Reasons why we like to read in bed. It’s warm and comfortable and gives you a relaxing place to sit or lie in peace. It’s quiet. It is a lovely place to just relax with a good book. There’s no little sister to bug you and once you’re finished you can go to sleep. You can relax with no distractions. It helps me calm down after a busy day. It’s cozy and comfy and I’m not disturbed by my younger brother and sister. It is private and peaceful. It’s a relaxing place to read and it’s quiet so you can concentrate. It’s very soothing before I go to sleep and more exciting than playing a computer game before bed. I like to read at the beach because it’s nice and quiet and you can hear the tide and you are getting some sun while you read! I like to read on my sofa because it is I like to read on a plane because it very cosy and warm is quiet and, if you’re on it for a and I can get into long time, it is good to do books sitting on it. something instead of being bored. Or you could read a book in the garden. If it’s a good day, then you might as well make the most of it, but if it’s raining then I prefer to be warm and comfortable, safely inside! You can hear the birds chirping and it is peaceful. It’s peaceful and you get fresh air as well. It’s peaceful and calm. A selection of books read as part of Annan Academy’s READ SIX BOOKS IN SIX WEEKS Summer Challenge Michael Morpurgo The Dare Game is amazing! One day Tracy bunks off school and meets these two War Horse boys called Alexander and Football. They play dare games and Tracy always wins. Her mum came to I really liked the description of the pick her up from her foster mother Cam’s house but it different scenes… I could feel all the all goes wrong when her mother goes out to drink and emotions the author wanted me to. leaves Tracy till midnight. Near the end, Tracy ran I would highly recommend this book. away and didn’t have a real home anymore. In the By Lucy Kirkpatrick end she lived happily ever after with Cam. By Katie Reid The Diamond Girls is exciting. There are so Born to Run many things going on, you just can’t put it down. This is a great emotional book. Once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down! There are so many characters, I don’t know who Patrick was walking to school when he saw an unusual my favourite character is. The main character is shaped bag floating down the canal so he went and Dixie. She has three sisters, Rochelle, Jude and fished it out, only to find five tiny greyhound puppies. Martine. Their mum, Sue, is pregnant with a Patrick really wanted to keep the puppies, but there was boy, but, when he is born, Sue has a big secret. more to it than that. They move house from their flat to a house on the Planet Estate but it isn’t as nice as she I would rate this book five stars. thinks. The house is a tip and there are gangs By Danielle McAnespie that Jude fights with, but Rochelle just flirts with them. She doesn’t let anyone else look after her little I loved Cool by Michael Morpurgo because it was boy who she called Sundance. When Sue goes quite emotional and at the same time really funny and, out of the room, Sundance stated crying so Dixie changed him and found in a way, sweet. out he was a she. By Abbie Richardson I would recommend this book as it’s soothing before you sleep and it’s just amazing. Also recommended: By Katie Reid Also recommended: Jacqueline Wilson Crime and Detection Vicky Angel Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark This is my favourite book of all time! Days by Derek Landy It’s about two best friends and nothing could come between them - until now. BANG! Vicky has been I enjoyed this book because of the story’s fast-paced hit by a car. They are still the best of friends, action, and Landy’s warm humour and his ability to put although Vicky’s body is not there. great, witty remarks into the story, particularly into Skulduggery’s mouth! I would rate this book five stars. Landy thinks up his characters well, and describes By Danielle McAnespie them perfectly. He has a wonderful imagination – which he would need, to fit a living skeleton into his books! – Vicky is a young girl that is always having fun, and uses it to suck his readers into the story. unless her best friend Jade stops her. When Jade and Vicky have an argument, this time there is no I found myself unable to put it down until it was finished. A great book! apology, but there is a new angel in the sky – Vicky. By Iona Bryson This book is fun to read with small illustrations. Perfect for 10-13 year olds. By Megan Parker Lost Bullet by Malcolm Rose It’s about a forensic investigator, who is – surprise, The Longest Whale Song surprise! – investigating suspicious deaths. It seems to be set in the future, as cats and dogs are endangered; This book is a fun, happy and also a sad story. there are new sophisticated sat-nav systems set into In it a little girl called Ella has to face dilemmas, British taxis, which means no driver is required; and distress and downpours of emotions thrown at also, a new invention for police investigation, called a her. Mobile Aid to Law and Crime, or MALC for short. Her mum and dad get divorced, her mum meets By Iona Bryson a new guy and a few months later her mum is pregnant. Ella does NOT like her new step-dad. As her mum is having the baby, something goes wrong and she ends up in a coma. This book is called The Longest Whale Song because Ella, at school, is doing a whale project Also recommended: and Ella enjoys it. She finds a CD of whale songs and plays them to her mum and she soon wakes up. Check out Charlie Higson’s’s’s’s series which features a young James I enjoyed reading this and liked how the writer Bond. put it together. By Rebekka Graham Dear Diary… Stories set in the past by Jeff My Story: The Hunger by Carol Drinkwater Diary of a Wimpy Kid Kinney The Hunger is about the potato blight in Ireland from 1845 -1847. It explains how it A funny first book to the series Diary of a Wimpy was hard for the main character, Phyllis, Kid. It’s a book about a boy starting middle-school and her family because they use potatoes that starts writing a “journal” as he thinks he is one in all they eat as they are easy to cook. In day going to become famous, so he is writing his life summer, when potatoes are always in story. short supply, they sell a fattened pig for money to buy food. This year the pig isn’t A really funny, likeable book that makes you want fat so they can’t sell her. As a result of to read more, and ALL of the series. A book I most this, Eileen, Phyllis’ baby sister, dies, and definitely recommend to others. her mother’s health deteriorates. They are By Rebekka Graham forced to move out when their landlord burns down their house and they walk to I liked by Susan Pfeffer Dublin. On the way, Ma dies. Phyllis Life as we knew it works in the manor house and becomes because it was about the moon and how it changed the fond of a boy called Edward. When he weather and a lot of people died. In the story, the main leaves for Dublin she follows and character is keeping a diary and it shows you what she eventually finds him. They get on a ship to America and she is reunited with did for almost a year. her family. Her brother, who is in trouble with the law, stays to fight for a free It is very interesting and you get to see what life is like Ireland. for others when something major has happened and By Rebecca Ward they don’t know what to do. By Lois McLatchie Witch Child by Celia Rees is about a young witch who migrated to America in the 1600s. Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls I really enjoyed this book because there was not a single dull moment so it was hard to put it down. It is a book girls This is a moving but funny story about a young boy will enjoy from about 10 years old. that has leukaemia. The story takes you through the last months of Sam’s life and all of his wishes, like Sorceress is the sequel. kissing a girl, drinking beer, seeing a ghost and watching horror films. This book is brilliant because the story alternates between past and present. Celia Rees is a really good This is one of my favourite books of all time! I author. always cry when I read it.