Brilliant Books

Across the Divide is a story about war and pacifism, about making a stand and about seeing different viewpoints.

Winner of the HA Young Quills Award 2019 (11-13 category)

Cambridge, 1860. Would a plant drink ink as happily as it would drink water? Is there anything that eats a cat? How did any spider know how to make such a perfect sticky net for catching flies? Bill's head is full of questions and it always seems to get him into trouble.

Lily has lots of worries. She's struggling to compete in her fell-running races and, worse, she's losing her gran to Alzheimer's. But then she discovers her great-great-grandfather's diaries from the First World War. Could his incredible story of bravery help her reconnect with her gran and even give her the inspiration she needs to push through and win?

In 1593, a girl with spirit is a threat. Ruth has secrets. An old book of heresy belonging to her long-absent father. A dream that haunts her. And love that she and Silas hide from the world. When she is robbed of all she holds true, her friends from Crowbury slide into terrible danger.

The year is 1885 and Erik Weisz, a penniless immigrant, has found himself in trouble again. His uncanny talent for picking locks and his gleeful showboating to match it, have earned him very few friends and a bad reputation. But this is just the beginning of his story and Erik is destined for a far more magical future. Watch as he transforms before your very eyes into the greatest showman the world has ever seen...

Katherine Paterson traces a young teens coming-of-age journey from a sheltered life to a singular mission: teaching fellow Cubans of all ages to read and write while helping with the work of their daily lives and sharing the dangers posed by counterrevolutionaries hiding in the hills nearby. Inspired by true accounts, the novel includes an author's note and a timeline of Cuban history.

Matthew Henson was simply an ordinary man. That was, until Commander Robert E. Peary entered his life, and offered him a chance at true adventure. Henson would become navigator, craftsman, translator, and right-hand man on a treacherous journey to the North Pole. Defying the odds and the many prejudices that faced him to become a true pioneer. This is his incredible and often untold story.

Rose Rivers lives in a beautiful house with her artist father, her difficult, fragile mother and her many siblings.

She has everything money can buy - but she feels as though life isn’t fair for girls and poor people.

Why can’t she be educated at school like her brother?

Why can’t she learn to become a famous artist like her father?

Why is life so unfair for people who were not born rich?

When a young girl, Clover Moon, joins the household as a nursemaid to Rose’s troubled sister Beth, and she meets her father’s bohemian protégé Paris Walker, she starts to learn more about the wider world.

A discovery from ancient Egypt . . .

A cursed package . . .

The untold story of a young pharaoh . . .

When Lilian Kaye finds a parcel on her grandad's doorstep, she is shocked to see who sent it: a famous Egyptologist, found dead that very morning, according to every newspaper in England!

The mysterious package holds the key to a story . . . about a king whose tomb archaeologists are desperately hunting for.

Lil and her friends must embark on an incredible journey - to return the package to its resting place, to protect those they love, and to break the deadly pharaoh's curse . . .

Scribe Nico and his friend Thrax are back in Athens and Nico is looking forward to the spooky festival of Anthesteria and the lavish feasting at Master Lykos's house. But when the boys suspect a plot to assassinate the general of Athens, they must put the fun aside and infiltrate the Society of Centaurs. Will they discover the true identity of the society's leader, and will they stop the assassination?

Orphan Magpie can't believe her eyes when she sees a boy swept off his feet by a kite ... or something that twists and dances in the wind. She goes to his rescue only to find herself dangling in the sky. The world looks so different from on high and suddenly Magpie knows what she wants - to be the first to fly in a balloon above the King and Queen of France ...

Promised in her youth to a widower as a loving wife and mother, she is resigned to an unremarkable existence clinging only to the memory of being "Lovely Lisa" to the now great Leonardo Da Vinci. But when their paths cross again her portrait will become his masterpiece and her smile will capture the imagination of the world.

It's World War Two and Britain is on the brink of invasion. Londoner George has been sent to live in in the countryside while his brother and guardian, Charlie, fights overseas. But the war is closer than he thinks. An ancient burial ground nearby contains a priceless treasure, a magical Anglo-Saxon crown Hitler is desperate to possess. Alongside Kitty, the granddaughter of a Jewish archaeologist, George must find and protect the crown from the Nazi invaders before it's too late ...

The Saxon King Athelstan is trying to unite the kingdom of England for the first time, aided by his body-servant Edwin, the son of a shoemaker. Written by bestselling author, Stuart Hill, this exciting adventure story is perfect for fans of historical fiction and will have readers gripped from start to finish.

France 1916. Angélique Lacroix is haymaking when the postman delivers the news: her father is dead, killed on a distant battlefield. She makes herself a promise: the farm will remain exactly the same until her beloved older brother comes home from the Front.

Russia in 1938 is a place of great terror. Joseph Stalin is in charge. His Secret Police are everywhere, searching for anyone who might be his enemy. People have no idea who they can trust.

Seven-year-old Shura doesn't know about any of this. He's happy in his little home in Leningrad going to school in the mornings, playing with his best friend in the afternoon, fighting with his big sister, spending time with his Mama, Papa and baby brother Bobka.

Until one day everything changes.

It's 1918 and the Great War is entering its final phase. In northern France, young Aimee has just found out that her mother is part of a spy network working with the British. After reluctantly befriending Marius, a German boy who has been left behind by his countrymen, she must try to help him get back behind German lines while evading a traitor she has helped to discover.

Clarry and her older brother Peter live for their summers in Cornwall, staying with their grandparents and running free with their charismatic cousin, Rupert. But normal life resumes each September – boarding school for Peter and Rupert, and a boring life for Clarry at home with her absent father, as the shadow of a terrible war looms ever closer.

When Rupert goes off to fight at the front, Clarry feels their skylark summers are finally slipping away from them. Can their family survive this fearful war?

Winner of the HA Young Quills Award 2019 (14+ category)

Nastia is no traitor. She is a daring pilot, the daughter of revolutionaries, and now, as the Second World War descends on Russia, she must fight to save the glorious Motherland. But all is not as it seems, and when the battles begin, secrets are revealed and everything that she once knew is challenged...

The book's themes include grief, loss, cancer, corruption, poverty and political assassinations. But the personal stories of the two main characters are not overshadowed by the political background, and it is the fact that we care about them both that makes this book so readable. A book for thoughtful, older readers.

This is the story of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's divorce as you've never heard it before - from the eyes of their daughter, Princess Mary.

More than anything Mary just wants her family to stay together; for her mother and her father - and for her - to all be in the same place at once. But when her father announces that his marriage to her mother was void and by turns that Mary doesn't really count as his child, she realises things will never be as she hoped.

A teenage spy. A Nazi boarding school. The performance of a lifetime.

Sarah has played many roles - but now she faces her most challenging of all. Because there's only one way for a Jewish orphan spy to survive at a school for the Nazi elite. And that's to become a monster like them.

They think she is just a little girl. But she is the weapon they never saw coming... with a mission to destroy them all.

In a lowly side-show fair in eighteenth-century England, teenager Mim is struggling to find her worth as an act. Not white, but not black enough to be truly exotic, her pet parrot who speaks four languages is a bigger draw than her. But Alex, the one-armed boxer boy, sees her differently. And she, too, feels newly interested in him.

Russia, 1916.

Nina Ivanovna’s world is in turmoil. Her only hope is to travel to St Petersburg, to escape the past and find a future.

Stefan Kolodin is a medical student – young and idealistic, he wants change for Russia and its people.

Amidst the chaos of a city in revolt, their lives collide. And a stormy relationship develops . . . full of passion and politics.

But soon Nina is drawn in to the glamorous, lavish lives of the Russian royal family – where she begins to fall under the spell of their mysterious monk, Grigory Rasputin. The ruby-studded dagger he carries – beautiful and deadly – could save her and Stefan from a cursed life

. . . or condemn them to it.

Discover World War 2's hidden heroes and villains. Spies, Code Breakers, and Secret Agents explores the intriguing world of spycraft and shows you what goes on behind the scenes in war.

From spy schools and ciphers to sneaky tools and secret armies, this guide takes you on a declassified tour of the undercover operations that helped decide the outcome of World War 2. There's also more than a dozen short spy-ographies that cover some of the most famous (and infamous!) agents that were active during the war.

Learn about 50 women from around the world and throughout history. Telling the stories of their childhood, the challenges they faced and the changes they made. With a range of pioneering careers - from astronauts to activists, musicians to mathematicians and many more - young readers will be inspired to follow their own dreams and to make the world a better place. This is the perfect introduction to some of the amazing women who have shaped our world.

This is history like you've never known it before! Ask yourself . . .

Would you eat squirrel tail soup, cow's udders, or a carrot on a stick?

Could you share 12.7cm of bathwater with your WHOLE family - for your weekly wash?

If you were a spy, which gadgets and inventions would you choose?

From flying tanks to Operation Toenail, read about the daring, tragic and heroic events that shaped one of the most influential conflicts in modern times.

All the foul favourites from the Horrible Histories series presented in a blood-curdling box with flip-top lid. Contains twenty books and includes the Rotten Romans, Terrible Tudors and Awesome Egyptians.

Covering political masterminds and military geniuses such as Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, great kings, queens, and rulers like Elizabeth I or Cleopatra, icons of religion and rebellion from Muhammad to Mohandas Gandhi to Emmeline Pankhurst, and inspirational captains of industry, Leaders explores and explains the groundbreaking contributions made by these men and women and their legacies.

Anne Frank's unique diary, describing her family's plight during the Nazi persecution, is accompanied by substantial background material and photographs to help students to contextualise this teenager's account.

This is a story about you.

It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species - births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration.

Hope in a Ballet Shoe tells the story of Michaela DePrince. Growing up in war-torn Sierra Leone, she witnessed atrocities that no child ever should. Her father was killed by rebels and her mother died of famine. Sent to an orphanage, Michaela was mistreated and saw the brutal murder of her favourite teacher.

Then Michaela and her best friend are adopted by an American couple...

The story of two brothers who fought in the First World War through the real letters, complete with hand-drawn cartoons, they sent to their sisters. Like so many families across the world, the Semple family were split apart by the First World War. While William and Robert were fighting the Germans in France, their younger sisters, Mabel and Jelly (Eileen), had to carry on with school back in England. To keep in touch, they wrote letters. The sisters treasured these letters, which gave snapshots of their brothers' lives as soldiers.

Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.

Miller takes readers along as she investigates a brutal crime: the August 4, 1892, murders of wealthy and prominent Andrew and Abby Borden. The accused? Mild-mannered and highly respected Lizzie Borden, daughter of Andrew and stepdaughter of Abby.

On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War.

Tells the remarkable story of a girl who knew from a young age that she wanted to change the world - and did. Her journey will open your eyes to another world and will make you believe in hope, truth, miracles, and the determination of one person to inspire change.

Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan transformed by terrorism, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on 9 October, 2012, she nearly lost her life for the cause. She was shot point-blank on her way home from school. No one expected her to survive.

Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman knew the thirst for freedom. Inspired by rumors of an “underground railroad” that carried slaves to liberation, she dreamed of escaping the nightmarish existence of the Southern plantations and choosing a life of her own making. But after she finally did escape, Tubman made a decision born of profound courage and moral conviction: to go back and help those she’d left behind.

The memoir recalls the devastating years that shaped her childhood. Following Hitler’s rise to power, the Blumenthal family—father, mother, Marion, and her brother, Albert—were trapped in Nazi Germany. They managed eventually to get to Holland, but soon thereafter it was occupied by the Nazis. For the next six and a half years the Blumenthals were forced to live in refugee, transit, and prison camps, including Westerbork in Holland and Bergen-Belsen in Germany, before finally making it to the United States. Their story is one of horror and hardship, but it is also a story of courage, hope, and the will to survive.

Find out about the fast and furious growth and evolution of video games (including how they are quickly taking over the world!) by looking at some of the most popular, innovative, and influential games ever, from Pong, the very first arcade game ever, to modern hits like Uncharted.

Learn about the creators and inspiration (Mario was named after Nintendo’s landlord after he barged into a staff meeting demanding rent), discover historical trivia and Easter eggs (The developers of Halo 2 drank over 24,000 gallons of soda while making the game), and explore the innovations that make each game special (The ghosts in Pac-Man are the first example of AI in a video game).