The Kingdom by the Sea

David escapes from the concentration camp where he has spent his entire life and flees across Europe. He is utterly alone – who can he trust? What will await him? And all the while, how can he be sure that they won’t catch up with him...David learns that his polite manner, his haunted eyes and his thin features are strange to other people. He must learn to fend for himself in this strange new world. This is The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas meets Jonathan Safran Foer for children.

‘The sky split open. A sky of brilliant yellow light; a world of noise that filled his ears like sand at the seaside, so that afterwards there was only total silence’. But silence brings terror and grief to Sonny’s family as they come to terms with the loss of his mother in a German bombing raid. In a fit of anguish and grief, his father joins the RAF to avenge her death, and Sonny is left alone. As he fights for survival, Sonny embarks on his own dramatic and intensely personal confrontation with the enemy….

6,000 years ago, the land is one dark forest. Its people are hunters and gatherers. They know every tree and herb and they know how to survive in a world steeped in enchantment, menace, and powerful magic.

Raphael is a dumpsite boy. He spends his days wading through mountains of steaming trash, sifting it, sorting it, breathing it, sleeping next to it. Then one unlucky-lucky day, Raphael’s world turns upside down. A small leather bag falls into his hands. It’s a bag of clues. It’s a bag of hope. It’s a bag that will change everything. Soon Raphael and his friends Gardo and Rat are running for their lives. Wanted by the police, it takes all their quick-thinking, fast-talking to stay ahead.

'There's an empty notebook lying on the table in the moonlight. It's been there for an age. I keep on saying that I'll write a journal. So I'll start right here, right now. I open the book and write the very first words: My name is Mina and I love the night. Then what shall I write? I can't just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I'll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or a beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line?'

When Lee and his daemon, Hester, land in the Arctic town of Novy Odense, they quickly become embroiled in an out-and-out political brawl. So when Iorek offers to help, Lee is only too happy to accept. Together they take on a slippery politician, his monstrous gas-powered gun and a murderous gunfighter. And so begins a friendship that will continue throughout their lives.

A encounter with a boy dangling from the sky changes pickpocket Magpie's life forever. Like her, the boy dreams of flying over the rooftops of Paris. His family, the Montgolfiers, are desperate to be first to discover the secret of flight. Together with Pierre, Magpie is soon caught up in a world of inflatable bloomers, spies and a trio of unruly animals in a race to be the first to fly a hot air balloon - in front of the King and Queen of France.

Everybody says that Gwendolyn Chant is a gifted witch with astonishing powers, so it suits her enormously when she is taken to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Her brother Eric (better known as Cat) is not so keen, for he has no talent for magic at all.However, life with the great enchanter is not what either of them expects and sparks begin to fly!Winner of the Guardian Award.

Fin is devastated by guilt when his sister, Ella, is kidnapped. She is snatched away from the house in the middle of a storm. As the kidnappers make their demands, Fin's guilt is replaced by a fierce determination to find his sister by whatever means he can, and bring the criminals to justice. But as the drama unfolds, a complex web of family secrets is revealed.

From much-loved author Shirley Hughes comes a thrilling World War II novel for children aged 10 and up. It is 1944, and Florence, Italy, is occupied by Nazi German forces. The Italian resistance movement has not given up hope, though - and neither have Paolo and his sister, Constanza. Both are desperate to fight the occupation, but what can two siblings do against a whole army with only a bicycle to help them? In extraordinary circumstances, people are capable of extraordinary things.