Discovery - Area of Study 2015-2020: Journeys

Meet Balram Halwal, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer. Born in a village in the dark heart of India, the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coal and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape and breaking away. His big chance comes when a rich village landlord hires him as a chauffeur for his son, daughter-in-law, and their two Pomeranian dogs. From behind the wheel of a Honda, Balram first sees Delhi. The city is a revelation. Amid the cockroaches and call-centres, the 36,000,004 gods, the slums, the shopping malls and the crippling traffic jams, Balram's re-education begins.

A father and his young son walk alone through burned America, heading for the coast. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. They have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves against the men who stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food - and each other.

When young Jim Hawkins discovers a treasure map in a pirate's chest in his parents' inn, he is drawn into a world of danger and adventure. He joins the crew setting sail to the Caribbean to seek out the booty and over the course of the voyage confronts mutiny, murder and the charismatic and devious Long John Silver.

Abdi was a happy-go-lucky fifteen year old when Somalia's vicious civil war hit Mogadishu and his world fell apart. Separated from his family, he fled the city with countless others, heading for Kenya. The journey was a nightmare, Abdi and his friends enduring sickness, starvation and the violent assaults of death squads.

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroythe Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

In 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams-which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the power of one.

Australian teenager Dan Bancroft had a choice to make: go to Geneva with his parents for a year, or move into a house with his bass-playing aunt Jacq and her friend Naomi. He chose Jacq's place, and his life will never be the same. This action-packed and laugh-out-loud-funny novel navigates Dan's chaotic world of calculus, roommates, birds, and love.

Sixteen year old Brett Dalton is a tough guy: hardened, angry, uncaring and always ready to use his fists. That's how he gets into trouble. When the world hates you, you might as well hate back. But when Brett is nabbed by the cops for stealing and sent to a juvenile rehabilitation centre, he's trapped in a grave new world.

Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway.

In these stories, Isaac Asimov creates the Three Laws of Robotics and ushers in the Robot Age. When Earth is ruled by master-machines. When robots are more human than mankind. But an insane telepathic robot results from a production error; a robot assembled in space logically deduces its superiority to non-rational humanity; and when machines serve mankind rather than individual humans, the machine's idea of what is good for society may itself contravene the sacred Three Laws...

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'. In this world there are no jet-liners or computers, but there are policemen who can travel across time, a Welsh republic, a great interest in all things literary - and a woman called Thursday Next.

When Lyra's friend Roger disappears, she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, set out to find him. Their quest is more dangerous than they can possibly imagine, but they will be helped by the mysterious device that Lyra carries - if she can learn its secrets. They travel to the ice kingdoms of the North, where armoured bears rule, and witch queens fly through the frozen skies. And where a team of scientists are conducting experiments of unspeakable terror.

Followed by The subtle knife (bk. 2) and The amber spyglass (bk. 3)

This is the Traction Era, where mobile cities fight for survival in a post-apocalyptic future. London is on the rampage again, pursuing a small mining town across the dried-up bed of the North Sea. It's a quasi-Victorian futuristic world where cities prey on each other, recycle their parts and capture their inhabitants. Young apprentice Tom Natsworthy and the murderous Hester Shaw are flung from the fast-moving city of London into heart-stopping adventures in the wastelands of what was once Europe - the Great Hunting Ground.

Followed by Predators Gold; Infernal Devices; A Darkling Plain

Professor Aronnax, his faithful servant, Conseil, and the Canadian harpooner, Ned Land, begin an extremely hazardous voyage to rid the seas of a little-known and terrifying sea monster. However, the "monster" turns out to be a giant submarine, commanded by Captain Nemo.

Teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl has a new mission and this time, it's personal. Artemis's mother is dangerously ill, and the only way to find a cure is for Artemis - with Holly Short by his side - to go back in time to battle his younger, more evil self..

Imagine if you were able to change history. By altering one tiny thing you could start a chain of catastrophic events. Ethan is one of the Named, fated to stop this ever happening, although the forces of chaos have other ideas and Ethan is finding it more and more difficult to stay one step ahead. He is also a normal schoolboy, whose life is rapidly becoming far too confusing. So when Isabel arrives on the scene she is only going to make matters worse or is she? This is history in the making - literally.

The British corporation FUP creates a Time Tube back to the 16th Century Scottish-English border, initially planning to exploit its untouched mineral resources and then later planning a tourist resort. A local clan, the Sterkarms, are welcoming at first, regarding the 21st-century travellers as magical Elves because of their medicine and technology, but increasingly refuse to cooperate. The clansmen, who have always lived by plunder, begin robbing the FUP, which leads to the FUP's power-hungry boss kidnapping Per Sterkarm, the only son of the chieftain. The Sterkarms' retaliation knows no bounds.

Peter Schock is stranded in the 18th century whilst a terrifying villain, The Tar Man, takes his place in 21st century London. Concerned about the potentially catastrophic effects of time travel, the NASA scientists responsible for the situation question whether it is right to rescue Peter. His friend Kate decides to take matters into her own hands, but soon the physical effects of time travel begin to have a disturbing effect on Kate. Meanwhile, in our century, The Tar Man wreaks havoc in a city whose police force are powerless to stop him...

Bobby Pendragon is a seemingly normal fourteen-year-old boy. But he is slowly starting to realise that life in the cosmos isn’t quite what he thought it was. And before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution. If Bobby wants to see his family again, he’s going to have to accept his role as savior, and accept it wholeheartedly. Because, as he is about to discover, Denduron is only the beginning.

This is the story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. His disappearances are spontaneous and his experiences are alternately harrowing and amusing.

After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts there is a whisper that freedom can be bought, an opportunity to start afresh. Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, Thornhill encounters men who have tried to do just that: Blackwood, who is attempting to reconcile himself with the place and its people, and Smasher Williams, whose fear of this alien world turns into brutal depravity towards it. As Thornhill and his family stake their claim on a patch of ground by the river, the battle lines between old and new inhabitants are drawn.

'I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back.'
So begins Robyn Davidson's perilous journey through some of the harshest spaces of the world. A camel-trek from the heart of Australia, across 17,000 miles of hostile desert, to the sea - with only a dog and four camels for company.

An anthology of Australian stories about the road. Australia is a nation of drivers. We spend more time behind the wheel than almost anyone else, on fast highways, lonely bush tracks, jammed city lanes and suburban streets. The road is the place where the great dramas of our lives unfold, the route to our greatest pleasures as well as our worst nightmares. It is sexy, dangerous and unnerving. In this landmark collection, acclaimed novelist and essayist Delia Falconer brings together some of our very best writing on every aspect of the road.