'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
__NOTOC__
{{newreview
|author=Joanne Partis
|title=My Cat Just Sleeps
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=The little girl in this story has a pet cat who she loves, but she's noticed that whilst her cat spends his days sleeping all her friends' cats seem to lead much more exciting lives, hunting and playing and climbing and fishing...she attempts to entice him into doing something active, but he sleeps through it all until, finally, she realises that even if he is very sleepy he's also warm and cuddly and affectionate and she loves him very much. But she still wonders what it is that makes him so sleepy...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0709092113</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=Richard Scarry's style is instantly recognisable. I grew up reading his books so this collection is a trip down memory lane! Here there are six stories, about Huckle the cat, Lowly the worm, Mr Raccoon and Mr Frumble the pig, plus a counting section at the back. The stories are a mix of the usual text plus picture format as well as those full page spreads that Scarry is known for where he labels different parts of the picture and there are hundreds of little details to spot.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007413564</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mischa Hiller
|title=Shake Off
|rating=3.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Shake Off'' is the latest from the pen of Mischa Heller, a student of the John Le Carre universe where the Spies had to Come In From The Cold. Set in the 80s against a backdrop of daggers and cloaks, wests and easts and defectors and double agents, Heller's protagonist, Michel Khoury, hooked on pain killers and posing as a student, has been tasked with the unlikely mission of scouting for a Cambridge location in which to host secret talks between those Palestinians and Israelis who seek a 'secular democratic state for Jews, Christians and Muslims'.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846590884</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mary Joslin and Anna Luraschi
|title=Simon and the Easter Miracle: A Traditional Tale for Easter
|rating=3.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Simon is on his way to market with his eggs, wine and bread to sell. On his way he gets caught up in a crowd watching soldiers forcing a man to carry his cross out of the city. When the man is unable to carry his cross any longer the soldiers look around for someone else to do so, and they pick on Simon. After carrying the cross to the place of crucifixion Simon hurries back to get his goods, but he finds they've been spilt, broken and trampled. He returns home, dejected. The next morning, however, he discovers there has been a miracle and there are 12 white doves and Spring has come early to warm his crops.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0745960545</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Elena Pasquali and Sophie Windham
|title=The Three Trees: A Traditional Folktale
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=There are three trees standing side by side on a hill. They dream together of what they hope to become in the future; one wishes to become a chest for the finest treasures, one wishes to be a ship carrying a mighty King, and the last wants to stay on the hillside quietly pointing up to heaven. The first is cut down and made into a trough, but then it turns out it is a trough in the stable where Mary gives birth to Jesus, so it becomes the manger for him. The second is made into a simple fishing boat, but then it is the boat which Jesus goes in when there is a big storm and he calms the waves. The third tree is cut down and forgotten in a yard until one day it is made into a cross. It is, of course, the cross Jesus is crucified on and becomes the symbol of hope, forever pointing to heaven.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0745961703</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nick Butterworth
|title=Tales From Percy's Park: After the Storm
|rating=5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=One day, after a particularly wild and windy evening, Percy the Park Keeper discovers on his check around the park that an old oak tree has fallen down in the storm. All of the animals who lived in the tree ask Percy to help them find a new home. He loads them up in his wheelbarrow and, after a bit of an adventure, they finally find a new place for Percy to rebuild their homes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007155158</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alex T Smith
|title=Claude in the City
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Claude is a sweet little dog who wears a beret and whose best friend is a sock called Sir Bobblysock. They live with Mr and Mrs Shinyshoes, and when Mr and Mrs Shinyshoes go out, Claude and Sir Bobblysock go out and have their own adventures which, in this book, involve capturing a thief in an art gallery and solving a medical mystery in the local hospital. Claude, who reminds me a little bit of Snoopy, is very endearing and it's amazing how much personality an old sock can have!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340998997</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Stephen Kelman
|title=Pigeon English
|rating=4
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Eleven-year-old Harri is the fastest boy in Year 7. It's true. He won the race and everything. Harri is quite new to London. He, his mother and his big sister Lydia have come from Ghana to make a new life and live on the ninth floor of a tower block on a sink estate. Harri's father and little sister Agnes are still in Ghana, saving up the air fare, which is taking quite a long time. Agnes is beginning to talk already.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408810638</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Linden MacIntyre
|title=The Bishop's Man
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Duncan MacAskill (he eschews the title ''Father'' whenever he can get away with it) is ostensibly dean of a Catholic university in Nova Scotia. It's a job he enjoys. Approaching fifty years of age, he is, in general, happy with his life.
But the Catholic Church is strong on history and MacAskill cannot escape his own. The son of a bastard father and a foreign mother, he was lucky even to be able to follow his vocation and enter the church at all. For most of his career he has been "The Bishop's Man".
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224089722</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Glenn Taylor
|title=The Marrowbone Marble Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Glenn Taylor tells a big story with a deft lightness of touch. Covering the period from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, The Marrowbone Marble Company (and it's marble in the form of the glass marble game for children rather than the stone variety) tells the story of Loyal Ledford, a hard working man in West Virginia who marries the daughter of the glass factory where he works. Returning from a traumatic World War two, he decides to start his own business manufacturing marbles. If that sounds dull, it's far from it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007359071</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ellen Bryson
|title=The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno: A Love Story
|rating=4
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Set in the days and months following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno is an inventive and highly entertaining story of the life of the ''curiosities'' performing in the great PT Barnum's great American Museum.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330533819</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Pippa Funnell
|title=Tilly's Pony Tails: Moonshadow the Derby Winner
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We've met Tilly Redbrow before. She's of native American Indian descent but living with her adoptive family in the UK. To say that she is mad on horses is something of an understatement – just about everything she does revolves around them. This time she and her friends are having a sleepover at the Silver Shoe Stables, where – although no one is supposed to know about it – a famous racehorse is staying incognito because his history as a Derby winner means that horse thieves are after him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000918</amazonuk>
}}