‘The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Nevermore)’ by Jessica Townsend

Mor­ri­g­an Crow is cursed. Hav­ing been born on Even­tide, the unluck­i­est day for any child to be born, she’s blamed for all local mis­for­tunes, from hail­storms to heart attacks – and, worst of all, the curse means that Mor­ri­g­an is doomed to die at mid­night on her eleventh birthday.

But as Mor­ri­g­an awaits her fate, a strange and remark­able man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shad­owy hunters on horse­back, he whisks her away into the safe­ty of a secret, mag­i­cal city called Nevermoor.

It’s then that Mor­ri­g­an dis­cov­ers Jupiter has cho­sen her to con­tend for a place in the city’s most pres­ti­gious orga­ni­za­tion: the Wun­drous Soci­ety. In order to join, she must com­pete in four dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous tri­als against hun­dreds of oth­er chil­dren, each boast­ing an extra­or­di­nary tal­ent that sets them apart–an extra­or­di­nary tal­ent that Mor­ri­g­an insists she does not have. To stay in the safe­ty of Nev­er­moor for good, Mor­ri­g­an will need to find a way to pass the tests–or she’ll have to leave the city to con­front her dead­ly fate.

‘Pie in the Sky’ by Remy Lai

When Jing­wen moves to a new coun­try, he feels like he’s land­ed on Mars. School is tor­ture, mak­ing friends is impos­si­ble since he doesn’t speak Eng­lish, and he’s often stuck look­ing after his (extreme­ly irri­tat­ing) lit­tle broth­er, Yanghao.

To dis­tract him­self from the lone­li­ness, Jing­wen day­dreams about mak­ing all the cakes on the menu of Pie in the Sky, the bak­ery his father had planned to open before he unex­pect­ed­ly passed away. The only prob­lem is his moth­er has laid down one major rule: the broth­ers are not to use the oven while she’s at work. As Jing­wen and Yang­hao bake elab­o­rate cakes, they’ll have to cook up elab­o­rate excus­es to keep the cake mak­ing a secret from Mama.

‘Earth Heroes’ by Lily Dyu

When faced with cli­mate change, the biggest threat that our plan­et has ever con­front­ed, it’s easy to feel as if noth­ing you do can real­ly make a dif­fer­ence … but this book proves that indi­vid­ual peo­ple can change the world. With twen­ty inspi­ra­tional sto­ries cel­e­brat­ing the pio­neer­ing work of a selec­tion of Earth Heroes from all around the globe, from Gre­ta Thun­berg and David Atten­bor­ough to Yin Yuzhen and Isatou Ceesay, each tale is a bea­con of hope in the fight for the future of our plan­et, prov­ing that one per­son, no mat­ter how small, can make a difference.

‘Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess’ by Shari Green

Sixth grade is com­ing to an end, and so is life as Macy McMil­lan knows it. Already a “For Sale” sign mars the front lawn of her beloved house. Soon her moth­er will upend their per­fect lit­tle fam­i­ly, adding a step­fa­ther and six-year-old twin step­sis­ters. To add insult to injury, what is Macy’s final sixth grade assign­ment? A geneal­o­gy project. Well, she’ll put it off — just like those wed­ding cen­ter­pieces she’s sup­posed to be making.

Just when Macy’s moth­er ought to be under­stand­ing, she sends Macy next door to help eighty six-year-old Iris Gillan, who is also get­ting ready to move — in her case into an assist­ed liv­ing facil­i­ty. Iris can’t pack a sin­gle box on her own and, worse, she does­n’t know sign lan­guage. How is Macy sup­posed to under­stand her? But Iris has sto­ries to tell, and she isn’t going to let Macy’s deaf­ness stop her. Soon, through notes and books and cook­ies, a friend­ship grows. And this friend­ship, odd and unex­pect­ed, may be just what Macy needs to face the changes in her life.

‘Everlasting Nora’ by Marie Miranda Cruz

After a fam­i­ly tragedy results in the loss of both father and home, 12-year-old Nora lives with her moth­er in Manila’s North Ceme­tery, which is the largest shan­ty­town of its kind in the Philip­pines today.

When her moth­er dis­ap­pears mys­te­ri­ous­ly one day, Nora is left alone.

With help from her best friend Jojo and the sup­port of his kind­heart­ed grand­moth­er, Nora embarks on a jour­ney rid­dled with dan­ger in order to find her mom. Along the way she also redis­cov­ers the com­pas­sion of the human spir­it, the resilience of her com­mu­ni­ty, and ever­last­ing hope in the most unex­pect­ed places.

‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’ by Onjali Q. Rauf

There used to be an emp­ty chair at the back of my class, but now a new boy called Ahmet is sit­ting in it.

He’s nine years old (just like me), but he’s very strange. He nev­er talks and nev­er smiles and does­n’t like sweets — not even lemon sher­bets, which are my favourite!

But then I learned the truth: Ahmet real­ly isn’t very strange at all. He’s a refugee who’s run away from a War. A real one. With bombs and fires and bul­lies that hurt peo­ple. And the more I find out about him, the more I want to help.

That’s where my best friends Josie, Michael and Tom come in. Because you see, togeth­er we’ve come up with a plan …