TY Extended Essay recommendations

Transition Year pupils are now well into their reading for their Extended Essay projects. Over the next week or so, we'll be posting recommendations from their reading.

Susannah Cooke recommends Robert Alexander's The Kitchen Boy - a novel of the last Tsar, and writes: 'This is a novel about how the Russian imperial family were executed, and about the events leading up to it. It is based on true escape letters, and many characters are real. It is a very original approach to the death of the Romanovs. It is written through the eyes of their 'kitchen boy', and shows what he saw in the last days of the family. It is very interesting, and an enjoyable read that has many twists throughout the story. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Romanovs or the Russian Revolution.'

Jack Armstrong is reading Pierre Peju's The Girl from the Chartreuse : 'The plot is that a small girl gets hit by a car and is taken to a hospital. The man who hit her reads books to her, and the story is about what they are going through. I really like the way the author describes all the surroundings and how the characters are feeling. The part I don't like about the book is the way the author skips back in time to tell you what sort of life they were living: I got confused when that happened.'