WBD Survey 13

Lots of book recommendations to catch up on, even though it's the day after World Book Day - and there will be plenty more in coming days (our survey remains open here). This time, all the recommendations are from SCC staff and pupils:

Dr Stone: An Ice-Cream War, by William Boyd It is a novel set in a fascinating time and place (East Africa during World War I), brilliantly written with wonderful use of words and an interestingly structured approach to time and narrative. The characters are brilliantly drawn and the evocation of the human condition in all its vagaries is sympathetic and well conceived.

Mrs Heffernan: Room, by Emma Donoghue If you enjoy books in which the content allows your mind to grapple and question long after you have finished then this is for you. It, on initial read, begins playing with your emotions from the first page. It's sad! However it slowly develops into a happy and occasionally funny, in part, ending. It's about a mother and aon living in captivity after she was abducted many years before. It's set in America, so the subject matter is quite relevant in view of recent real cases of the same thing there. I can't think of any one word that will explain to a prospective reader what this book encapsulates - maybe just 'must read'.

Tristan: 1,000 Years Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke It's a grown up version of the Horrible Histories I used to read as a child. A very humorous, and only slightly biased, look at Anglo-French relations for the past thousand years.

Viva-Bavaria: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank Anne and her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933 after the Nazis gained power in Germany, and were trapped by the occupation of the Netherlands, which began in 1940. It tells the story of a Jewish girl, hiding in a office building, in her early teens and describes both the joys and torments of daily life. Anne Frank's diary is often said to be "classic" and a book of the contemporary world literature and yet no lesser designation serves. The book speaks for itself. It gives another perspective to World War II. This is the true story of a group of people who are living in hope and fear. It is a truly remarkable book.

And two more - Sarah-Jane Johnson : The Life and Death of Charlie St Cloud, by Ben Sherwood. A pupil: The Alchemist, by Michael Scott.