Following the success of the last year’s Panda Book Awards for KS3, the English Department and the library are pleased to announce the start of the Panda Book Awards for 2015/16. This year the library has also purchased copies of the short list for the ‘mature readers’ category which are aimed at KS4 pupils.
Following the success of the last year’s Panda Book Awards for KS3, the English Department and the library are pleased to announce the start of the Panda Book Awards for 2015/16. This year the library has also purchased copies of the short list for the ‘mature readers’ category which are aimed at KS4 pupils.
The Panda Book Awards reading initiative promises to take our students on an exciting reading adventure and invites our students to vote for their favourite book published in 2012-2015. It encourages young people throughout the world to read quality books selected by international librarians. The Panda books are carefully chosen to represent an international selection.
The programme begins 10th September 2015 when students will be able to borrow copies of the 8 short-listed Panda books (below). Students will need to read the 8 books by the end of February 2016 when the vote for the best Panda book takes place. There will also be a range of Panda book-related activities in English lessons over the coming months, for example, students will be issued with a reading guide and they will receive credits for answering quizzes on the books. Pupils will also read their Panda books on Tuesdays and Thursdays during form time.
Our intention is to expose our students to a variety of children’s authors and get them to try out new genres of fiction, hopefully encouraging a love of reading which will last beyond secondary school.
The Panda Awards Shortlist OLDER READERS (Years 7-9)
Boyne, John. Stay Where You Are and Then Leave. Four years after Alfie Summerfield's father left London to become a soldier in World War l he has not returned but Alfie, now nine, is shining shoes at King's Cross Station when he happens to learn that his father is at a nearby hospital being treated for shell shock.
Fleischman, Paul. Eyes Wide Open: Going behind the environmental headlines. We're living in an aha moment. Take 250 years of human ingenuity. Add abundant fossil fuels. The result: a population and lifestyle never seen before. The downsides weren't visible for centuries, but now they are. Suddenly everything needs rethinking - suburbs, cars, fast food, cheap prices. It's a changed world. This book explains it. Using politics, psychology, and history for attitude, Eyes Wide Open shows how to see the principles driving events and attitudes, from vested interests to denial to big-country syndrome. Here's the briefing you need to comprehend the twenty-first century.
Hiaasen, Carl. Chomp.
The difficult star of the reality television show, "Expedition Survival," disappears on location in the Florida Everglades, where they were filming animals from the wildlife refuge run by Wahoo Crane’s family. Wahoo and classmate Tuna Gordon set out to find him, but they must avoid Tuna’s gun-happy father.
Palacio, R.J. Wonder.
Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunts and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.
Dan Santat Sidekicks A graphic novel by an award winning graphic writer. It’s about Captain Amazing, a superhero and saviour of Metro City who is getting old. He’s out all hours battling arch-villains, catching thieves, and helping little old ladies cross the street.
Schrefer, Eliot. Threatened. Luc is an orphan, living in debt slavery in Gabon, until he meets a Professor who claims to be studying chimpanzees, and they head off into the jungle – but when the Professor disappears, Luc has to fend for himself and join forces with the chimps to save their forest.
Stroud, Jonathan. The Screaming Staircase. Follows three young operatives of a psychic detection agency as they battle an epidemic of ghosts in London.
Yousafzai, Malala. I am Malala: How one girl stood up for education and changed the world. Malala Yousafzai's describes her fight for education for girls under Taliban rule, the support she received from her parents to pursue her education, and how the Taliban retaliated against her by trying to kill her.
MATURE READERS (Years 10 and above)
Anderson, Laurie Halse. The Impossible Knife of Memory. Hayley Kincaid and her father move back to their hometown to try a 'normal' life, but the horrors he saw in the war threaten to destroy their lives.
Buckley, Michael. Undertow. Sixteen-year-old Lyric Walker's life is forever changed when she witnesses the arrival of 30,000 Alpha, a five-nation race of ocean-dwelling warriors, on her beach in Coney Island. The world's initial wonder over the Alpha quickly turns ugly and Lyric's small town transforms into a military zone with humans on one side and Alpha on the other.
Carroll, Emily. Through the Woods. A collection of five spine-tingling short stories.
Doerr, Anthony. All the Light We Cannot See. A blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War ll."--Provided by publisher.
Kline, Christina Baker. Orphan Train. When seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer is sent to perform community service at elderly Vivian Daly's home in order to avoid juvenile hall, she discovers that the two are very much alike, despite the vast age difference.
Lockhart. E. We Were Liars. Spending the summers on her family's private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.
Ng, Celeste. Everything I Never Told You. The daughter of a Chinese American family is found dead, turning the family's lives upside down.
Simmons, Kristen. The Glass Arrow. Stolen from her home, and being groomed for auction, Aya is desperate to escape her fate and return to her family, but her only allies are a loyal wolf she's raised from a pup and a strange mute boy who may be her best hope for freedom ... if she can truly trust him.
