Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book
Teen.
312 pages.
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Apart from the fact that he lives in a graveyard and is being raised and educated by ghosts. There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard. But it is in the land of the living that the real dangers lurk.
Kereen Getten - When Life Gives You Mangoes
Teen 11-14.
208 pages.
Nothing much happens in Sycamore, the small village where Clara lives. She loves eating ripe mangoes fallen from trees, running outside in the rainy season and escaping to her secret hideout with her best friend Gaynah.
There's only one problem - she can't remember anything that happened last summer.
Keith Gray - The Climbers
Teen 11-14.
120 pages.
When Sully's status is challenged by new kid Nottingham, the only way to prove who's best is a race to climb the unnamed tree. In this compelling story of teenage rivalry and friendship, award-winner Keith Gray captures the subtle agonies and reality of life growing up in a small town.
Dyslexia Friendly.
Jacob Grey - Ferals: The Crow Talker
Teen.
288 pages.
In a city ravaged by crime and corruption, 13-year-old orphan Caw's only friends are the murder of crows he has lived with since his parents flung him from their house aged only five. Caw lives in a treehouse in an abandoned city park, surviving on scraps of food and only communicating with his three crows.
But a jailbreak at the prison forces him into contact with other humans - particularly a girl called Lydia, who is attacked by the escaped prisoners and is saved by Caw. Caw realises that these escaped prisoners have more in common with him than he'd like. They too are Ferals - humans able to communicate with and control an animal species.
Genres and themes: Action/adventure, fantasy, good versus evil, animals, friendship.