Laura Ellen Anderson - Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball
Fiction 7+
224 pages
Welcome to the world of Nocturnia, where darkness reigns supreme, glitter is terrifying, and unicorns are the stuff of nightmares! Amelia Fang would much rather hang out with her pet pumpkin Squashy and her friends Florence the yeti (Don't call her beast!) and Grimaldi the reaper than dance at her parents' annual Barbaric Ball.
And when the King's spoiled son Tangine captures Squashy, Amelia and her friends must escape the party to plan a daring rescue! In their race against time, they begin to realise things in Nocturnia may not be quite what they seem.
Katya Balen - October, October
Fiction 9+
304 pages
October and her dad live in the woods. They sleep in the house Dad built for them and eat the food they grow in the vegetable patches. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They read the books they buy in town again and again until the pages are soft and yellow - until next year's town visit.
They live in the woods and they are wild. And that's the way it is. Until the year October turns eleven. That's the year October rescues a baby owl. It's the year Dad falls out of the biggest tree in their woods. The year the woman who calls herself October's mother comes back. The year everything changes.
Lynn Reid Banks - The Indian in the Cupboard
Fiction 9+
192 pages
When Omri is given a toy Indian and a small cupboard for his birthday, he has no idea that, when he puts the Indian in the cupboard it will come alive, or that his "toy" is a very small and demanding brave for whose life and safety he must take responsibility.
Nicola Barber - The Mousehole Cat
Picture Book
40 pages
This is the illustrated story of the seaside village of Mousehole Cornwall, where Mowzer the cat lives happily with old fisherman Tom - Tom who rocks the rocking chair just right and catches fresh fish for dinner every night. Their life is a happy one - until one terrible winter, the Great Storm-Cat comes clawing and snarling and leaping at the harbour walls, so that no boat can go out to sea to fish.
Soon, with Christmas coming, there is no food left in Mousehole. It is then that Mowzer and Tom set out to brave the fury of the waves together and discover that it might just need a cat's perspective to understand - and tame - the ferocious ways of the Great Storm-Cat sea.