It was an old dream of mine to have The Alchemist as a graphic novel. This version exceeds my expectations and is a beautiful manifestation of what I originally imagined while crafting this story.—Paulo Coelho

“What?” by Mark Kurlansky was a great read, and it’s short! Part philosophy, part history, and with the whole text presented in the form of questions it would be great for senior boys. Dr Peter Coutis

In the holidays I read the four books in the ‘Power of Five” series by Anthony Horowicz. I think their titles are Ravens Gate, Dark Star, …. (can’t remember) and Necropolis – but you probably know them already.

They were fantastic and I read all four in 4 days. My only disappointment is that we seem to have been left ‘up in the air’ wondering what is going to happen next: I believe the rest of the series is yet to be published.

I would recommend them for boys especially in Years 7-10, and also for ‘young adult’ readers like me!

Mr Geoffrey Wemyss

My pick of the holidays is the “Tall Man” by Chloe Hooper. We had to buy a second copy over Christmas just so more family members could read it. It would be appropriate for older students 11-12 particualry those studying Australian history, revolutions, cultural studies or those with a keen interest in legal studies and indigenous affairs.

Below is the extract from Penguin:

“The Tall Man is the story of Palm Island (Queensland), the tropical paradise where one morning Cameron Doomadgee swore at a policeman and forty minutes later lay dead in a watch-house cell.

It is the story of that policeman, the tall, enigmatic Christopher Hurley who chose to work in some of the toughest and wildest places in Australia, and of the struggle to bring him to trial.

Above all, it is a story in luminous detail of two worlds clashing - and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget.”

Mr Scott Buchanan

Imagine God is a teenage boy, (given the job of creating life on earth because no other Gods can be bothered with this badly positioned outpost in a far-flung part of the universe), and  Bob (alias God) is your typical teenage boy ie. lazy, arrogant and monosyllabic. This is the premise for Meg Rosoff’s first comic novel, an outrageously sacrilegious, tongue in cheek joust at creationism and adolescent boys that definitely will appeal to parents of the above, and hopefully to their sons as well. When Bob falls in love with adorable human Lucy, his long-suffering assistant Mr B wonders despairingly why Bob can’t ‘get it up for some nice goddess’- his affairs with humans have a tendency to lead to meteorological disasters on a grand scale. So begins a hilariously original tale – the only book I can compare it to is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and that should be recommendation enough for anyone.

Ms Michelle Sweeney

At the end of last year one of my Year 12 Literature students, Levi King, gave me a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. He said it was the novel that had affected him most deeply throughout his secondary school years, and I can understand why. It is a moving exploration of one young boy’s grief following the loss of a father in the traumatic September 11 attack on New York. Safran Foer manages to avoid both depressing gloom and overt sentimentality by engaging readers with a colourful and eccentric portrait of family life, and by ambitiously spanning a number of generations of the family’s history he reminds us that trauma – in its myriad forms – can bring us all closer. The novel is funny, tragic and ultimately uplifting.

Mr Ryan Johnstone

I read “Fair Cop “ which is written about Christine Nixon over the break.

I read this because I have felt very guilty about the way she was treated in the Royal Commission and wanted to get a feel for her career and personality.

She was certainly an amazing woman who has contributed the policies and efficiency in the current Victorian Police Force. She lead a war on corruption and unacceptable and unprofessional practices within the Force and had an amazing and distinguished career which ended in her being dishonoured for her actions on Black Saturday. I found it totally embarrassing to read of her treatment during the Royal Commission and struggle to understand how such a distinguished career could end on such a low note .

Mrs Libby Moore

Peter Seligman was one of the engineers who built the first bionic ear. His short book is available for free download from “The Melbourne Energy Institute”. It is based on (English Physicist) David MacKay’s “Sustainable Energy - without the hot air”, and crunches numbers to provide a realistic account of what it would cost to provide Australia’s energy from sustainable sources with near zero greenhouse emissions. He does not get caught up in sentiment and explains how we can get most “bang for buck”. He clearly shows that with appropriate leadership and support we could reduce our per capita carbon footprint from being the worst on the planet to near zero. (Note, this book contains LOTS of numbers.)

Mr Keith Oatley