BOLD GIRLS

Siri and her little sister Miki live with their elderly father in an Arctic archipelago. One day, while they are out gathering snowberries, Miki is abducted by Captain Whitehead, a fearsome pirate with hair white as snow. All he wants is children, the smaller the better, to work in his mine all day long, digging for diamonds. No one has ever dared to search for the taken children. However, on the day he captures Miki, he makes himself an enemy he never could have imagined, as ten-year-old Siri dares to face treacherous sailors, hungry wolves and the Arctic winter to rescue her sister.

L. J. Sedgwick is a well-known name in screenwriting circles. Anybody with young children will be aware of Punky, possibly the first mainstream animation worldwide to focus on a main character with special needs. This, her latest book for young adults, is set on a wild peninsula in Donegal.

Tilly has a nice life. She does OK in school, has an amicable relationship with her tabloid reporter dad and her best friend is pretty great. So why does she feel compelled to sneak out at night and climb to the top of Belfast’s highest buildings and cranes? When Tilly meets gorgeous enigma Brew, a make-up-wearing, coffee-chugging, beer-brewing squatter who’s running from a violent past, she’s drawn into the underground world of the ‘Unknowns’, a gang of misfits who believe they can fight the city’s sectarianism and violence through locally focused social-justice activism.

As a child, Libby Jackson would look up at the night sky and dream. She didn’t think a UK citizen could ever work in the space industry, but she studied hard at school, nurturing her passion for puzzle-solving and computers. Now she’s a leading expert in human space flight. Her book shares her story, and those of many other bold women who pushed beyond the barriers placed before them because of gender, race, class and nationality.

In 1577, Queen Elizabeth is governing an England where magic, science and religion are all intertwined. In this period of uncertainty, Alyce’s mother, Ellen Greenliefe, is accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Alyce manages to flee and kill the witch-hunter in her pursuit. Ellen’s last instruction to her daughter is the only thing she can depend on and this leads her to the great city of London on a search for a certain executioner called John Dee.

All explorers have three names and Stella Starflake Pearl wasn’t going to let anyone tell her that girls can’t be explorers. Her father, Felix, came back full of tales of his adventures in far-flung places and, with his departure imminent, Stella simply wouldn’t take no for an answer this time – she was ready to join the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club.

Buaileann muid le Faye, cailín óg dhá bhliain déag d’aois, agus í tar éis dúiseacht ó thromluí eile. Bíonn tromluithe aici go minic - faoin rud céanna gach uair. Tá cónaí uirthi in ionad speisialta faoi chúram an stáit agus níl sí róshásta bheith ann. Bíonn sí i dtrioblóid go minic sa bhaile agus ar scoil ach bíonn sí sona sásta ar an bpáirc pheile, áit a bhfuil a scil agus tallann le feiceáil. Is ar an bpáirc a bhuaileann sí le Liam agus bíonn ionadh uirthi nuair a léiríonn sé spéis inti. Uaidh sin, tosaíonn saol Faye ag athrú.

In a near-future post-apocalyptic world where manipulating human genes is not only normal, but is a technology available to everyone, a teenage girl named Catarina lives alone in an isolated cabin. She’s been there since an all-powerful corporation called Cartaxus took her father away to carry out secret research aimed at combatting the virus that has laid waste to the world.

This graphic-novel treatment of the first leg of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy is of French origin and is here translated back into the language of its source novel, i.e. English. These things happen in the children’s book publishing world.