132,655
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author=Anna Kemp and David WyattMax Boucherat|title=Into Goblyn Wood|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Hazel. For the last nine The Last Life 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...|isbn=1398503835}}{{Frontpage|author=Judith Eagle|title=The Accidental StowawayLori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Patch is We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a little girl who blanket fort, she has been passed from one relation to anothermain intention, until it seems and that there is nobody left for her to go log on to. Her father died when she was very youngVoxminer, the world-building, and her mother ran awaycritter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. The family lawyer, after consultation with ‘someone’, arranges for her to go to But first Lori has a school in Liverpool, but tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her arrival thereown, and then she gets caught up in an adventure with a little boy called Turo who works on a steamshipfinds something even more spooky. During a chase with him (when For the server she is both trying to get and her rollerskate back bestie and running away from the police!) she winds nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on the steamship hiding in a lifeboather phone screen, and before she knows it, her safe place in the ship game has left the docks and she been doctored – well, where is an accidental stowaway!a girl to turn?|isbn=05713631210008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd Taylor-Stanton|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for TroubleDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Alice EclairKit. A perfect eye and very careful hands have made her one Like most of Paris's best young cake makers and decoratorsthe people in his world, it seems, making sure her mother's establishment he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a classy affair. Not bad for a thirteen year team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old. Oh, magical mazes, and a perfect eye race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she is a very competent young spythe points they grant you along the way. Her first real mission will be to chase a traitor across Unfortunately for Kit, the country – working behind only thing he's seen of the scenes latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a posh sleeper train to the south new trio of Francequestors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, and hoping against hope that she can prevent documents allowing foreign agents he has taken to creep into the country goading from getting the token bully of his world and stumbled into nefarious handsdeclaring he'll enter as a team. But while nobody would What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have her down as a spyin actually managing that, can she and how could he possibly leave behind her rookie status and find the baddyhope to succeed?|isbn=18399409561839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David SolomonsJames Sherwood Metts|title=A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gavin is being followed, seemingly constantly, by Things have been a bit sticky for the new (very annoying) girl at schoolEarthlings. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl storyAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Because in Just as they were beginning to get used to all this instancetechnological change and starting to think of other, the girl in question is Nikinew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down 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 along with it will be blown to smithereens, all because of Niki?the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=08576399351736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex CotterTom Percival|title=The Mermaid CallWrong Shoes|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Vivien knows that mermaids donWill't exist. But she also knows they have to exist – at least s life is difficult, in the public eye. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without themmultitude of ways. A hundred years and change ago, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaids, but were forced to return to help out with He is bullied because he has 'the Great War effort. They also showed female emancipationwrong shoes', which helped create he has the townwrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn's tourism industryt have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, now faded and falling apart but once his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a feminist success storybuilding site and had an accident. Alice, a girl who stumbles Throw into Vivien's gran's tourist shop one daythat mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, knows she certainly wants mermaids to exist – she thinks her familyand Will's black sheep died searching for themlife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, or else was just too successful in her hunthe still has a tiny amount of hope. When He is good at art, and clings to the shymoments of joy when he is drawing, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with feel like a light at the exuberantend of a long, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find?dark tunnel.|isbn=18399419011398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alison Hughes1805141872|title=FlyThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is ''Seventeen banks and a very impressive readjeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy but only Ben knows the first person narration from Flytruth – his Maths teacher, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsyMiss Judson, is really a down-safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at schooltheir trail, Miss Judson and a bundle of assumptions people lay Ben go on himthe run. First they assume But Al needs them for one last job...'' Goodness me, that with Miss Judson is a broken body comes terror! How on earth did a broken mind, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can nice teacher like her manage to get away mixed up with calling him Flya bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, which isn't the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his real namefather some day, but everybody just uses it.|isbn=1525305832and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanChristopher Edge|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= So. We're back to the Merge with the first chapter Lucas and his friends are all booked in the third volume of Darren Shan's saga of Archibald Loxfor a movie marathon at their local cinema, a young man who can pick place that has the locks nickname of portals from our world to another, called the ''Merge'The Black Hole'. Since his last adventure All big movie fans, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce on the topic they're looking forward to lots of his regular disappearances. They don't ask too exciting films, and many, many questions snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and Archie has settled they are swept up into a fairly peaceful routine of visiting Winston, his lock-picking mentor in an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the ''Merge'' and showing Kojonext, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the young guardiancinema, around our world of the Born. and to their real lives?|isbn= B09Z2MTCZD1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Adam Stower|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=It was Murray is supposed to be a hot summer day right at the beginning of the summer holidays humble, tidy and Clarice Bean was bored: ''Nothing ever happens except for sometimes... And only on rare-sh occasionsfriendly cat, which one who is hardly ever.'' There are seven members able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives on the ground floor because two. But he's wobbly), Mum and Dad, Claricea bad magician's older brothercat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, Kurt and younger brotherthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, Minal Cricket. There's also Marcie, who's main claim to fame seems to be that she steals not into the batteries from Clarice's torchregular back garden, which means that she can't read in the airing cupboardbut into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. Clarice would love to have someone who listened to herThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, rather one much bigger than wanting Murray was, to talkbe honest, but the only one who does that is Granny he's turned up and she lives in New York. The Bean family is he''different''.ll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona LongmuirAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Looking for EmilyThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Lily. She and her mother have just moved from Eli is a city to a tiny seaside town called Edgebusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, 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 matterevening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for while pretending when phoning home that she was with someone called Emily, she there is unaware her neighboura generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, SamEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, is just about a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to make herself known, and navigate the world in the company of a big waymagical beast. But where does Emily come from? Well, Lily used that name because of what she'd just stumbled into This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a mysterious collection of bad incident at the most mundane objectseatery leads to a confession from gran, in some converted houses behind a Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most unassuming doorhates, in a place calling itself 'The Museum with the sole aim the prize of Emily'. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum', too, leaving magic at the end – the two girls only thing to make sure they leave no stone unturned in finding what's behind the intrigue..possibly save his gran.|isbn=18399427540571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800901232Helen Cooper|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve ColeThe Taming of the Cat|rating=3.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be a fashion designerOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. Life in In this case, principally, we have Brie the rural village where she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperousmouse, so when up against Gorgonzola the smartly-dressed man cat – and woman came to the village to offer Hahn in case you're seeing a job connection, they live in Hanoi it was an opportunity not a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be missedthe names of cheeses. Some money changed hands Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and Hanh was on the mini, if you must, mous-bus to Hanoi. Onlytracised, Hanh and for the way his habits don't match the other girls were not going to work in a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factorymice he lives with. You know those jeans you really wanted: They nibble up paper wrapping from the ones with intricate embroidery cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and beading makes stories based on the legs? visuals on it. The ones with the artfullyAnd that story-placed rips telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? cast out. It's quite possible that Hanh and her coalmost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-workers made theminch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010
}}
{{Frontpage
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=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 ArunRoo's house life has become the attention of plain-clothes coppers and that they should bunk off school to find out whyalmost impossibly difficult. And thus an unlikely trio of misfit Her mum died when she was young heroes is formed – Sam is really not Donna's idea , and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of company, but he is the computer buff, Donna seems to know all night by the criminal ins and outs and survival skills, and Arun? Well, it's his lot police banging on her door to find out tell her that all he based her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family life on isnshe has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't truethink very highly of. But she has no one else, and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpectedso off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. But how can this disparate trio hope Things continue to best MI6get worse for Roo, kidnappersas when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, people able to keep it breaks down in the truth about themselves secret for decades, middle of nowhere and so much more?then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=18399433860571376169
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lissa EvansAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=WishedOscar's Lion|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When things contrive We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to force Ed and have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his sister Roo (aka Lucy) very favourite book a couple of times before he has to stay with the neighbourhood spinsterish old womanbe ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, Miss Fileyall he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, for a week of half-termlooking sheepish, theyand admitting that he won're not looking forward t be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – itcan be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. For one thingAnd it can shapeshift, she thinks Wi-Fi is so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a special brand of biscuitproblem. They donAnd it't particularly take s wonderful to Willard eitherhave around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the new kid next doorrules, who seems to ebulliently take over everything and everywhereso on. But things soon change when they find some tiny old birthday candlesOK, and manage to it can't work out that these candles, for as long as their flames last, make birthday wishes come true. How will things change for a second dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful 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?.|isbn=178845202X0008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Richard SmithJudith Eagle|title=Time Trap TwoThe Stolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Caro''Jamie s mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and Todd are horrified to learn that the Grand Planis now missing. Her other mother, which they thought had been defeatedRonnie, is about having to be implemented in 1775, America. Hector and Catherine have go up North to thwart Travis - an agent take care of the Grand Plan - her sister who is hell bent on world dominationunwell. Jamie So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and Todd go with Hector confused and Catherine on a mission worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to 1775, practise her gymnastics are brought to prevent a super gun from being used in the Battle of Bunker Hillhalt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, during the American War of IndependenceAlbie, but only have days to stop history from being alteredwho is living there too.'' The second book But she soon finds herself caught up in the ''Time Trap'' seriesa mystery, as you can see, has an urgent she discovers a mission for our young heroes as the first, which took place in the smog painting of Victorian London. This timea bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, Jamie and Todd all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are off to the grand landscapes of North Americathieving artworks and terrorising people. Travis, an agent of Is the Grand Plan, is attempting painting somehow linked to take the Gatling gun back gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in time and change the outcome of the Battle of Bunker Hill, a pivotal episode in the American War of Independence.mystery too?|isbn=B094ZFF85P0571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justyn EdwardsTania Unsworth|title=The Great Fox IllusionNowhere Island|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The latest incoming reality TV show Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a contest with a differencehome for himself. No singing He is en route to yet another fosterer, no dancing, this show is looking for magical children! Children who can understand how magic tricks workwhen he jumps into an anonymous car, and who can attempt lets it ride him to win The Great Fox's magical legacy - the secrets his future. That future seems to all be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his tricks! Flick is determined to winbrother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, but not because she wants a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to own the tricksprovide for their safety and seclusion. She is interested in just ''one'' trick Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, the trick that The Great Fox stole from her fatheralbeit so much more successfully. And she's hoping Over a few weeks we see if she their oddball destinies can find that trick then she will be able to bring her missing father home.combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=15295019461804540080
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Ann JuckesHelen Peters|title=The Hunt for the NightingaleFriends and Traitors|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jasper is a little boy who has some strugglesEngland, 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 emotionsWW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. His big sister, Rosie One is Nancy, has been a huge support destined to him, talking him down when things were difficult, encouraging him, and writing a book with him, be in service all about birdsher life it seems, that he can read when he gets scared to help him calm downlike the female generations before her. His parents seem completely caught up in their business, and so it The other is Rosie he always turns to. Even though she has gone away to University nowSidney, she a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has promised him that she will still be been removed there when he needs heraway from bomber flight-paths. But now he can't find Rosie. She hasn't come home when she said she would The girls are chalk and cheese, and she isnif we hadn't answering her phoneguessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. His parents won't speak to him or when they do But something is amiss, he doesn't understand or take and first separately and then in what combination theyrealise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 're sayingun. Nothing seems to be right Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the only way he feels he can find any peace is if he can find Rosiegirls are wrong, and if they can find the nightingale and listen to its song, as they do together every Spring.upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=13985108901788004647
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alastair Chisholm and Eric DeschampsJamie Littler|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas and IronskinArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet TomasTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Happy Elodie is intent on getting closer to work with his father power in one of the blacksmith's forgereligious districts of Arkspire, he's almost perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the age Watcher, the closest to become a full apprenticeruler the district has, and help with one of the new batch of dragonswords is certainly neededfive major victors in said earlier war. Not Being trained in the magic that there are any dragons, only five people can use would definitely change the status of course – they vanished centuries ago. Except..the whole family. Strange signals from within the forge furnaceBut in finding something oddly magical, and a peculiar invite Juniper might just be able to become an apprentice clerk insteadgain some power of her own – for good, are things or 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 attributesvery, and ride with them...very bad…|isbn=18399400260241586143
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell024162343X|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has I was the bad company other people got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banishedat school. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both in exile and I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the physical form existence 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 '. Where was the more suaveproof? In history lessons, more popular and more successful brother of the twoit was probably worse still. Loki has a month to redeem his reputation, and get his moral compass pointing Not too long after the right way againend of WWII, or else, and to prove it he has I didn't so much want to write learn about the text British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we read didn't dwell on those) in a sentient notebook, that is able what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to cry foul of his lies, and judge his progress. But Loki is dispute what right the kind of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going army had to be a walk there in the parkfirst place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.right?|isbn=1406399752
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Strange and Pam SmyThiago de Moraes|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is no mermaid in Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a friend for young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her in amongst all the other kidsone-last-chance-giving headteacher, who have had their entire childhoods sold to the mill-owners by the London workhouse they used to call homeworld changes. Bess knows there is no time for friendship in Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a handpower-to-mouthout, every man for himself kind even of existence. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of a kindred spirit electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the slight little Dotentire planet (apart from mobile phones, and despite everything all that life powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has taught happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her about betrayal and how befriending epic quest, to gather all the people only leads to harm, there might be a glimmer of companionship in that can steal it back – namely the tired-out mill workers. But surely characters from myth that doesn't mean there is any truth have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the existence of semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the mermaid?tricksters.|isbn=180090049X178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=Escape RoomFinding Bear|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process [[The Last Bear by which Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific locationlot further north than many people would venture, and have to solve problems in order to get their way out. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventureshe called Bear. Back home, with things on the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Heredomestic and family front are a bit advanced, Ami and four other tweenagersbut not perfect for her, all new to each other and booked into so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the game without any of their friends, are islands Bear was last left on. For a team – starting out at the gamebear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's main officesOK, where they're told they she and her father return to the Arctic and their quest for The Answer are hope that in a world-changer. But could watching people engage with such a pastimeof very white and very dangerous things, despite she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?friendship can continue.|isbn=17880079640008582017
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeSimon Fox|title=FledglingDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=BavariaLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, 1900. Our scene is demanding he fetch something from a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decadessecret place, and now looking imperiously down join him on the village and woods belowrun. It's an eccentric house They get together, but barely begin to host eccentrics, so smell the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, whiff of Southern trains when the roof father is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through itarrested, and so leaving Archie on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermylate express to Brighton, toting a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudlytin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, bearer of a young lass who has to do all the maintenance whole heap 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..questions.|isbn=183994188X1839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie BlackallCath Howe|title=The Beatryce ProphecyMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ren''Stories have joy and surprises s family home is destroyed in them''a fire. She, we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous storyher parents, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportionher little brother lose everything. We start with a group She doesn't have any of monksher clothes, the Order or any of the Chronicles of Sorrowingher special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingnow she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, trampling on and biting or even eat the poor Brothersfoods they normally eat. Things change drastically when When she goes back to school she discovers that the beast takes class are doing a totally maternal approach special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a homeless girl, one who person. But Ren has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits nothing to put in a King in his castlebox, desperate and so she finds herself starting to find the girlsteal things. Small things, for it is prophesied things that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great changepeople might not really miss, not when they have so much already. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat what will happen to anyoneher if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=15295008931839942835
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithRob Keeley|title=The Great Dream RobberyBoy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Maya's father Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with 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 return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new friendtales, and discovers that the only way each as fun to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collideread as his previous offerings...really...and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051XB0BVW69N1G
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Keith GrayLaura Noakes|title=The ClimbersCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sully is Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the best tree climber home she lives in is for the village. He has what's known amongst girls to just be named by the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up number they correspond to in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatenedledger, and not only thatthey're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that his chance Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to name be known about where she came from, as the finalfirst ever inmate, unnamed big tree and unique in having no known family in the park by being outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the first kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to conquer it, might be snatched from adopt all the girls for his handsInstitute. How can Sully stop Nottingham But why, and what does that body entail? And will could it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, possibly bring Cos closer to do the past she has solittle link with?|isbn=17811299910008579059
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettAlice M Ross|title=Locked Out LilyThe Nowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lily At last there is, or was, or has been, very ill, new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and to give her parents relief mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few dayshas stolen it. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just She also knows she should be free from worries about to be born – a child Lily swears being found out, because she hates already and wants nothing has the ability to do with. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (leave this world, and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra use an unworldly portal of her parentskaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the babe-in-armsbuildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, already installed. These devilish interlopers need can Elsbeth nab anything to be ousted to get actually generate custom at the family back intactshop? Well yes, even if it's not is the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in answer, but the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake.fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=14711948331839943769
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Philip ReeveNatasha Farrant|title=Utterly Dark and the Face The Rescue of the DeepRavenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In a word, richThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. There Ravenwood is certainly an abundance old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildseacomplex, British but way westextended family arrangement, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on itas Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and sea-witchesRaffy is there with his mum, and legends of the Dark they are living together as a family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are They have grown up swimming in the Watchercove, Andreweroaming through the trees, who has to keep notes completely at one with all of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, nature around the house and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out loving every inch of the sea one day eleven years agoplace. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himselfnow the house is under threat, both as Leo is under pressure from his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into other two brothers to sell the world of protecting their island, like property to a developer as it or 's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying notonly about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=17884523720571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex FoulkesRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Rules for VampiresSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or Jayden'Leo' for short) s nose is forever in a Vampire. She drinks bloodbook, she sleeps during which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the day, phoenixes and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock unicorns of bats the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to travel aroundher new tablet, although not all where she can see videos of them remember to come back)anything that might be out there. Pretty cool stuff. Now The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, on exploring the night outside world of her hundredth birthnightHackney, she has to go out and hunt her first humanLondon. However But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanagewith a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. Oops! And to make things worse For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the ghosts one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of one local footage. The crew of the orphans boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the evil master of kids unknowingly have the orphanage come back magical sight needed to haunt herjoin in. So Dare they side with Leila, not only does Leo have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerfulwoman on board, she has to do it all while hiding it from and her family. Did I mention vampires relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and ghosts hate each otherbecome saviours of the unseen? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955X0241573483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Angharad WalkerB09XWSXSKY|title= The Ash HouseMaestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A new boy arrives at The Ash Housetune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. He doesnhadn't know his namereally wanted to come; after all, or why he is there but he is used to the system, used to different places 's ten now and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out all those old clocks don't appeal to teach him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the rules of The Ash Housetime. And time isn't good for anything. These rules centre on a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered by '' And that was why he was looking at the arrival of clock beside the Doctorbed. By It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the end of the story, lives will be changed forever clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and The Ash House will never be find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the same again.|isbn=1912626977clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Emma CarrollNigel Baines|title=The Week at World's EndA Tricky Kind of Magic|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=First, the titleCooper loves to perform magic tricks. We're in World's End Close, His father was a mediocre set of housesmagician, where Stevie (Vie to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog and with named Cooper after the boy over the roadgreat Tommy Cooper. But we could also be at Worldsadly Cooper's Endfather died suddenly, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshorebe, and not much else is able or how to make the news. That said, Vie has news of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shedbe. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she And when his dad'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed s prop rabbit starts talking to leavehim, and implied her life was at risk. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with he ''really'' doesn't know what the Cold War is doing miles away?'s going on anymore!|isbn=05713644381444960261
}}
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]