Theme+-+Rags+to+Riches,+Yr+13

 Ram Mohammad Thomas has been arrested. For answering twelve questions correctly on Who Will Win A Billion? Because a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school cannot name the smallest planet in the solar system or the plays of Shakespeare. Unless he has cheated. Rescued from the police cell by a lawyer, Ram prepares his defence by reviewing TV footage of the show and takes us on an amazing tour of his life - from the day he is salvaged from a dustbin, to his employment with a faded Bollywood star, to serving a security-crazed Australian colonel, by way of a career as an over-creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal. Stunning a TV audience of millions, he draws on a store of street wisdom and trivia to provide him with the essential keys, not only to the quiz show, but to life itself. Set in modern India, Q and A is a blend of high comedy and touching melancholy. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle of good against evil, and what happens when one boy has no choice in life but to survive.
 * //Q & A by Vikam Swarup //**

  Eighteen-year-old Indigo Skye feels like she has it all - a waitress job she loves, an adorable refrigerator-delivery-guy boyfriend, and a home life that's slightly crazed but rich in love. Until a mysterious man at the restaurant leaves her a 2.5 million-dollar tip, and her life as she knew it is transformed.
 * //Millions by Frank Cottrell Boyce //**
 * //Woman of substance by Barbara Bradford Taylor //**
 * //The fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Calett //**

The Guest family are an ordinary, average Kiwi family until they win six million dollars from the lottery. Life is going to be great from now on ... or is it? Suddenly the family is getting crank phone calls, receiving hundreds of begging letters and Hannah's best friend Ursula has turned downright mean.
 * //Who wants to be a Millionaire by Sandy McKay //**

Charlie Trumper rises to become the proprietor of London's most elegant store and one of England's wealthiest men, but his position is threatened by an old enemy.
 * //As the crow flies by Jeffery Archer //**

A mysterious benefactor provides Philip Pirrip with the chance to escape his poor upbringing. Aspiring to be a gentleman, and encouraged by his expectations of wealth, he abandons his friends and moves to London. His expectations prove to be unfounded, however, and he must return home penniless.
 * //Great expectations by Charles Dickens //**

Oliver's mother dies when he is born and he is brought up in a workhouse. His first years are cold and lonely - and then he runs away to London. But he falls into the hands of Fagin and the terrifying Bill Sykes. They try to turn Oliver into a criminal. Can he escape to find a better life?
 * //<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens //**

<span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; msofareastfontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msofareastlanguage: EN-NZ;"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Set in 19th-century Paris, Marseilles and Rome, this is the story of Edmond Dantes, a man betrayed and incarcerated. It tells of his search for Abbe Faria's hidden treasure and his reappearance as the fabulously rich, brooding, Byronic and vengeful Count of Monte Cristo.
 * //<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Memoirs of a Geisha: a novel by Arthur Golden //**
 * //<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas //**

<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. His family is too poor for him to afford for him to finish school and he has to work in a teashop, breaking coals and wiping tables. But Balram gets his break when a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi.
 * //<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ;">The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga //**

<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Based on the classic The Count of Monte Christo (although you don’t have to tell her that!) it’s a story of revenge after a working class London man is framed for murder by four wealthy friends. In all sorts of fantastic ways he exacts revenge and money from the unsuspecting four. <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * //<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-NZ; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A Prisoner of Birth by Jeffrey Archer //**