Most popular Opening Extracts, by age range, 30 Dec – 6 Jan
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Featured Books Age 0 – 5 Years
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Gorilla Anthony Browne Greenaway winner in 1983.Wonderfully inventive story and almost tear-jerking at times but with a happy ending. The illustrations are both detailed and colourful and children will delight in them. I’m sure for some parents it really touches a nerve as … Download free opening extract |
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Santa’s Littlest Helper Travels The World Anu Stohner Curl up on those cold starry winter nights and enjoy a magical Christmas story with Santa’s littlest helper who saves the day when everyone around him gets ill. It’s a Christmas story with a twist and with some stunningly colourful … Download free opening extract |
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Aliens Love Underpants! (Book and CD edition) Claire Freedman Joint winner of the Richard and Judy “Early” 5+ Category. Terrific illustrations capture the flood of jokes about pants that underlie this rhyming story now brilliantly brought to even greater life by the addition of a CD to accompany the … |
Featured Books for 5+ readers
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Alice In Wonderland (slipcase edition) Lewis Carroll, Rodney Matthews The story is timeless and can be read at so many different levels, but this lavish slipcased edition is quite simply stunning and will bring to the reader a very different Wonderland – even more fantastical and a little darker … Download free opening extract |
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The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Basil Wiley Miller A wonderful debut from an incredibly talented wordsmith and illustrator. Fans of The Wizard of Oz and James and the Giant Peach will love Basil and his erstwhile adventures. Basil is an ordinary boy living a very ordinary life in a lighthouse, … Download free opening extract |
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Spells Emily Gravett A stunning new picture book from Emily Gravett, full of witchcraft, wizardry and magic. We meet a frog trying his utmost to turn himself into a handsome prince from a torn up spell book, resulting in inevitably confusing consequences. It … Download free opening extract |
Featured Books for 7+ readers
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The Birthday Book Michael Morpurgo This is a sumptuous collection of stories and verse compiled by Michael Morpurgo, beautifully illustrated by Quentin Blake and published in aid of The Prince’s Foundation for Children and Arts and to celebrate the Prince of Wales’s 60th birthday. It’s … Download free opening extract |
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The Butterfly Lion Michael Morpurgo The inspiring magic of a white lion brings friendship and hope to a lonely ten year old. Miserable at his boarding school, Bertie runs away. He is rescued by a kind old lady who tells him of how another Bertie, … Download free opening extract |
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Tom’s Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce A classic time slip story in which Tom, staying in big house now divided into flats, manages to get into the garden at night and make friends with a little girl. But who is the girl? Can she really be … Download free opening extract |
Featured Books for 9+ readers
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The Magic Thief Sarah Prineas This is an absolutely captivating debut fantasy adventure. Full of magic and trickery, this is the story of a wizard and his new apprentice trying to discover why the magic in their city is fading and how they must … Download free opening extract |
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The Shapeshifter: Finding the Fox Ali Sparkes Dax is a boy with a difference: Dax can turn into a fox. Suddenly able to follow a scent, search out dangers and scavenge for his own food, Dax finds a new life opening before him. Soon Dax is off … Download free opening extract |
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Frankenstein – retold by Gill Tavner Mary Shelley When Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, an epic battle of friendship and horror begins between man and monster – and as it reaches fever pitch a tragic chain of events occurs. This and the other retellings by Real Reads are a … Download free opening extract |
Featured Books for 11+ readers
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Coraline (film tie-in edition) Neil Gaiman This edition is due to coincide with the film version of Coraline which will be released in February 2009. When Coraline’s family move into a new home, she steps through a door into another house which seems strangely familiar. It has … Download free opening extract |
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The Knife of Never Letting Go Patrick Ness Winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize 2008 and Booktrust Teenage Prize 2008. The electrifying and unflinching young adult debut novel about the impossible choices of growing up by award-winning fiction writer Patrick Ness. This title is part of Walker Books’ … Download free opening extract |
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Steel Trapp Ridley Pearson A sharp, fast-paced thriller featuring a 14-year old whose photographic memory causes him to get embroiled in a complex puzzle of kidnapping, bribery, terrorism and on the run from the federal agents. The author is an established writer of suspense … Download free opening extract |
Featured Books for 14+ readers
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Twilight Stephenie Meyer Deeply seductive and irresistibly compelling, this is an extraordinary love story that will stay with you long after you’ve finished it. It’s the first in the Twilight series and is a captivating sage of vampire romance. The 2nd … Download free opening extract |
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New Moon Stephenie Meyer The road for Bella and Edward is never going to be a smooth one and after an incident that puts Bella’s life in danger Edward decides he must leave her “as if he had never existed”. In the following months … Download free opening extract |
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Before I Die Jenny Downham Winner of the Branford Boase Award 2008. This is a haunting yet truly amazing read but don’t read it too young. Definitely not for someone less than 14 years old. If you knew you were going to die what would … Download free opening extract |
