Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Great Expectations is about Pip, a boy of ten years of age and an
orphan whose life is transformed when he has a terrifying encounter with a mysterious convict Abel Magwitch in the opening chapter. We follow Pip’s life in his quest to become a gentleman and meet many colourful characters, including the eccentric Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward Estella.
Dickens’s themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil.
A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly
Winner of the Carnegie Medal, this book is a thriller about a young girl in 1906 America who finds that she holds clues to a sensational murder case.
Based on a real murder at the turn of the century, this outstanding novel is a powerful and moving coming-of-age book. Mattie is torn between her
familial responsibilities, her desire to be a writer, and the excitement of her first romance.
