those looking for new epic sagas or fantasy quests could try Daisy’s gripping adventures in Greenwild, the captivating Inkbound with it’s magical world-building, or the prehistoric monster-hunting journey in Fireborn.

For chapter books featuring secret schools and elite academies, we recommend Tola Okogwu’s Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun, Jacob North’s Ice Apprentices or Peter Burns’s Shadow Thieves.

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Branching Out: Books for Fans of Little People, Big Dreams

If you like Little People, BIG DREAMS, try these…

Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara‘s prolific biographical series is incredibly popular with young readers and school librarians alike.

We’ve put together a list of ten similar books for fans of the Little People, Big Dreams series. Children who love reading life stories will find plenty to interest them in this booklist.

For readers interested in biographies of inspirational STEM pioneers, we recommend the fascinating Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor, the inspiring story of Mary Anning in The Fossil Hunter, Katherine Johnson’s barrier-smashing achievements in Counting on Katherine, and Rainforest Warrior, the story of environmental activist Chico Mendes.

For stories of record breakers and famous firsts, you could try solo pilot Zara Rutherford’s autobiographical I Flew Around the World, picturebook portrait of trailblazing Muslim astronomer Ulugh Beg, Prince of Stars, or Lottie the Little Wonder, a short, colour-illustrated chapter book about the world’s first female sports superstar, Lottie Dod.

There are also some brilliant true story collections and inspiring anthologies in this list, including Young, Gifted and Black, which celebrates the achievements of 52 trailblazing black women and men, and Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, which features inspirational women around the world, ranging from singers and artists to activists and entrepreneurs.

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Branching Out: Books for Fans of His Dark Materials

If you like His Dark Materials, try these…

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series is a much-loved fantasy trilogy, set across multiple worlds, with themes of free will, science and coming of age. The first book in the series, Northern Lights, is selected on our Best Books for Year 7 booklist and is well loved by many children in the 10-15 range.

We’ve put together a list of ten similar books for fans of His Dark Materials. Readers who love the stories of secret, hidden or fantasy worlds might enjoy the flying ships and sky cities of Rebel Skies, the undersea mysteries of Deeplight, or the secret society and hidden palace of Alexander Armstrong’s Evenfall.

For readers searching for more adventures with mythical creatures, we recommend A. F. Steadman’s re-imagining of unicorns in Skandar, or Katherine Rundell’s magically-inhabited islands of Impossible Creatures.

For readers looking for strong female leads like Lyra, try travelling along with Isabella in The Girl of Ink and Stars, or questing with Hester Shaw in Mortal Engines. And readers who enjoyed Pullman’s tales of quests against the establishment might enjoy Jonathan Stroud’s action-packed supernatural series Lockwood, or Aisling Fowler’s prehistoric monster-hunting adventure Fireborn: Twelve and the Frozen Forest.

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Black Star

Kwame Alexander

Poetry, Verse novel

Kwame Alexander weaves a spellbinding story of struggle, determination and the unflappable faith of an American family.

Twelve-year-old Charley is set on becoming the first female pitcher to play professional baseball, even if that’s a lofty dream for a Black girl in the American South in the 1920s. Even so, her grandfather Kofi’s thrilling stories about courageous ancestors and epic journeys make it impossible not to dream big. She knows he has so much more to tell, but according to her parents, she isn’t old enough to know about certain things, like what happened to Booker Preston that one night in Great Bridge, and why she can never play on the brand-new baseball field on the other side of town.

When Charley challenges a neighbourhood bully to a game at the church picnic, she knows she can win, even with her ragtag team. Then a dispute on the field leads to Charley making a fateful decision, one that will bring consequences she never could have imagined.

When the Bones Sing

Ginny Myers Sain

Chapter book

Romance, secrets and mystery and a teenage girl who hears the bones of the dead… Perfect for fans of Holly Jackson, Adalyn Grace and Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing

17-year-old Dovie doesn’t believe in magic even though she comes from a long line of women who can hear the bones of the dead sing, and for the past few years the bones have been crooning nonstop, calling out to Dovie to dig them up. Because there is a killer on the loose – someone is snatching hikers from the miles of tracks, leaving their mutilated bodies for Dovie to find. And the body count grows ever higher.

Some of the old-timers believe that it’s the monstrous Ozarks howler snatching people off the Aux Arc Trail. Well Dovie doesn’t believe in the howler, and she doesn’t believe her best friend – the gorgeous Lo – when he tells her he is being haunted by dark shadows. All she believes in is her talent that guides the local sheriff to the bones when they begin their song, then reuniting the dead with their families to give them some peace.

But the truth of their deaths isn’t buried with their bones; it’s hidden somewhere deep in the hills. And Lo and Dovie must unearth it before anyone else is killed…

Best Books by Age

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Age Group: KS3 (Ages 11-14)

If you like The Hunger Games, try these…

If you like Skandar, try these…

If you like Little People, BIG DREAMS, try these…

If you like His Dark Materials, try these…

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