The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S.

TJ Zaps the New Kid: Stopping a Social Bully (TJ Trapper, Bully Zapper) (Tj Trapper Bully Zapper, 1)

Delilah: Three Books in One!

Humbug

Things We Like

Your Friend, Rebecca (New Windmills)

Cousins: Not Quite Sisters

In the spring of 1945 a mother dies, leaving four children to fend for themselves in a Dublin tenement.

Nancy, the oldest, lives in dread of the family being split up. The power to send them all to industrial schools such as Artane and Goldenbridge lies with the 'Cruelty Men'. Their spy, the Pig Farmer, lives next door and holds a long term grudge against the family.

Thankfully Nancy has loyal friends in Summerhill and the Diamond, among them Lilly, her brother Charlie Weaver, a Dublin newsboy, and their ma, Maggie. Through work, Nancy becomes friendly with Karla, a Jewish refugee from Prague.

When Nancy accidentally betrays Charlie to the police, Charlie ends up in Artane industrial school. Desperate to keep her guilty secret and still help her friend, Nancy and Lilly come up with a plan to help Charlie escape on the boat to England. 

Just as her life begins to unravel, Karla steps in with a possible solution to Nancy's problems. Will Nancy succeed in keeping the family together? And at what cost?


Discover Your Child's Next Read

The Mysterious Disappearance of Aidan S.

David Levithan, 2021

Top Teen Stories (Red Hot Reads)

Betsy Byars, Robert Geary, 2004

TJ Zaps the New Kid: Stopping a Social Bully (TJ Trapper, Bully Zapper) (Tj Trapper Bully Zapper, 1)

Gary LaCoste, Lisa Mullarkey, 2012

Delilah: Three Books in One!

Jenny Nimmo, 2007

Humbug

Nina Bawden, 1992

Things We Like

Ladybird, Ladybird Books, 1964

Your Friend, Rebecca (New Windmills)

Linda Hoy, 1983

Cousins: Not Quite Sisters

Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna, 1993