Younger Reader Books (2021)

Rabbit’s Bad Habits’ by Julian Gough

‘Rab­bit’s Bad Habits’ by Julian Gough

This is a bril­liant­ly fun­ny sto­ry of a rab­bit and a bear who dis­cov­er that things are always bet­ter when they’re shared with a friend.

Bear wakes up ear­ly from hiber­na­tion. If she can’t sleep, then at least she can make a snow­man. Rab­bit has nev­er made a snow­man, but he def­i­nite­ly wants to make one that’s bet­ter than Bear’s.

But with an avalanche and a hun­gry wolf head­ing his way, Rab­bit soon realis­es that it might be nice to have a friend on his side.

Stinky Cecil in Operation Pond Rescue’ by Paige Braddock

‘Stinky Cecil in Oper­a­tion Pond Res­cue’ by Paige Braddock

Cecil is a toad. A toad busy doing what any oth­er toad does with its days–judging the pond splash­ing con­test (Reg­gie the fly is usu­al­ly the hon­orary win­ner by dint of his five-day lifes­pan), or vis­it­ing his friends, Jeff the free-range ham­ster, Rayray the lizard, Jere­my the worm, or Sprout the frog. And, of course, try­ing to keep clear of the local hawk.

But when Cecil dis­cov­ers a free­way con­struc­tion project aimed right at the pond, he knows he has to come up with a plan to save his home. But what can a small group of amphib­ians and a rein­car­nat­ing fly do against con­struc­tion vehi­cles and a steady onslaught of hot asphalt? Cecil isn’t sure, but he knows they have to try.

Wedgie and Gizmo’ by Suzanne Selfors

‘Wedgie and Giz­mo’ by Suzanne Selfors

When a boun­cy, barky dog and an evil genius guinea pig move into the same house, the laughs are non­stop! Wedgie is so excit­ed, he can’t stop bark­ing. He LOVES hav­ing new sib­lings and friends to pro­tect. He LOVES guinea pigs like Giz­mo! He also LOVES treats!

But Giz­mo does not want to share his loy­al human ser­vant with a rump-sniff­ing beast! He does not want to live in a pink Bar­bie Play­house. Or to be kissed and hugged by the girl human. Giz­mo is an evil genius. He wants to take over the world and make all humans feel his wrath. But first he must destroy his arch­en­e­my, Wedgie, once and for all!

I Go Quiet’ by David Ouimet

‘I Go Qui­et’ by David Ouimet

How do you find your voice, when no one seems to be lis­ten­ing? A young girl strug­gles to make her­self heard, believ­ing she is too insignif­i­cant and mis­un­der­stood to com­mu­ni­cate with the peo­ple in her life.

Anx­ious about how she thinks she should look and speak, the girl stays silent, turn­ing to books to trans­port her to a place where she is con­nect­ed to the world, and where her words hold pow­er. As she soon dis­cov­ers, her imag­i­na­tion is not far from real­i­ty, and the girl realis­es that when she is ready to be heard, her voice will ring loud and true.

The Cardboard Kingdom’ by Chad Sell

‘The Card­board King­dom’ by Chad Sell

Wel­come to a neigh­bour­hood of kids who trans­form ordi­nary box­es into colour­ful cos­tumes, and their ordi­nary block into card­board king­dom. This is the sum­mer when six­teen kids encounter knights and rogues, robots and monsters–and their own inner demons–on one last quest before school starts again.

In the Card­board King­dom, you can be any­thing you want to be–imagine that!

Titan and the Wild Boars’ by Susan Hood

‘Titan and the Wild Boars’ by Susan Hood

Don’t miss the breath-tak­ing true sto­ry of the inter­na­tion­al res­cue of the Wild Boars soc­cer team from a flood­ed cave in Thailand!

One after­noon, eleven-year-old Titan, his friends from the Wild Boars soc­cer team, and their coach rode their bikes to explore local caves. They crawled through the nar­row tun­nels in the dark to reach the cen­tre of the cave. When they turned to go home, heavy rains had flood­ed the tun­nel. They were trapped!

With ris­ing waters and mon­soon sea­son upon them, time and oxy­gen were run­ning out. The world watched with bat­ed breath as res­cuers from around the globe joined forces to try to free the boys. After eigh­teen har­row­ing days, in an unprece­dent­ed effort of inter­na­tion­al team­work, they were final­ly saved.