The Giant Print Library Crossover titles
(books that appeal to both older teens and adults)
Updated: April 2012
Any UK member of our library service may borrow up to a maximum of 6 books per service for a 3 month loan period.
Most of the books have been produced by the National Blind Children's Society and are in 24 point type with identical covers to the ordinary print versions of the books.
Please be aware that due to their size, many of the books are split into two or more volumes, and these will have the same covers.
For details on borrowing any of the titles listed or for further information regarding the Giant Print collection please contact Liz Farrell or Hazel Sharrock, Children's Librarians at RNIB National Library Service on 0161 429 1975.
Crossover books
Adams, Douglas.
The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. 1979. 2v.
Book 1 of the Hitchhiker series (other titles in this series are also available). On Thursday lunchtime the Earth gets unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. Sadly for Arthur Dent, the weekend has only just begun.
Angelou, Maya
I know why the caged bird sings. c1969. 2v. (Non-fiction; autobiography)
Growing up in the southern states of America in the 1920s was a chancy business for a black child. The author and her brother Bailey led a varied, colourful and at times frightening existence, but her joy somehow survived.
Anthony, Michael.
Green days by the river. c1967. 2v.
A novel about approaching the edge of adult responsibilities, this is the story of Shell, a Trinidadian boy who moves to a new village and meets two girls.
Atwood, Margaret Eleanor.
The handmaid's tale. 1996. 3v.
The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates she will, like all dissenters, be hanged or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.
Austen, Jane.
Pride and prejudice. 1813. 4v.
When Elizabeth Bennett first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited, and when she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever.
Boyne, John.
The boy in the striped pyjamas. 2006. 1v.
Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. Then he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Bruno's friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation.
Bronte, Charlotte.
Jane Eyre.1847. 4v.
A story of passionate love, travail and final triumph. The relationship between the heroine and Mr Rochester is only one episode, albeit the most important, in a detailed fictional autobiography in which the author transmuted her own experience into high art.
Bronte, Emily
WutheringHeights. 1847. 3v.
Emily Bronte records the story of the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw and the wild Heathcliff with such truth, imagination and emotional intensity that a plain tale of the Yorkshire moors acquires the depth and simplicity of ancient tragedy.
Brooks, Kevin
Black rabbit summer. 2008.
Pete Boland was busy doing nothing that summer. Long, stiflingly hot, lazy days stretched ahead of him. Then an old friend called and suggested meeting up at the funfair -- but where there are old times, there are old tensions, secrets, bitterness and jealousies and as a result five old friends are plunged into the worst night of their lives.
Brooks, Kevin.
Lucas. 2003. 3v.
Things start to happen when Lucas arrives on the island, Who is he? Where does he come from? What does he want? And why do other people hate him so much? Caitlin's life changes from the moment she see him. Lucas is the strangest, most beautiful, most unforgettable boy she has ever seen.
Brooks, Kevin
The road of the dead. 2006. 2v.
Late one night, two brothers learn that their sister has died in the worst way imaginable. She's found, strangled, in a desolate place hundreds of miles from their East London home. Together, the brothers set out to find their own answers and retrace Rachel's final journey.
Cast, P C
Marked. 2009. 2v.
Book 1 of the House of Night series. (Other titles in this series are also available). When sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird gets Marked as a fledgling vampire she must join the House of Night school where she will train to become an adult vampire. But Zoe is no ordinary fledgling…
Chambers, Aidan
Postcards from no man's land. 2007. 3v.
Two craftily interwoven stories, separated by 50 years in time, make up this emotionally and intellectually challenging novel. Set in Holland, one story tells of the passionate love between a young Dutch woman and Jacob Todd, a wounded English soldier. The other story finds the English soldier's grandson visiting Amsterdam for the commemoration of The Battle of Arnhem.
Dessen, Sarah
This lullaby. 2004. 2v.
Raised by a mother who's had five husbands, eighteen-year-old Remy believes in short-term, no-commitment relationships until she meets Dexter, a rock band musician.
Dickens, Charles.
Great expectations. 1861. 5v.
Great expectations charts Pip's progress from childhood to adulthood and the extraordinary characters he encounters, showing the danger of being driven by a desire for wealth and social status.
Dogar, Sharon
Waves. 2007. 2v.
For fifteen-year-old Hal Ditton and his family, summer has always meant six glorious weeks by the sea. But this year is different - Charley, Hal's sister, is lying in a coma. When the troubled family makes the difficult decision to return to their holiday home without her, Hal finds it harder than anyone to shake off his elder sister's presence…
Dowd, Siobhan.
Bog child. 2008. 2v.
Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she's been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him. a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls.
Dowd, Siobhan
A swift pure cry. 2007. 2v.
After Shell's mother dies, her obsessively religious father descends into alcoholic mourning and Shell is left to care for her younger brother and sister. When childhood friend Declan suddenly leaves Ireland to seek his fortune in America, Shell finds herself pregnant and the centre of a scandal that rocks the small community in which she lives.
Downham, Jenny
Before I die. 2008. 2v.
Tessa has just a few months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It's her To Do Before I Die list. Tessa's feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa's time finally runs out.
Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir.
The hound of the Baskervilles. 1902. 2v.
The Baskerville family is haunted by a phantom beast "with blazing eyes and dripping jaws" which roams the mist-enshrouded moors around the isolated Baskerville Hall on Dartmoor. Is this devilish spectre the manifestation of a family curse? Only Sherlock Holmes can solve this affair.
Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir.
Sherlock Holmes investigates. 1996. 2v.
A collection of some of detective Sherlock Holmes's best known cases. Using his famous powers of deduction and observation he tracks down the criminals with the help of Dr Watson.
Du Maurier, Daphne.
Don't look now and other stories.1971. 2v.
John and Laura have come to Venice to try and escape the pain of their young daughter's death. But when they encounter two old women who claim to have second sight, they find that, instead of laying their ghosts to rest, they become caught up in a train of increasingly strange and violent events.
Du Maurier, Daphne.
Rebecca. 1938. 4v.
The heroine of Rebecca meets Max de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She is whisked from Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, where the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. The memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding housekeeper, Mrs Danvers.
Duncan Lois
I know what you did last summer. 1973. 1v.
Four teenagers try to conceal their responsibility for a hit-and-run accident while being pursued by a mystery figure seeking revenge.
Fine, Anne
The road of bones. 2006. 2v.
Yuri grows up in a country where no freedom of thought is encouraged - where even one's neighbours are encouraged to report any dissension to the authorities. But it is still a shock few careless words lead him to a virtual death sentence.
Frank, Anne.
The diary of a young girl. This edition published 1998. 3v. (Non-fiction)
In July 1942, thirteen year old Anne Frank and her family fled from the horrors of Nazi occupation, and went into hiding in an Amsterdam warehouse. Over the next two years Anne vividly describes in her diary the frustration of living in such confined quarters.
Frayn, Michael
Spies. 2003. 2v.
In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live there is little evidence of World War II, but the two friends suspect that the inhabitants of the Close are not what they seem. As Keith informs his trusting friend, the whole district is riddled with secret passages and underground laboratories.
French, Albert.
Billy. 1994. 2v.
The events recorded in this novel occur during the 1930s in a small Mississippi town, but the range of characters, emotions and social forces, and the inexorable march to doom of a ten-year-old black boy and the society that dooms him, catapult the story beyond a specific time and location.
Gaarder, Jostein.
Sophie's world. 1996. 4v.
Why does Sophie keep getting postcards addressed to a girl called Hilde? Who is the mysterious mentor who appears from nowhere to talk to her about philosophy? Who is Hilde? Who is Sophie? Sophie's rollercoaster ride through 3000 years of Western philosophy throws up some big questions - and lead her deep into the mystery of her own life and identity.
Garland, Alex.
The beach. 1997. 3v.
The Beach is a legend among young travellers in Asia: white sands circling a lagoon hidden from the sea, coral gardens and freshwater falls surrounded by jungle. In this earthly paradise, it is rumoured, a select community lives in blissful innocence. For Richard, haunted by the glamour of Vietnamese war movies, a trek into unknown Thai territory is irresistible.
Golding, William.
Lord of the flies. 1954. 2v.
A plane crashes on a desert island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on a beach and wait to be rescued. At night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast. As the boys' delicate order fades, so their behaviour starts to take on a murderous, savage significance.
Grant, Helen
The vanishing of Katharina Linden. 2009. 2v.
On the day Katharina Linden disappears, Pia is the last person to see her alive. Terror is spreading through the town. How could a ten-year-old girl vanish in a place where everybody knows everybody else? Then the next girl disappears.
Gray, Keith
Ostrich boys. 2008. 2v.
After the depressing funeral of their best friend, 15 year old Ross, Kenny, Sim and Blake decide to steal the urn containing his ashes. They want to take him to the place named Ross, in southern Scotland. He changed their lives through his friendship, but little do they realise just how much he can still affect life for them even though he's dead.
Green, John.
Looking for Alaska. 2006. 2v.
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words - and tired of his safe, boring and rather lonely life at home. He leaves for boarding school filled with cautious optimism. Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.
Haddon, Mark.
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time. 2004. 2v.
The narrator of this story is Christopher Boone, who is fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.
Hardy, Thomas.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles. 1891. 4v.
Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles, and meeting her "cousin" Alec proves to be her downfall. When Angel Clare offers her love and salvation, she must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.
Henderson, Jan-Andrew
Bunker 10. 2007. 2v.
At eight o'clock in the evening, on Monday 24th December 2007, Pinewood Military Installation exploded. The blast ripped apart acres of forest and devastated the remote highland valley where the base was located. No official cause was given for the incident. Inside Pinewood were many military personnel - a mixture of scientists and soldiers. There were also seven teenagers there. This is the story of their last day.
Hines, Barry.
A kestrel for a knave. 1968. 2v.
Billy Casper has few prospects and he is determined not to follow his brother down the pit. The wild hawk he finds and trains gives him a direction and passion he has never experienced before. Life suddenly has a meaning, but events beyond his control begin to threaten his growing self respect.
Hinton, S.E.
The Outsiders. 1967. 1v.
The Socs's idea of having a good time is beating up Greasers like Ponyboy, the rough, tough, long-haired kids from the other side of town. Ponyboy knows what to expect and knows he can count on his friends - until the night someone goes too far.
Huxley, Aldous.
Brave new world. 1932. 2v. (Non-fiction; memoirs)
Written in 1932, when the Western world was poised on the brink of social and scientific revolution, this novel is Huxley's nightmare vision of the future.
Jauncey, James
The reckoning. 2008. 3v.
Fin is thinking about the day when he can escape to the mainland. His sister got away, but no one has heard from her in two years. Fin's thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a car on the bridge above him, and then, for a brief moment, he glimpses a figure falling through the fog. It's a young girl and she dies in Fin's arms. Did the dead girl jump or was she pushed?
Kuipers, Alice
Life on the refrigerator door. 2007. 1v.
Beautifully told through notes left on their kitchen fridge, this is an intimate portrait of the relationship between a hard-working mother and her teenage daughter. It is a reminder of how much can be said in so few words, if only we made the time to say them.
Lawrence, D.H.
The virgin and the gypsy. 1971. 1v.
This is the story of a secluded, sensitive rector's daughter who meets a handsome young gipsy whose life appears different from hers in every way. She is immediately smitten, but not until a natural catastrophe suddenly, miraculously sweeps away the world as she knew it does a new world of passion open for her.
Lee, Harper.
To kill a mockingbird. 1960. 3v.
Set in a sleepy town in South Alabama during the great depression in the 1930s, this is a multi-layered story which dissects the white and black communities of the American South.
Lee, Laurie
Cider with Rosie. 1959. 2v. (Non-fiction, autobiography)
Growing up amongst the fields and woods and characters of the place, this memoir is about the author's childhood in a remote Cotswold village, a village before electricity or cars, a timeless place on the verge of change.
Mah, Adeline Yen.
Chinese Cinderella : the secret story of an unwanted daughter. 1999. 2v. (Non-fiction, autobiography)
The story of a Chinese woman and how she suffered appalling emotional deprivation and rejection by her family, as a child growing up in China and Hong Kong. She tells of the consequences in her adult life, which she rose above to make a happy marriage and become a successful doctor in the USA.
McGowan, Anthony
The knife that killed me. 2008. 1v.
Paul Varderman gets involved with the school's most evil bully, Roth and a gang at a nearby school. Paul attempts to distance himself from the feud, but when Roth hands him a knife it both empowers him and scares him at the same time.
Meyer, Stephenie
Twilight. 2008. 3v.
Book 1 in the Twilight saga (the other titles in the series are also available).