Young adult
River Stone by Rachel Henessy
In Rachel Hennessy’s vision of the future in River Stone, civilisation has been devastated and humanity has retreated into nature to survive, living off the land and leaving modern technology behind. However, when a plague threatens the existence of…
Sick Bay by Nova Weetman
In this beautifully written dual-narrative story, two very different Grade Six girls meet in sick bay at school. Meg mostly has to look after herself since her dad died and her mother has sunk into depression. In sick bay, she…
Shauna's Great Expectations by Kathleen Loughnan
Shauna is a Year 12 student on an Indigenous scholarship at Oakholme College, a prestigious Sydney girls’ private school. She’s suffered endless racist taunts from the school’s number one bully, Keli Street-Hughes, over the years. She has one more year…
Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
For five years Tyler has trained hard to earn the privilege of hand-picking his own team of cadets at the Aurora Academy. The night before the big draft he can’t sleep and he convinces the lieutenant to let him take…
Promise Me Happy by Robert Newton
Melbourne writer Robert Newton is well known to teenage readers. His colourful novel Runner, about a boy caught up in Squizzy Taylor’s 1920s underworld, is a staple of early secondary reading lists. More recently, When We Were Two garnered…
The Boy Who Steals Houses by C.G. Drews
Fifteen-year-old Sam and his older brother Avery are struggling to make a better life for themselves on the streets after being abused by every parental figure in their life. Avery, who is autistic, bore the brunt of their father’s abuse…
Good Selfie: Tips & Tools for Teens to Nail Life by Turia Pitt & Freda Chiu
Turia Pitt is a motivational speaker, athlete and burns survivor, and she has written her latest book in such a completely friendly, casual way that from the very first sentence you feel welcomed and wanted, almost like you can sense…
The Honeyman and the Hunter by Neil Grant
‘How do we find the place where we belong?’ asks Neil Grant in his newest YA novel, as he follows Rudra Solace from a beachside fishing village on the Australian coast to a sunken village in India. Rudra, a likeable…
Internment by Samira Ahmed
Set in a possible near future, this is a terrifying America featuring segregation, abuses of power and racism. One night, seventeen-year-old Layla and her parents are given ten minutes to pack up their things before they are taken to an…
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
This moving novel creates the claustrophobia and snowy hush of seventeen-year-old student Marin’s winter break, which she’s chosen to spend in the empty dorms of her upstate New York college. This decision is part of a year spent deliberately removing…
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