The Dark Wild by Piers Torday
Be careful when reading this book: it presents humanity and its tendency to destroy everything in its path so convincingly that you may end up siding with the bad guys! Kester's world is a dystopian mess, and the fact that this time the threat comes from a quite unexpected quarter only makes things harder for him. Full review...
Paddington's Adventures by Michael Bond
Paddington might be mistaken for a suitable wedding usher, a doctor, and an illegal busker, but he is really just the original bear from Darkest Peru, with the charming ability to get into as many scrapes as one could wish. Paddington might cause confusion at the dentist's, the gymkhana or at the posh restaurant, but he will always land on his feet. Paddington might be able to completely befuddle a host of school teachers, a judge or anyone, but he is still the most loved occupant of the Brown's household, 32 Windsor Gardens, London. And this trilogy shows how he should be pretty much loved in many other households too. Full review...
Big Nate in the Zone by Lincoln Peirce
Life just can't get any worse for Big Nate. A friend ruins his homework for him, he ruins a beanbag in the school library, and the whole place is turning into a healthy-eating zone run by fun hoovers intent on force-feeding the kids wholesomeness, exercise and rabbit food. How could his luck possibly change? Well, with a broken-off action figure foot, that's how. Full review...
Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom by William Sutcliffe
Here is the warning for reviewers who have received a copy of Circus of Thieves:
'If you are chronologically vulnerable, easily confused, or allergic to hiccups in the space-time continuum, do not attempt to read unless you are wearing thick sunglasses or a snorkel with mask - flippers optional.'
Ahem. I'm guilty on all counts. I don't own thick sunglasses or a snorkel with a mask. I read it anyway. So sue me! Full review...
Sesame Seade Mysteries 1: Sleuth on Skates by Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne
Eleven-year-old Sesame Seade has been waiting all her life to be a super sleuth, so when a student journalist disappears and no-one seems all that bothered, she decides to solve the case herself. Can she track down the vanished girl before her parents work out what's going on? Full review...
A Piggy Pickle (Pip Street) by Jo Simmons
Problems are mounting for the people of Pip Street. Every evening the power goes out, so the whole street is plunged into darkness – not good for Bobby who's still young enough to be scared of the dark. Nor is it good news for the mysteriously popular new electrical shop at the end of the road – could all the gadgets bought at Gizmo World be the cause? Well, given the cover artwork and title of this adventure, I think the answer is a roundly firm NO, but there's really no harm in finding out what the action does involve. Full review...
Cowgirl by G R Gemin
Gemma has grown up on a housing estate in South Wales where muggings and burglaries are commonplace, her dad is in prison, her mum has given up hope for the future and Gemma argues with her younger brother. She has given up on finding happiness and escapes from her daily routine by riding her bike into the nearby countryside. On one of these trips she bumps into the notorious Cowgirl and after their initial hostilities have thawed an unlikely friendship blossoms and together the girls, with the help of a dozen cows, discover that kindness, cooperation and perseverance can restore hope to a broken community. Full review...
Scavenger 1: Zoid by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Somewhere out in the further reaches of the galaxy is a spherical construction, speeding the last few surviving Earth humans on their way to a different, new home, a giant biosphere acting as the one remaining Ark for what's left of humankind. And its purpose is even more important as, somewhen, somewhere and somehow, during its flight, the robot inhabitants – the cleaners, butlers, farmers and mechanics – rebelled. Since then they have evolved themselves, and ignored all their original programming, and are intent on wiping out humans instead. We, of course, are fighting back, but when the tiny community of little more than a hundred that serves as the whole world for the young worker known as York gets wiped out, he gets the clearest picture yet of how difficult that battle will be… Full review...
Urban Outlaws by Peter Jay Black
What skills would you need to trick the rich and powerful out of their ill-gotten gains? A posse of brilliant lawyers and accountants with elastic consciences? A cache of guns and bombs? Well, maybe, although it is very possible that all that will do is to turn you into villains as dirty as your marks. And, if you'll forgive the sudden descent into street-speak, that's not the way these five young Urban Outlaws roll. Full review...
The Four Seasons of Lucy Mckenzie by Kirsty Murray
For the first time in her life, Lucy dreaded Christmas.
She has been sent to stay with her Great-Aunt Big, who lives in a homestead in the Australian wilderness. Her family, meanwhile, will be spending Christmas in Paris, tending to Lucy’s older sister who is in a coma following a tragic accident. Lucy is deeply worried about her big sister and understands why she has been left behind, but she is filled with trepidation at the idea of spending such a long time with her eccentric Aunt, miles away from civilization without even as much as a mobile phone signal. Full review...
Dream On Amber by Emma Shevah
Ambra Alessandra Leola Kimiko Miyamoto has a very long name. I have a very short name, so I can’t relate. But I’m with her on other issues. Like how hard it is to start secondary school and try to make new friends when you’re not quite like everyone else. Maybe you’re a bit smaller than the other girls. Maybe you’re of an interesting heritage (say, half Italian, half Japanese). Maybe one of your parents has gone AWOL. Maybe you don’t have all the right gear you need to blend in – sometimes a caveman mobile phone just won’t cut it. Ambra has all of these things working against her, AND a name that makes it sound like she’s identifying with an item of underwear, so it’s no wonder she’s changed it to Amber in a bid to fit in. Full review...
The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones
Imagine a story – a good old-fashioned adventure with journeys and magic and villains and young people finding their strengths despite the odds, and coming at last to the place they belong. Then imagine another story, a heart-touching one this time, about the writing of that story, and you have the whole of this charming book. Full review...
Hero by Sarah Lean
Leo is a boy with a big imagination. He is a bit of an outsider and feels overshadowed by the achievements of others, in particular by those of his older sister, but in his dreams he is a brave and all-conquering Roman gladiator. Desperate to be a hero in the real world and receive attention from those he wants to impress, one day Leo makes a bad decision and does something wrong. As the repercussions multiply and Leo feels that he has let everyone down, the disappearance of a small dog called Jack Pepper offers him the opportunity to put things right. Full review...
Ironheart by Allan Boroughs
India Bentley's father went missing looking for oil in Siberia. Except it wasn't just oil he was searching for - rather, he was trying to find the lost fortress of Ironheart, whose old world secrets could save humanity - or destroy the world. When she meets tech-hunter Verity Brown and her android bodyguard Calculus, India manages to become involved in a daring adventure with some seriously unsavoury characters. Can she save her father, and the world? Full review...
Jane, The Fox and Me by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault
Bullied at school and lonely because her former friends don't talk to her, Helene loses herself in the pages of Jane Eyre. To a girl who thinks of herself as fat and plain, Jane's story gives her hope - but can she find happiness? And how will a trip to a nature camp affect her? Can it give her the confidence and courage to change the way she sees herself? Full review...
Dandelion Clocks by Rebecca Westcott
This is a very difficult book to read. Make no mistake: that's not because of poor writing or a dull story — far from it — but because the story is so sad and yet uplifting, the situation so honestly and movingly portrayed that you'd need to be an automaton to read it without tears. Jacqueline Wilson is quoted as saying readers will need a large box of tissues, and she wasn't exaggerating. Full review...
Fleatectives: Case of the Stolen Nectar by Jonny Zucker
Someone has been stealing all the nectar. The bees are in a buzz! One hive is blaming another hive and although the Sheriff is investigating, Buzz and Itch decide to take the case on themselves to try and figure out what exactly is going on. How will they manage to figure out the truth of what's happened? And will they manage to do it without being crushed to death by the bees? Full review...
Joe and the Race to Rescue by Victoria Eveleigh
Joe's come a long way from the Brummy boy who didn't want to know anything about horses and ponies whom we first met in Joe and the Hidden Horseshoe. His first pony, Lightning taught him a great deal, but Joe has grown and he's now been loaned Fortune, who's altogether different and Joe begins to realise that there's a lot more to being a great horseman than simply getting in the saddle and having the techniques. He needs to bond with Fortune and Fortune needs to learn to trust him. But Fortune isn't the only equine on Joe's mind. He's discovered a lonely-looking pony in a field and met Sherman and Velvet, two massive shire horses. Full review...
Infinity Drake: The Sons of Scarlatti by John McNally
Finn (real name Infinity) Drake is off for a week away in the Pyrenees with his Uncle Al. He's supposed to be at school but Grandma has gone off on a knitting cruise, so she will never know. But before they can be on their way, Al is summoned to a crisis meeting with secret government officials. A lethal bio-weapon - the Scarlatti wasp - has been stolen and released by an uber-villain (who else but an uber-villain) and the world's only chance is to use Al's top secret invention to shrink a combat team to destroy it. Full review...
The Legend of Frog by Guy Bass
Frog is about to journey to the End of the World to stake a claim for his rightful throne. Armed only with a stick called Basil Rathbone and a pair of catastrophe pants, he expects it to be easy - but hadn't bargained on an army of aliens appearing. What's a Frog to do? Full review...
Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell
Sophie is shipwrecked in the English Channel on her 1st birthday, with her mother presumed dead, but she's lucky enough to be found by scholar Charles. He raises her as his ward and they have a happy, if seriously unconventional, existence until the authorities intervene on her 12th birthday. With the orphanage beckoning, Sophie and Charles run away to France in the hope that her mother may be alive after all. Full review...
The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge
The year is 1912. With their father overseas, Nan, Robert, Timothy and Betsy are staying with their grandmother. Locked in their rooms after they fail to make themselves presentable for a dinner party, they run away and find a horse and cart which takes them to their uncle's house. There, he gruffly accepts the responsibility of looking after them in exchange for being able to educate them, and they fall in love with their surroundings - while stumbling upon the tragic history of a neighbour. Can they help to put things right? Full review...
Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost by Kjartan Poskitt
The clock is ticking… and that's not the only noise it makes when it's the one in the belltower of Odd Street School. When everyone in Agatha's gang of girlies is woken in the middle of the night by the clock bell chiming far too many times to make chronological sense, one of them dreams it is a ghost, hastening the passage of time and making them age. That might not be too bad, as nasty Gwendoline lives too far away and wouldn't mature at the same rate, surely? But then… would you really want to hurry up to become one of the geriatric, and very weird, schoolmistresses, or someone like Agatha's dad, whose sole intent seems to be to buy the cheapest, and very weird, breakfast cereal…? Full review...
Wild Boy by Rob Lloyd-Jones
Raised as a monster and sent to a freak show because of the hair that covers his body, Wild Boy is loathed and feared by nearly everyone, but has an incredible power of observation. When he's accused of murder, he's forced to run from the freak show and team up with circus acrobat Clarissa to try and clear his name. Full review...
City of Fate by Nicola Pierce
Just as war can tear families apart, so it can create them. One family we meet in this book is teenaged Yuri, forced out of kindness and duty to look after an abandoned five year old boy, and the older teenaged Tanya and her mother. Yuri was left alone to fend for himself when his own mother and child-in-arms surrendered, young Peter's mourning his Mama, and Tanya's is just shellshocked and crabby from living in a basement room. It's Hitler's invading soldiers that have done the killing – and, therefore, the forging of unlikely bonds. Elsewhere, four other youngsters, including Vlad and the militarily-minded Anton, are forced to leave their secondary school to sign up and face the consequences alone. It's Stalin's ignorant tactics that have led to that order being sent down. We are in Stalingrad, in one of the prime killing fields of World War Two, and the actions of two fighting superpowers are having their shocking effect on those who can cope the least – the young. Full review...
Geek Inc: The Impossible Boy by Mark Griffiths
Weird things happen in Blue Hills High School and the surrounding area. Not just the typical behaviour of teachers driven demented by their pupils, or the secret ingredient we all know is stirred into every school cafeteria pudding in the country, but the Doctor-Who-meets-the-Wimpy-Kid type of weird. For starters there's a boy who can do magic tricks, and we don't mean those lame ones which involve bits of elastic up your sleeve, either. This is walking across water and disappearing in broad daylight stuff. Then there's the statue hidden in the bushes at the park, and the elderly gentleman who likes to hide teaspoons in his shoes. And once again, Geek Inc is on the case! Full review...
The Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett
In a prosperous area of London during World War II the two Lockwood children, twelve year old Cecily and her older brother Jeremy, are dispatched, together with their socialite mother, to stay with family in the north to keep them safe. On their arrival, at Cecily’s insistence, they take in a young evacuee, ten year old May. As they wander the countryside close to Cecily’s Uncle Peregrine’s country estate the two girls find two strange boys hiding in the ruins of Snow Castle and do not tell the rest of the family about their discovery. As the children attempt to cope with their changed circumstances and the fear of an approaching enemy, each evening Uncle Peregrine tells the children a dark and sinister story of intrigue in the Royal courts of long ago and so begins the story within a story. This intriguing book then goes on to combine two periods of English history in an extraordinary adventure that is not only an historical novel but a moving coming of age story too. Full review...
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T S Eliot and Rebecca Ashdown (Illustrator)
It has always struck me to be the very definition of disappointment to think you're going to study Eliot's poetry at college or university, only to find it is some errant dross like 'The Four Quartets'. His book of Cats poems is in the strictest of verse, it's bursting with levity, it's surely great fun to share – what's not to prefer here? If I were you, I'd just ignore what kind of show these pages once inspired, and turn or return to them, Prufrock be damned. Full review...
The Executioner's Daughter by Jane Hardstaff
Moss, the daughter of the Tower of London's executioner, hates her life but has no way to leave it. She seems destined to catch heads in her basket forever - but then she finds a secret tunnel and a way out of the tower. Her long-awaited taste of freedom turns sour, though, when she finds out that her life is not what it seems and an otherworldly adversary is seeking her. Can she escape? And who can she trust to help her? Full review...
Who Framed Klaris Cliff? by Nikki Sheehan
Joseph is a thoroughly ordinary kid. He and his dad get on pretty well, in a teasing, blokish sort of way, and they both admit openly how much they miss Joseph's mother. She'd been suffering from depression on and off for ages and went away for a much-needed holiday a couple of years previously. Her postcards said she was feeling much better and would definitely be home before the end of the summer, but she broke her promise: she never came back. Joseph imagines every day what it will be like when she eventually returns. Still, there's a big untidy, unruly family next door including Joseph's best friend Rocky, so he never needs to be lonely. So far so good: a contemporary, cheerful story about a likeable young teen. But there's one sinister element in this everyday world. Full review...