Newest Confident Readers Reviews

Review of Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy Greene Confident Readers We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and Kurt, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want to do – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitler's will, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open arms. Kristallnacht happened in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the US, while Fritz and his father are, unknown initially to each other, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about… Full Review

Review of The Ministry of Unladylike Activity by Robin Stevens Confident Readers May Wong is a long way from her family in Hong Kong. She’s stuck in her school, Deepdean, and desperate to get away, and do something useful to help end the war and to get home. She just knows that she would make the perfect spy! And when she finds herself turned away by the Ministry, she takes matters into her own hands, along with a boy she meets outside the Ministry, Eric. They both go undercover in a large country house, pretending to be evacuees, in an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Nazis. But there is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imagined, and suddenly they find themselves in the middle of a murder scene, with even more to try to unravel and solve. Full Review

Review of Super Ghost by Greg James and Chris Smith Confident Readers Paragon City has been lucky to have the great Doctor Extraordinary, their very own superhero taking care of them. Whenever the evil Captain Chaos has come up with another cunning plan (usually involving a giant robot of some description) Doctor Extraordinary has been there to thwart her mischief and save the day. But one day the Doctor and the Captain are trapped together inside a giant robot that then explodes, and the hero and the villain are no more. Or are they…? Full Review

Review of The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair by Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith Confident Readers The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep. And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, either. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its core. Full Review

Review of The Story of Greenriver by Holly Webb Confident Readers Silken and Sedge, for all their differences, have a lot in common. Silken is a girl whose father is the Master Builder of what might be the finest beaver lodge on the Greenriver. Unfortunately she is also a kind of runt figure, and as a result is patronised, and given the most tokenistic tasks when it comes to fetching wood and shoring the dam up. She also stands out for the unique artistic ability to sing. Otters like Sedge sing, but he too, as the son of the lady of the holt, has pressure on him to be a bit less feckless and more attentive to class. He, after all, will eventually inherit the job of keeping the otters safe from the wolf that both animal species fear the most, and from dreaded events like a Dark Spring. Full Review

Review of Into Goblyn Wood by Anna Kemp and David Wyatt Confident Readers Meet Hazel. For the last nine of her eleven years she has been stuck as a foundling in a horrid, Victorian institution, generally peeling vegetables or acting as a servant. She'd arrived at the place at the same time as Pete, and they're inseparably good friends now, until a chance for them both to escape, and enter the outside world, does not go to plan. There had always been the idea of a life idyllic in the nearby forests, Goblyn Wood, and a tribe of Wild Children, but none of that comes to pass, as Hazel finds herself in the care of a professor at the Natural History Museum. But life with him is not anything like what she might have expected it to be – and Hazel is determined to return to the Woods, restore her friendship with Pete – and to work out just what is going on in the forest, both the light and the shade, and the deathly dark... Full Review

Review of The Accidental Stowaway by Judith Eagle Confident Readers Patch is a little girl who has been passed from one relation to another, until it seems that there is nobody left for her to go to. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother ran away. The family lawyer, after consultation with ‘someone’, arranges for her to go to a school in Liverpool, but on her arrival there, she gets caught up in an adventure with a little boy called Turo who works on a steamship. During a chase with him (when she is both trying to get her rollerskate back and running away from the police!) she winds up on the steamship hiding in a lifeboat, and before she knows it, the ship has left the docks and she is an accidental stowaway! Full Review

Review of Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor Confident Readers Meet Alice Eclair. A perfect eye and very careful hands have made her one of Paris's best young cake makers and decorators, making sure her mother's establishment is a classy affair. Not bad for a thirteen year old. Oh, and a perfect eye and a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she is a very competent young spy. Her first real mission will be to chase a traitor across the country – working behind the scenes on a posh sleeper train to the south of France, and hoping against hope that she can prevent documents allowing foreign agents to creep into the country from getting into nefarious hands. But while nobody would have her down as a spy, can she possibly leave behind her rookie status and find the baddy? Full Review

Review of A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the Galaxy by David Solomons Confident Readers Gavin is being followed, seemingly constantly, by the new (very annoying) girl at school. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl story. Because in this instance, the girl in question is Niki, and she is a galactic princess (no, really, she is!) So what will Gavin do when he becomes embroiled in a situation where, potentially, Earth and everyone on it will be blown to smithereens, all because of Niki? Full Review

Review of The Mermaid Call by Alex Cotter Confident Readers Vivien knows that mermaids don't exist. But she also knows they have to exist – at least in the public eye. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without them. A hundred years and change ago, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaids, but were forced to return to help out with the Great War effort. They also showed female emancipation, which helped create the town's tourism industry, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success story. Alice, a girl who stumbles into Vivien's gran's tourist shop one day, knows she certainly wants mermaids to exist – she thinks her family's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful in her hunt. When the shy, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with the exuberant, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find? Full Review

Review of Fly by Alison Hughes Confident Readers This is a very impressive read, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy the first person narration from Fly, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsy, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at school, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on him. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses it. Full Review

Review of Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 by Darren Shan Confident Readers So. We're back to the Merge with the first chapter in the third volume of Darren Shan's saga of Archibald Lox, a young man who can pick the locks of portals from our world to another, called the Merge. Since his last adventure, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce on the topic of his regular disappearances. They don't ask too many questions and Archie has settled into a fairly peaceful routine of visiting Winston, his lock-picking mentor in the Merge and showing Kojo, the young guardian, around our world of the Born. Full Review

Review of Clarice Bean: Scram! by Lauren Child Confident Readers It was a hot summer day right at the beginning of the summer holidays and Clarice Bean was bored: Nothing ever happens except for sometimes... And only on rare-sh occasions, which is hardly ever. There are seven members of the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives on the ground floor because he's wobbly), Mum and Dad, Clarice's older brother, Kurt and younger brother, Minal Cricket. There's also Marcie, who's main claim to fame seems to be that she steals the batteries from Clarice's torch, which means that she can't read in the airing cupboard. Clarice would love to have someone who listened to her, rather than wanting to talk, but the only one who does that is Granny and she lives in New York. The Bean family is different. Full Review

Review of Looking for Emily by Fiona Longmuir Confident Readers Meet Lily. She and her mother have just moved from a city to a tiny seaside town called Edge, and everyone from said mother to her teacher are making demands of Lily that she make new friends. It turns out that she doesn't have any say in the matter, for while pretending when phoning home that she was with someone called Emily, she is unaware her neighbour, Sam, is just about to make herself known, and in a big way. But where does Emily come from? Well, Lily used that name because of what she'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of the most mundane objects, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming door, in a place calling itself 'The Museum of Emily'. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum', too, leaving the two girls to make sure they leave no stone unturned in finding what's behind the intrigue... Full Review

Review of Stitched Up by Steve Cole Dyslexia Friendly Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoi. Only, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factory. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them. Full Review

Review of The Secret Life of Birds by Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator) Children's Non-Fiction I have recently discovered a great pleasure: I sit and watch the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on a daily basis. An hour can pass without my noticing. I've established which species feed from the ground, which pop to the feeders for a quick snatch of some food and who settles in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeable. It would have been wonderful if, as a child, I'd had access to a book such as The Secret Life of Birds. So – what is it? Full Review

Review of S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access Denied by Jason Rohan Confident Readers Arun and Sam have had little to do with Donna, a girl at their school. But things immediately change at the start of this extended sprint of a novel, when she insists Arun's house has become the attention of plain-clothes coppers and that they should bunk off school to find out why. And thus an unlikely trio of misfit young heroes is formed – Sam is really not Donna's idea of company, but he is the computer buff, Donna seems to know all the criminal ins and outs and survival skills, and Arun? Well, it's his lot to find out that all he based his family life on isn't true, and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpected. But how can this disparate trio hope to best MI6, kidnappers, people able to keep the truth about themselves secret for decades, and so much more? Full Review

Review of Wished by Lissa Evans Confident Readers When things contrive to force Ed and his sister Roo (aka Lucy) to stay with the neighbourhood spinsterish old woman, Miss Filey, for a week of half-term, they're not looking forward to it. For one thing, she thinks Wi-Fi is a special brand of biscuit. They don't particularly take to Willard either, the new kid next door, who seems to ebulliently take over everything and everywhere. But things soon change when they find some tiny old birthday candles, and manage to work out that these candles, for as long as their flames last, make birthday wishes come true. How will things change for a second time when they realise that, having used up three of them, these should really be used for the wishes of someone two generations older than them? Full Review

Review of Time Trap Two by Richard Smith Confident Readers Jamie and Todd are horrified to learn that the Grand Plan, which they thought had been defeated, is about to be implemented in 1775, America. Hector and Catherine have to thwart Travis - an agent of the Grand Plan - who is hell bent on world domination. Jamie and Todd go with Hector and Catherine on a mission to 1775, to prevent a super gun from being used in the Battle of Bunker Hill, during the American War of Independence, but only have days to stop history from being altered. The second book in the Time Trap series, as you can see, has an urgent a mission for our young heroes as the first, which took place in the smog of Victorian London. This time, Jamie and Todd are off to the grand landscapes of North America. Travis, an agent of the Grand Plan, is attempting to take the Gatling gun back in time and change the outcome of the Battle of Bunker Hill, a pivotal episode in the American War of Independence. Full Review

Review of The Great Fox Illusion by Justyn Edwards Confident Readers The latest incoming reality TV show is a contest with a difference. No singing, no dancing, this show is looking for magical children! Children who can understand how magic tricks work, and who can attempt to win The Great Fox's magical legacy - the secrets to all of his tricks! Flick is determined to win, but not because she wants to own the tricks. She is interested in just one trick, the trick that The Great Fox stole from her father. And she's hoping if she can find that trick then she will be able to bring her missing father home. Full Review

Review of The Hunt for the Nightingale by Sarah Ann Juckes Confident Readers Jasper is a little boy who has some struggles, and whilst we're never told why exactly, we can see that he has anxiety and panic attacks, and has difficulty dealing with change and big emotions. His big sister, Rosie, has been a huge support to him, talking him down when things were difficult, encouraging him, and writing a book with him, all about birds, that he can read when he gets scared to help him calm down. His parents seem completely caught up in their business, and so it is Rosie he always turns to. Even though she has gone away to University now, she has promised him that she will still be there when he needs her. But now he can't find Rosie. She hasn't come home when she said she would, and she isn't answering her phone. His parents won't speak to him or when they do, he doesn't understand or take in what they're saying. Nothing seems to be right, and the only way he feels he can find any peace is if he can find Rosie, and if they can find the nightingale and listen to its song, as they do together every Spring. Full Review

Review of Dragon Storm: Tomas and Ironskin by Alastair Chisholm and Eric Deschamps Confident Readers Meet Tomas. Happy to work with his father in the blacksmith's forge, he's almost of the age to become a full apprentice, and help with the new batch of dragonswords is certainly needed. Not that there are any dragons, of course – they vanished centuries ago. Except... Strange signals from within the forge furnace, and a peculiar invite to become an apprentice clerk instead, are things for Tom to puzzle over – until it all comes out in the wash, that yes dragons do still exist in this world, and that Tom is rare in the ability to summon them, share magical attributes, and ride with them... Full Review

Review of Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell Confident Readers Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both in exile and in the physical form of a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as well, to be the more suave, more popular and more successful brother of the two. Loki has a month to redeem his reputation, and get his moral compass pointing the right way again, or else, and to prove it he has to write the text we read in a sentient notebook, that is able to cry foul of his lies, and judge his progress. But Loki is the kind of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk in the park...right? Full Review

Review of The Mermaid in the Millpond by Lucy Strange and Pam Smy Confident Readers There is no mermaid in the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there be a friend for her in amongst all the other kids, who have had their entire childhoods sold to the mill-owners by the London workhouse they used to call home. Bess knows there is no time for friendship in a hand-to-mouth, every man for himself kind of existence. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of a kindred spirit in the slight little Dot, and despite everything that life has taught her about betrayal and how befriending people only leads to harm, there might be a glimmer of companionship in the tired-out mill workers. But surely that doesn't mean there is any truth in the existence of the mermaid? Full Review

Review of Escape Room by Christopher Edge Confident Readers I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process by which a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific location, and have to solve problems in order to get their way out. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventure, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Here, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new to each other and booked into the game without any of their friends, are a team – starting out at the game's main offices, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changer. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature? Full Review

Review of Fledgling by Lucy Hope Confident Readers Bavaria, 1900. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decades, and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods below. It's an eccentric house, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, the roof is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, and so on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all the maintenance of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going to be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again... Full Review

Review of The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall Confident Readers Stories have joy and surprises in them, we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group of monks, the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate to find the girl, for it is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone? Full Review

Review of The Great Dream Robbery by Greg James and Chris Smith Confident Readers Maya's father is a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrong, and now he can't wake up. Or at least, that's what Maya has been told. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friend, and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really...and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag! Full Review

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