Changes

In fiction, Louise thinks you should look at [[When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall ]]. In a post-apocalyptic world, a close-knit family live isolated from the rest of the country. One day a mysterious young man arrives, changing everything forever. But who is Aashay Kent and why is he so interested in the Polanskis? Morral's world is alien, yet somehow recognisable. It is not so different from our own; which in itself is terrifying. This book is thoroughly absorbing.

For the younger ones, this month we are recommending the fabulous [[Dreaming the Bear by Mimi Thebo ]]. Darcy's a typical teenager whose natural habitat is the shopping mall and the multiplex. It's therefore not surprising that she's finding it almost impossible to adjust to living in a snowy wilderness without television, a phone signal or wifi. So what will happen when she stumbles into the shelter of a cave and finds herself embraced by a hibernating grizzly bear? Hauntingly beautiful, almost dreamlike in places, ''Dreaming the Bear'' is likely to become a children's classic comparable to David Almond's ''Skellig''.