Females Taking The Lead

Often, when lists of books for year groups are published, there is a request for more books with female protagonists.  I have noticed in the past year or so there has been a rise in books with a female lead. 

Protagonist:  The central character of a story.  They make the key decisions and experience the consequences of those decisions.  The protagonist is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles as well as propelling agent for the narrative. 

I have put together this list from books I have read this academic year and I have enjoyed.  I feel that they will be really good to share with UKS2 (children aged 9-11) as whole class texts and could drive English learning as well as Reading for Pleasure. 

Jessica Townsend on Twitter here

1.  Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend

​Morrigan Crow is cursed, destined to die on her eleventh birthday. But, as the clock strikes midnight, she's whisked away by a remarkable man called Jupter North and taken to the secret city of Nevermoor.
There she's invited to join the Wundrous Society. Mystery, magica and protection are hers - if only she can pass four impossible trials, using an exceptional talent. Which she doesn't have...

---

2.  The Tunnels Below by Nadine Wild-Palmer

​On her twelfth birthday, the last thing Cecilia expected was to find herself lost in a labyrinth of tunnels beneath London. Afraid, alone, but determined, she sets to work on her escape, and soon realises that perhaps there is a reason she and the mysterious marble her sister gave her have ended up so far from home.

Deep in the darkness roam the terrible Corvus, tyrants of the magical realm below. Cecilia's struggle to return to her family becomes a mission of great danger and adventure, as she tries to help her new friends to free themselves and their beautiful, unique world. But will her heart be brave enough to ensure she doesn't stay trapped in the darkness forever?

I really enjoyed this book and the world which the author created.  The creatures that inhabit the world were almost 'Narnian' and throughout I was reminded of the writing of Neil Gaiman which can only be a good thing! 

Follow Nadine Wild-Palmer on Twitter here

---

Follow Benjamin Read and Laura Trinder on twitterhere 

3.  The MIdnight Hour by Benjamin Read and Laura Trinder

Emily's parents have vanished into the secret world of the Midnight Hour - a Victorian London frozen in time - home to magic and monsters. Emily must find them in the city of the Night Folk, armed only with a packed lunch, a stowaway hedgehog and her infamously big mouth.

With bloodthirsty creatures on her tail, Emily has to discover the truth to rescue her parents. What family secret connects her to the Midnight Hour? And can she save both worlds before she runs out of sandwiches?

---

4.  Secrets of a Sun King by Emma Carroll
​When Lilian Kaye finds a parcel on her grandad's doorstep, she is shocked to see who sent it: a famous Egyptologist, found dead that very morning, according to every newspaper in England!
The mysterious package holds the key to a story . . . about a king whose tomb archaeologists are desperately hunting for.
Lil and her friends must embark on an incredible journey - to return the package to its resting place, to protect those they love, and to break the deadly pharaoh's curse . . .

Follow Emma Carroll on twitterhere 

---

Follow Kiran Millwood Hargrave on twitter here 

5.  The Island at the End of Everything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
​
Amihan lives with her sick mother on an island where the sea is as blue as the sky. It's all she knows and loves, but the arrival of a cruel government official, Mr Zamora, changes her world for ever. Her island is to become a colony for sufferers of leprosy. Banished to an orphanage across the water, Ami meets a honey-eyed girl named for butterflies, and together they set out to find a way back home to the island at the end of everything.

---

6.  Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

Everyone thinks that Sophie is an orphan. True, there were no other recorded female survivors from the shipwreck which left baby Sophie floating in the English Channel in a cello case, but Sophie remembers seeing her mother wave for help. Her guardian tells her it is almost impossible that her mother is still alive, but that means still possible. You should never ignore a possible.
​
So when the Welfare Agency writes to her guardian threatening to send Sophie to an orphanage, she takes matters into her own hands and flees to Paris to look for her mother, starting with the only clue she has - the address of the cello maker.

Ivading the French authorities, she meets Matteo and his network of rooftoppers - urchins who live in the sky. Together they scour the city for Sophie's mother before she is caught and sent back to London, and most importantly before she loses hope.

This is one of my 'books of the decade.'  I cannot really believe that it was published 6 years ago.  A really great read!

---

If you are looking for a dystopian novel then this might be the one you have been searching for. It is very adventurous with just the right amount of threat for this age group.  Perhaps one for those who want to read The Hunger Games but are too young. 

Follow Kirsty Applebaum on twitter here

7.  The Middler by Kirsty Applebaum

​"I was special. I was a hero. I lost the best friend I ever had." Eleven-year-old Maggie lives in Fennis Wick, enclosed and protected from the outside world by a boundary, beyond which the Quiet War rages and the dirty, dangerous wanderers roam. Her brother Jed is an eldest, revered and special. A hero. Her younger brother is Trig - everyone loves Trig. But Maggie's just a middler; invisible and left behind.

Then, one hot September day, she meets Una, a hungry wanderer girl in need of help, and everything Maggie has ever known gets turned on its head. Narrated expertly and often hilariously by Maggie, we experience the trials and frustrations of being the forgotten middle child, the child with no voice, even in her own family. This gripping story of forbidden friendship, loyalty and betrayal.

---

8.  The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell

This is the second entry on the list by Katherine Rundell, a gothic turn of the 20th century fairytale set in Russia doesn't necessarily sound like something that will grip young readers but it is a real page turner! 
​
Feodora and her mother live in the snowbound woods of Russia, in a house full of food and fireplaces. Ten minutes away, in a ruined chapel, lives a pack of wolves. Feodora's mother is a wolf wilder, and Feo is a wolf wilder in training. A wolf wilder is the opposite of an animal tamer: it is a person who teaches tamed animals to fend for themselves, and to fight and to run, and to be wary of humans.
​
When the murderous hostility of the Russian Army threatens her very existence, Feo is left with no option but to go on the run. What follows is a story of revolution and adventure, about standing up for the things you love and fighting back. And, of course, wolves.

---

9.  Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll

​We weren't supposed to be going to the pictures that night. We weren't even meant to be outside, not in a blackout, and definitely not when German bombs had been falling on London all month like pennies from a jar.
​
February, 1941. After months of bombing raids in London, twelve-year-old Olive Bradshaw and her little brother Cliff are evacuated to the Devon coast. The only person with two spare beds is Mr Ephraim, the local lighthouse keeper. But he's not used to company and he certainly doesn't want any evacuees.

Desperate to be helpful, Olive becomes his post-girl, carrying secret messages (as she likes to think of the letters) to the villagers. But Olive has a secret of her own. Her older sister Sukie went missing in an air raid, and she's desperate to discover what happened to her. And then she finds a strange coded note which seems to link Sukie to Devon, and to something dark and impossibly dangerous.

---

10.  Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone 

‘Once an adventure digs its claws in, there is not an awful lot you can do about it. Especially when magic is involved . . .’
 
In the snowy kingdom of Erkenwald, whales glide between icebergs, wolves hunt on the tundra and polar bears roam the glaciers. But the people of this land aren’t so easy to find - because Erkenwald is ruled by an evil Ice Queen and the tribes must stay hidden or risk becoming her prisoners at Winterfang Palace.

Join Eska, a girl who breaks free from a cursed music box, and Flint a boy whose inventions could change the fate of Erkenwald forever, as they journey to the Never Cliffs and beyond in search of an ancient, almost forgotten, song with the power to force the Ice Queen back.
 
This is a story about an eagle huntress, an inventor and an organ made of icicles. But it is also a story about belonging, even at the very edges of our world . . .

Eska shares the lead with Flint in this book, but she is one of the most adventurous characters that you are likely to meet! 
 ​

Follow Abi Elphinstone on twitter here 

---

Can you add to the list?  As always comments are welcome. 

Disclaimer - Most text/blurbs from www.amazon.co.uk accessed 15.7.19 
We are amazon affiliates.