Book picks similar to
Billy the Kid by Michael Morpurgo


childrens
fiction
michael-morpurgo
children

Number the Stars


Lois Lowry - 1989
    It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated," Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.

Withering-By-Sea


Judith Rossell - 2014
    Inside the walls of the damp, dull hotel, eleven-year-old orphan Stella Montgomery leads a miserable life with her three dreadful Aunts. But one night, Stella sees something she shouldn't have... Something that will set in motion and adventure more terrifying and more wonderful than she could ever have hoped for...

Winnie-the-Pooh


A.A. Milne - 1926
    The adventures of Christopher Robin and his friends in which Pooh Bear uses a balloon to get honey, Piglet meets a Heffalump, and Eeyore has a birthday.

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth


E.L. Konigsburg - 1967
    She's also pretty lonely, until she meets Jennifer. Jennifer is...well, different. She's read Macbeth. She never wears jeans or shorts. She never says please or thank you. And she says she is a witch. It's not always easy being friends with a witch, but it's never boring. At first an apprentice and then a journeyman witch, Elizabeth learns to eat raw ends and how to cast small spells. And she and Jennifer collaborate on cooking up an ointment that will enable them to fly. That's when a marvelous toad, Hilary Ezra, enters their lives. And that's when trouble starts to brew.

When Marnie Was There


Joan G. Robinson - 1967
    Then she is sent to Norfolk to stay with old Mr and Mrs Pegg, where she runs wild on the sand dunes and around the water. There is a house, the Marsh House, which she feels she recognises - and she soon meets a strange little girl called Marnie, who becomes Anna's first ever friend. Then one day, Marnie vanishes. A new family, the Lindsays, move into the Marsh House. Having learnt so much from Marnie about friendship, Anna makes firm friends with the Lindsays - and learns some strange truths about Marnie, who was not all she seemed...

The Diddakoi


Rumer Godden - 1968
    She has rings in her ears and she sometimes comes to school in a little wagon."Kizzy Lovell is a gypsy girl. She has her gran and her horse, Joe, and she doesn't need anything else. Then Gran dies, her wagon burns, and Kizzy is left all alone - in a community that hates her.

The Tower Treasure


Franklin W. Dixon - 1927
    This first one, "The Tower Mystery," introduced the action, mystery, and suspense themes. The boys continue to deliver thrills to this day.It all starts with the boys, Frank and Joe, on their motorcycles delivering important papers to a lawyer in Willowville for their father, Fenton Hardy. He's the well-known private investigator in Bayport. A reckless driver almost forces them over the embankment. It is not long before they find that their friend Chet's yellow jalopy has been stolen, possibly by the same red-haired driver! Stolen loot may be the issue. Later a dying criminal confesses that the loot has been stashed "in the tower" and the Hardy Boys make an astonishing discovery.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?: The Diary of Molly MacKenzie Flaherty, Boston, Massachusetts, 1968


Ellen Emerson White - 2002
    He is a Marine stationed in Vietnam. She is at home in America, far away from her brother's war zone, fighting for peace. As the marine writes in his journal about his experiences as a soldier, fighting an enemy he can't see, his sister seeks peace. In these gripping installments of DEAR AMERICA and MY NAME IS AMERICA, Ellen Emerson White captures the unique time period when America was at war both in a far-off place, and at home where adults and children alike marched in the streets for peace and freedom. Poignant and complex, these two characters will give readers a glimpse into perhaps the most tumultuous time in modern American history.

The Clockwork Three


Matthew J. Kirby - 2010
    But when a mysterious green violin enters his life he begins to imagine a life of freedom. Hannah is a soft-hearted, strong-willed girl from the tenements, who supports her family as a hotel maid when tragedy strikes and her father can no longer work. She learns about a hidden treasure, which she knows will save her family — if she can find it. And Frederick, the talented and intense clockmaker's apprentice, seeks to learn the truth about his mother while trying to forget the nightmares of the orphanage where she left him. He is determined to build an automaton and enter the clockmakers' guild — if only he can create a working head.Together, the three discover they have phenomenal power when they team up as friends, and that they can overcome even the darkest of fears.

A Spy on the Home Front: A Molly Mystery


Alison Hart - 2005
    When Aunt Eleanor, now a WASP pilot, stops for a visit while ferrying a warplane from one airbase to another, a security check uncovers anti-American propaganda stashed aboard her plane. The FBI interrogates Eleanor but quickly zeroes in on another suspect--Anna's 17-year-old brother Max, who works at the local airfield. Though Anna knows her brother is loyal to America, she fears he'll be sent away to an interment camp as an enemy alien, as other German-American friends have been. Molly and Anna decide that the only way to clear Max is to find the person who is smuggling propaganda. With lots of daring and a little luck, the girls manage to finger the real culprit but they discover that that may not be enough to save Max. In a poignant ending, Molly realizes that wartime, even on the home front, changes friends and family forever."

Odd and the Frost Giants


Neil Gaiman - 2008
    Nobody knows why.And Odd has run away from home, even though he can barely walk and has to use a crutch.Out in the forest he encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle - three creatures with a strange story to tell.Now Odd is faced with a stranger journey than he had ever imagined.A journey to save Asgard, City of the Norse Gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it.It's going to take a very special kind of boy to defeat the most dangerous of all the Frost Giants and rescue the mighty Gods. Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever.Someone just like Odd...

The Betsy-Tacy Treasury


Maud Hart Lovelace - 1995
    The first four books in the Betsy-Tacy series: Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go over the Big Hill, and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown.

The Daydreamer


Ian McEwan - 1994
    He's a quiet ten year old who can't help himself from dropping out of reality and into the amazing world of his vivid imagination. His daydreams are fantastic and fascinating - only in the bizarre and disturbing world of dreams can he swap bodies with the family cat and his baby cousin, Kenneth, or wipe out his entire family with vanishing cream.