Polly's picks for Teens

George is fascinated by World War II. Bombers, Nazis, doodlebugs. But he discovers the reality is very different from how he had imagined it when a school trip to a World War II museum leads to a timeslip - and George is in London at the time of the Blitz!

When 13 year old Brian survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness he has only a hatchet to help him get through 54 days alone.

In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer desperate for adventure, college cash, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents finally caught up to them in a bust at the Chelsea Hotel. For his part in the conspiracy, the twenty-year-old Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison. In Hole in my life, this acclaimed author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one intense moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a smuggler, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos--once he found himself locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell--moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how this newfound dedication helped him endure the worst experience of his life.

It is 1942 in Poland and Felix, the son of Jewish booksellers, tells his story from the orphanage where he has lived for three years. Believing at first that life will one day return to normal, what he sees and experiences after he escapes brings his innocence to an end when he witnesses the impact of the Nazi regime. Intermediate, junior secondary.

A group of teenagers is working in a forestry plantation to raise money for a school trip when one morning they come across two quad riders hooning through the forest. In trying to escape one of the riders has an accident, his bike explodes and fire spreads through the forest putting the teenagers in terrible danger.

In a dangerous world, Deep Salt strikes terror into the heart of everyone. Hari lives in Blood Burrow, deep in the ruined city of Belong, where he survives by courage and savagery. He is scarred from fighting, he is dangerous and cruel, but he has a secret gift: he can speak with animals. When his father, Tarl, is taken as a slave and sent to the mine known as Deep Salt, from where no worker ever returns, Hari vows to save him. Pearl is from the ruling families, known as Company, which has conquered and enslaved Hari's people. Her destiny involves marriage that will unite her family with that of the powerful and ambitious Ottmar. It soon becomes clear that the survival of their people depends entirely upon the success of Pearl and Hari's mission.

Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.

The Crossing, the first of the 'Blood of the Lamb' trilogy, is set on a fictional Pacific island, approximately three generations after an… This is one of the best books I have read.

When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, an adolescent white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old black man are stranded on a tiny Caribbean island where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.

Colin Potter becomes drawn into the life of Herbert Muskie, a vindictive man who has reason to hate the people of Loomis; and somehow Colin's parents are also involved in the secrets of the past. Suggested level: secondary.

In 1878 in London, Sally, now twenty-two and established in her own business, and her companions Frederick and Jim try to solve the mystery… This is book 2 of the trilogy. Why dont you try the first book of the series which is "The ruby in the smoke" followed by "The tiger in the well."

Seven Australian teenagers return from a camping trip in the bush to discover that their country has been invaded and they must hide to stay alive. Book 1 of 7 in the series.

Joey the horse recalls his experiences growing up on an English farm, his struggle for survival as a cavalry horse during World War I, and his reunion with his beloved master.