Book picks similar to
Morrison & Mr Moore by Michael Hyde


australian-author
young-adult
friendship
loveozya

Becoming Aurora


Elizabeth Kasmer - 2016
    Our pack moves as one, past empty shop fronts and faded billboards.Sixteen-year-old Rory is at a crossroads in her life. While her gang plans its next move in a racially motivated turf war, Rory is sentenced to spend her summer at an aged care facility. She's proud of taking the rap for a crime her gang committed and reading to a feisty old boxing champion isn't going to change that.But what happens when Rory's path intersects with migrant boxer Essam's and she becomes the victim, not the perpetrator? Can she find the courage to face her past and become the girl her dad called Aurora?

How to Bee


Bren MacDibble - 2017
    In a world where real bees are extinct, the quickest, bravest kids climb the fruit trees and pollinate the flowers by hand.Will Peony's grit and quick thinking be enough to keep her safe?A story about family, loyalty, kindness and bravery, set against an all-too possible future where climate change has forever changed the way we live.

100 Remarkable Feats of Xander Maze


Clayton Zane Comber - 2021
    But can his list of 100 Remarkable Feats really save his nanna?Xander Maze loves lists, and his grandmother is #1 in his list of People I Love Most in the World. But now that Nanna has stage 4 cancer, can a new list of 100 Remarkable Feats really save her life?Particularly when his list contains difficult things like #2 Make a Friend and #3 Make a Best Friend.Funny, moving and with a protagonist you can't help but fall in love with, 100 Remarkable Feats of Xander Mazeis#1 Heartbreaking#2 Heartwarmingand a book about defying the odds, not accepting the unacceptable, and one boy's unconditional love for his nanna.

Fury


Shirley Marr - 2010
    Let me tell you my story.Not just the facts I know you want to hear.If I’m going to tell you my story,I’m telling it my way.Strap yourself in...Eliza Boans has everything.A big house.A great education.A bright future.So why is she sitting in a police station confessing to murder?

The Things I Didn't Say


Kylie Fornasier - 2016
    I've used up every dandelion wish since I was ten wishing for the power to speak whenever I want to. I'm starting to wonder if there are enough dandelions.After losing her best friend that night, Piper Rhodes changes schools, determined that her final year will be different. She will be different. Then she meets West: school captain, star soccer player, the boy everyone talks about. Despite her fear of losing everything all over again, Piper falls in love - and West with her - without Piper ever speaking one word to him. But will it last?

Whisper


Chrissie Keighery - 2011
    Always having to fill in the gaps, but never getting all the details. It's like trying to do a jigsaw when I don't even know what the picture is, and I'm missing one of the vital middle pieces.How do you know if your friends are talking about you behind your back or if a boy likes you? They could act innocent, but you'd know from the rumours. You'd hear the whispers. But what if you couldn't hear those whispers anymore? What if everything you took for granted was gone? Being a teenager is hard enough.But being a deaf teenager?

The F Team


Rawah Arja - 2020
    When the team is formed, Tariq learns there’s a major catch – half of the team is made up of white boys from Cronulla, aka enemy territory – and he must compete with their strongest player for captaincy of the team.At school Tariq thinks he has life all figured out until he falls for a new girl called Jamila, who challenges everything he thought he knew. At home, his outspoken ways have brought him into conflict with his family. Now, with complications on all fronts, he has to dig deep to control his anger, and find what it takes to be a leader.In confronting and often hilarious situations, Tariq’s relationships with his extended Lebanese family and his friends are tested like never before, and he comes to learn that his choices can have serious consequences.

The Man in the Water


David Burton - 2019
    But when he returns to the site with the constable, the body is gone. Determined to reveal the truth, Shaun and his best friend, Will, open their own investigation. But what they discover is far more sinister than a mining mishap or a murder, and reveals a darkness below the surface of their small town.David Burton is the author of How to Be Happy, winner of the 2014 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing.

Belly Flop


Morris Gleitzman - 1996
    Desperate to win friends and earn his family the gratitude of the hostile locals, he decides to become a world champion diver. Trouble is, there's no water big enough to dive into for 600 miles... A new, bitter-sweet and brilliantly funny novel from an internationally acclaimed children's writer.

Summer Skin


Kirsty Eagar - 2016
    Last year the jocks from Knights College tried to shame her best friend. This year she and a hand-picked college girl gang are going to get even.The lesson: don't mess with Unity girls.The target: Blondie, a typical Knights stud, arrogant, cold . . . and smart enough to keep up with Jess.A neo-riot grrl with a penchant for fanning the flames meets a rugby-playing sexist pig - sworn enemies or two people who happen to find each other when they're at their most vulnerable?It's all Girl meets Boy, Girl steals from Boy, seduces Boy, ties Boy to a chair and burns Boy's stuff. Just your typical love story.A searingly honest and achingly funny story about love and sex amid the hotbed of university colleges by the award-winning author of Raw Blue.

Steal My Sunshine


Emily Gale - 2013
    It's going to take more than a cool change to fix it, but how can a girl who lives in the shadows take on the task alone? Feeling powerless and invisible, Hannah seeks refuge in the two anarchists of her life: her wild best friend, Chloe, and her eccentric grandmother, Essie, who look like they know how life really works. But Hannah's loyalty to both is tested, first by her attraction to Chloe's older brother, and then by Essie's devastating secret that sheds new light on how the family has lost its way. Even if Hannah doesn't know what to believe in, she'd better start believing in herself. Combined with Hannah's contemporary story, at the heart of Steal My Sunshine is the revelation of a shameful aspect of Australia's history and how it affected thousands of girls and women—the forced adoptions that saw 'wayward girls' and single mothers forced to give up their babies by churches and hospitals. The practice endured for decades, and only now are the numbers and the heart-wrenching stories coming to light.

Salt Rain


Sarah Armstrong - 2004
    Set within Australia's lush rain forest at the height of the rainy season, Salt Rain is an absorbing debut about sifting through the complicated stories that shape us, and ultimately reclaiming them as our own.

Guitar Highway Rose


Brigid Lowry - 1997
    I am nearly sixteen. I'm hungry for a juicy life. I lean out the window at night and I can taste it out there, waiting for me.Popular and smart, fifteen-year-old Rosie Moon is the quintessential good girl. She also wishes she could be someone else for a while, someone more interesting. Asher Fielding is the mysterious new boy at school who has dreadlocks and a love of Jim Morrison. On the first day of tenth grade, Rosie develops a crush on Asher, and when the two pair up for a poetry assignment they quickly form a bond. When Asher is falsely accused of stealing a wallet at school, he and Rosie decide to escape it all - their families, their school, their ordinary town - and hitchhike up the Australian coast. They know they shouldn't, and that is exactly why they do. Part road story, part love story, Guitar Highway Rose is a thrilling ride for anyone who has ever dreamed about escaping everyday life, even just for a little while.

Girl Defective


Simmone Howell - 2013
    It’s about ten-year-old Super Agent Gully and his case of a lifetime. And about beautiful, reckless, sharp-as-knives Nancy. It’s about tragi-hot Luke, and just-plain-tragic Mia Casey. It’s about the dark underbelly of a curious neighborhood. It’s about summer, and weirdness, and mystery, and music. And it's about life and death and grief and romance. All the good stuff.

A Year in Girl Hell


Meredith Costain - 2011
    One hell of a time. It’s the first year of high school and everything’s changing...Lexie is struggling with balancing her old friends and her new friends. Michi is the target of a cyber-bullying hate campaign. Mia feels like her friends are too busy to notice her problems, and Alysha is desperate to make it into the popular group. High school is shaping up to be hell.