2010 Long list

 

The six books chosen for the 2010 long list are:

The boy who fell down exit 43 by Harriet Goodwin

Published by Stripes

 

For a millionth of a second the car grazed the drenched moorland. If it had come down on any other patch of ground Finn would simply have been another statistic. Death by dangerous driving. But the car hit the surface of the Earth at Exit 43. It slid through the membrane like a hot knife through butter, plunging into the darkness and catapulting Finn from its shattered windscreen as it fell. Finn Oliver knows he’ll never come to terms with his father’s death, but joy-riding over the moors in his mum’s beat-up old car is a quick fix of freedom and forgetting. Until the accident happens – and Finn finds himself hurtling through the wafer-thin divide between the worlds of the living and the dead.

 

Shark Island by David Miller

Published by Oxford University Press

Hanna, Ned and their parents are on the holiday of a lifetime on the paradise island of Kaitan. But the idyll is shattered when pirates come in the night, burning their house and kidnapping their mother and father. The children are stranded, and don’t even know if their parents are alive or dead . . . In this action-packed adventure, there is no one to help. Survival and escape are up to Hanna and Ned.

Ctrl – Z by Andrew Norriss

Published by Puffin

Alex is used to getting unusual birthday presents from his Godfather John – a pair of ferrets, or a Make Your Own Explosions Kit. But this year’s present is something really different – a computer that takes you back to an earlier part of the day when you hit Ctrl-Z . . . Join Alex and his friend Callum as they discover the true results of making mistakes, with plenty of laughs and mayhem along the way!

Nathaniel Wolfe and the Bodysnatchers by Brian Keaney

Published by Orchard

The dead cannot rest in peace. Bodysnatchers are plundering the graveyards of London and stirring up more than they bargained for. A solicitor’s clerk in London is being haunted by the ghost of an old man who holds out a ring on the palm of his hand. A six year old girl holds conversations with an invisible companion.

What’s the connection between these events? It’s a mystery that only Nathaniel Wolfe can solve – with a little help from his friends, of course.

The Warrior’s Path: Sisters of the Sword 1 by Maya Snow

Published by Oxford University Press

Japan. 1216. Hana and Kimi are delighted when their heroic uncle, Hidehira, arrives at their palace, along with his dashing army of Samurai soldiers. He is their father’s right hand man, a guardian and protector who helps him govern the land on behalf of the Shogun. So when Hidehira and his army slaughter their father and elder brothers, the girls are stunned. As the palace burns around them and servants are put to the sword, Hana and Kimi have to fight for their very survival. The whole country is searching for them – and anyone who helps them will be put to death. The girls must disguise themselves and find somewhere to hide out. And their solution is so daring – and so obvious – that it will either work brilliantly or end in their deaths.

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Published by Macmillan

Liam is too big for his boots, for his football strip, and for his school blazer. But being super-sized height-wise has its advantages: he’s the only eleven-year-old to ever ride the G-force defying Cosmic rollercoaster – or be offered the chance to drive a Porsche. Long-legged Liam makes a giant leap for boy-kind by competing with a group of adults for the chance to go into space. Is Liam the best boy for the job? Sometimes being big isn’t all about being a grown-up.