High School 5 min read

Recommended reading - Year 9

Nuanced storytelling, enduring classics, and world literature curated for Year 9 readers.

Curated by LiteCapsule Reading Vault

Table Block

Title Author Synopsis Rating
Secrets of Walden Rising First published 1997
Allan Baillie Walden, a town noted for its history of violence and murder, and a bandit's hidden treasure, reappears as the lake that covers it begins to dry up -
One More River (and its sequel Broken Bridge) First published 1973
Lynne Reid Banks Resentful at being forced to leave Canada, Lesley's adjustment to life in the Israeli kibbutz is not easy. -
The Outcast, The Punisher, and The Rule Market (Trilogy)
Patricia Bernard For hundreds of years, the Eastern Zoners have slaved for the Megas--the technologically advanced beings living behind the walled city of Megalopolis. Each eighteen-year-old scavenges a living in the deadly Arid Zone until they either turn... -
Zones First published 1997
Broderick, Damien & Barnes, Rory An Australian young adult science fiction novel. It follows the story of Jenny who in the 1990s receives a phone call from a boy in 1965. -
American Dream First published 1961
Peter Carey The play, a satire on American family life, concerns a married couple and their elderly mother. They are visited by two guests this particular day who turn their world upside down. The family in this play consist of a dominating Mommy, an...
★3.5Open Library (2)
The Gathering First published 1993
Isobelle Carmody When fifteen-year-old Nathanial moves to a sinister town that has been bruised by an ancient evil, he finds himself one of those chosen to fight the cycle of darkness. -
A Cage of Butterflies First published 1992
Brian Caswell "We're like a new toy... or a new energy source, and they're just playing with us, experimenting. Working out what we can do. What they can do with us." Mikki and the others live at "the farm" - an advanced learning facility, a think-tank for a...
★3.0Google Books (6)
Only the Heart First published 1985
Caswell, Brian & Chiem, David They sought freedom--and found love Travis Hoyt emerged from the night to pluck her from a rainswept doorway. His manner was rough, his face forbidding, but Cathy Donnelly gratefully accepted his offer of sanctuary from the storm. Soaked to the... -
The Heroic Life of Al Capsella First published 1988
Judith Clarke "Al comes across as a low-key Holden Caulfield. Quietly humorous in places, the book, like The Catcher in the Rye, emphasizes the main character’s internal musings. Engaging, perceptive Al is a fellow worth knowing."--Publishers Weekly
★5.0Google Books (1)
I am the Cheese First published 1977
Robert Cormier A young boy desperately tries to unlock his past yet knows he must hide those memories if he is to remain alive.
★3.8Open Library (4) ★4.0Google Books (3)
Chasing Redbird First published 1997
Sharon Creech Deutsch-Übersetzung von *Chasing Redbird* Eine Grille, 99 Kronkorken, eine Schildkröte, ein Hundewelpe, ein Diamantring – Jake Boone macht der dreizehnjährigen Zinny ein Geschenk nach dem anderen. Ausgerechnet Zinny, und nicht ihrer schönen...
★5.0Open Library (2)
Angel's Gate First published 1990
Garry Crew Young Fred Fairly, a junior fellow at St. Angelicus College in 1912 Cambridge, falls in love with the dangerously mysterious Daisy, whom he awakens next to one morning after a freak accident.
★3.0Open Library (1)
The Apostle Bird First published 1997
Garry Disher ‘a masterful achievement’ Magpies We have come here to scratch for gold. Once we had a house, a business and a Packard sedan, but they are gone now, seized by the bank. The year is 1934, the time of the Great Depression. The place is a... -
Beyond the Hanging Wall First published 1996
Sara Douglass Accompanying his physician father on his annual journey to the Escator prison mines, apprentice Garth Baxtor works to develop his ability to diagnose others by touching them and discovers a horrifying secret when working with a prisoner.
★3.0Open Library (1)
Seedfolks First published 1997
Paul Fleischman One by one, a number of people of varying ages and backgrounds transform a trash-filled inner-city lot into a productive and beautiful garden, and in doing so, the gardeners are themselves transformed.
★4.7Open Library (6)
Refuge First published 1998
Libby Gleeson Andrew's sister likes fighting for causes - Now she has involved Andrew and he finds himself keeping secrets from his family and friends and even the girl he really likes; Literature Circles Year 8._
★3.0Google Books (1)
The Broken Wheel (and its sequel Cave Rats) First published 2013
Kerry Greenwood Sarah has been orphaned by destructive forces. The Luddites have been training her for a special mission - to find the last computer. But Sarah still has an independent streak, and can still think for herself. But she must resolve her conflict of... -
Fracture Zone First published 1999
Jonathan Harlen A True Portrait of One of the World's Most Chaotic and Beautiful Regions That Explains Why Violence Has Always Occurred There--And Why It May Continue For Years To ComeThe vast and mountainous area that makes up the Balkans is rife with discord,...
★4.0Open Library (1)
Out of the Dust First published 1997
Karen Hesse In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
★4.1Open Library (16) ★3.5Google Books (18)
Dr Id First published 2007
Simon Higgins Months after the events of Doctor Id, Jade Draper is struggling to get her life back together. Jade is now a journalist for her school's online magazine. Jade writes two columns, technology and crime-reporting. Jade's psychiatrist suggest further... -
Loving Athena First published 2021
Joanne Horniman Keats meets an extraordinary girl, Athena, and so begins an extraordinary relationship_ -
The Serpentine Belt First published 1904
Joanne Horniman Dramatic novel for teenagers by the author of TThe End of the World Girl' and TSand Monkeys'. Sixteen year old Emily puzzles over the mysterious serpentine belt mentioned in her father's diary. Can it really heal pain and change the past?. -
Fire Dance First published 2005
Victor Kelleher This book is an analysis of the textual representation of dance in the Australian novel since the late 1890s. It examines how the act of dance is variously portrayed, how the word 'dance' is used metaphorically to convey actual or imagined movement,... -
Taronga First published 2013
Victor Kelleher The great dome of the sky, black, star-sprinkled, arched above him, appearing at that moment so limitless, so vast and free, that the fences and cages of Taronga were dwarfed, reduced to the point where they barely seemed to exist . . . Every so... -
The Long Season of Rain First published 1996
Helen Kim When the gray Korean "Changma"--the rainy season--arrives, 11-year-old Junehee resigns herself to long months cooped up with her sisters, mother and grandmother. But the rain also brings a young boy, orphaned by a mud slide, into Junehee's house. A... -
But can the Phoenix Sing First published 1993
Christa Laird Seventeen-year-old Richard discovers the incredible details of his stern and remote stepfather's hidden past when he is left a manuscript to read while his stepfather is away in Australia. -
Because we were the Travellers First published 1998
Jack Lasenby The first novel in the exciting Travellers series - a young adult fantasy story of survival against the odds in a fearful futuristic world. In a land called the Whykatto, south of the city of Orklun, the sun rises angry in the sky, eats the winter...
★4.0Open Library (1)
Lost for Words First published 1993
Elizabeth Lutzeier When Aysha and her mother move to England to join her father she finds it is not how she expected. Suggested level: secondary. -
Escape from Sarajevo First published 1996
Christobel Mattingley Sequel to No Guns for Asmir Asmir in ViennaUpper Primary. -
Rebecca First published 1938
Daphne du Maurier The bestselling classic and masterpiece of psychological fiction 'The greatest psychological thriller of all time' ERIN KELLY 'The book every writer wishes they'd written' CLARE MACKINTOSH 'Excellent entertainment . . . du Maurier created a scale by...
★4.2Open Library (52) ★3.5Google Books (5)
Finn and the Big Guy First published 1997
David Metzenthen Finn comes to the city for his first big break - as a stable hand at a large racetrack. Working with the horses he loves, Finn feels valuable for the first time in his life. But there's trouble at the track, and Finn finds his resources pushed to the limit... -
Dougy First published 1993
James Moloney When Dougy's sister Gracey is picked for the state athletics championships, not everybody in their small bush town is pleased. "Aborigines get special treatment", some of the angry white people say - "It's not fair!" The championships change...
★3.0Google Books (16)
Bridge to Wiseman's Cove First published 1996
James Moloney Carl Matt - even his name mocks him. The people of Wattle Beach do their best to grind him under foot.Why are the Matts such pariahs? The answer lies in Wiseman's Cove, a short ride across the strait where Carl finds refuge in the most unlikely...
★2.5Google Books (28)
Raw First published 2005
Scott Monk Brett Dalton is a tough guy - hardened, angry, uncaring and always ready to use his fists. When the world hates you, you might as well hate it back...But when Brett is busted by the cops for stealing and sent to The Farm for rehab, there are no...
★2.0Google Books (3)
Shade's Children First published 1997
Garth Nix The Key to Survival Rests in the Hands of Shade's Children In a futuristic urban wasteland, evil Overlords have decreed that no child shall live a day past his fourteenth birthday. On that Sad Birthday, the child is the object of an obscene...
★4.7Open Library (3) ★4.0Google Books (5)
Peeling the Onion First published 1999
Wendy Orr An honest, unsentimental story of pain and change and love. A powerful novel about a girl re-making her life after a car accident. For teenagers and young adults. -
Music from a Place called Half Moon First published 1995
Jerrie Oughton The summer Edie Jo meets Cherokee Fish is the summer her whole world changes. Her town is astir with anti-Native American tension, and it seems that her father is the only person in all of North Carolina who believes in integration.... -
Sisters… No Way First published 1998
Siobhan Parkinson In separate diaries, Cindy and Ashling record their reactions as Cindy's widowed father and Asling's divorced mother become involved with each other and eventually marry. -
Jacob Have I Loved First published 1980
Katherine Paterson I was proud of my sister, but that year, something began to rankle beneath the pride. Louise has had enough of her twin sister. Caroline is beautiful. Caroline is talented. Caroline is better. Growing up on the small island of Rass in Chesapeake...
★4.2Open Library (5) ★4.0Google Books (1)
Foxman First published 1977
Gary Paulsen A town boy sent to live on a remote wilderness farm forms a friendship with an elderly, disfigured man who teaches him many things.
★4.0Open Library (1)
The Schernoff Discoveries First published 1997
Gary Paulsen Harold Schernoff, 14-year-old science whiz and social nerd, has a theory for every problem, from dating, to bullies, to making money, to sports, to how to buy a car when you're underage. When he and his buddy team up to put his theories to the test,...
★4.0Google Books (1)
Tales of Mystery and Terror (Imagination) First published 1979
Edgar Allan Poe A collection of four well-known tales of mystery and suspense including "The Gold Bug," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-tale Heart," and "The Cask of Amontillado." -
Northern Lights (and its sequel The Subtle Knife) First published 1995
Philip Pullman Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.
★3.9Open Library (228)
Watching Seagulls First published 2016
Sue Saliba A story about a girl's struggle to grow up and accept the changes that take place in the people around her___ -
Dracula First published 1897
Bram Stoker To borrow a phrase used by one of the characters in the novel, Dracula is “nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance.” In her introduction to this edition Glennis Byron first discusses the famous novel as an expression not of universal...
★4.0Open Library (241)
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry First published 1976
Mildred Taylor Set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, it is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence. It is a story of physical survival, but more important, it is a story of the survival of the human...
★4.2Open Library (33)
The Flight of Burl Crow
Tim Wynne-Jones '.a remarkable thing has happened. A boy has stumbled out of the woods. I call him a wild child' ;A powerful adventure story, full of danger, courage, music and compassion. -

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Curated book recommendations and classics across Years 3 to 10.