Open main menu

Changes

no edit summary
|summary=Suzanne's dad is shouting again, loud enough to be heard through the kitchen walls into the house next door, where Anna lives. He must think he sounds like a stuck record, saying for the umpteenth time they can't and won't have a dog as a pet. But what if it's left Suzanne in a will? Unfortunately, what gets delivered is nothing like the dreamt-of Cheetah or Bullet, but the most lumpen, lazy, poo-smelly attempt at a dog ever. And unfortunately, the attempts to train and exercise it involves Anna in lots of poo-smelly-bit shoving, and so much time and effort it could even break their friendship...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385982</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Frank Cottrell Boyce
|title=Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The Tootings are in many ways a typical modern family. Dad has loads of great ideas, and Mum thinks through the practical side. Lucy loves dark, brooding tragedy (as long as it's not happening to her), brother Jem (please don't call him Jeremy) enjoys helping Dad mend things, and Little Harry—well, he just keeps wandering off. They think Dad's idea about setting off to see Paris and the pyramids (plus a dinosaur or two for Little Harry, if possible) is just plain ridiculous.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330544195</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Melody James
|title=Signs of Love: Stupid Cupid
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gemma is still stuck writing horoscopes for the school webzine instead of any real journalism – but that may be about to change, as she’s given the chance to work with an older student on an actual article. The only problem is, the older student is the seriously annoying Will – but putting up with him is a small price to pay for the chance to see her name in print. Of course, she’s already the star of the webzine in many ways – but her role as Jessica Jupiter is still top secret, so barely anyone else knows this. Can she use her column to sort out Savannah’s love dilemma in the same way she so successfully helped out Treacle in the last book?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857073249</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Ian Fleming
|title=Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=You can't help envying Jeremy and Jemima Potts. Not only do their family own a magical car, but they have wonderful parents, too. Imagine the scene. Only this morning you found out that your car has features which definitely aren't standard on the average Range Rover or hatchback, and now you're in the middle of the English Channel, busy escaping a horrible death by drowning. Do your parents suddenly decide that seeing as you're halfway there, you might as well all go to France for a holiday, even though you don't have passports, clean socks or French money? Hmm. Thought not.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447213750</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Chris Higgins
|title=The Secrets Club: Alice in the Spotlight
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is a cheerful, feel-good story which nonetheless manages to capture exactly that feeling of anxiety and self-doubt that people experience when going into a new situation. Moving to secondary school in particular is a huge change (which Alice's school does not seem to have managed as efficiently as many real-life schools do these days) and it's a time when even the most confident of children must wonder, in the depths of their hearts, if they will find new friends. Alice in particular is so used to being in the shadow of her loud, cheerful, pretty sister that she spends half the book fretting about whether the other three members of the Gang of Four really like her or not. After all, half the class seemed to fall asleep when she gave a talk about the environment, and even Lissa, Tash and Dani admit she did go on a bit.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014133522X</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Victoria Eveleigh
|title=A Stallion Called Midnight
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jenny lived on Lundy with her father who was a farmer on the south of the island. It was an idyllic life: everyone knew and helped everyone else and it was rather like living in a big extended family. This was important to Jenny as her mother had died in a cliff fall when she was just five. Jenny had a secret though. Wild ponies roamed freely on the island and the stallion, Midnight, was considered to be the wildest of them all, but he liked and trusted Jenny and allowed her to ride on his back. Midnight has a dreadful reputation and Jenny dreaded what would happen when she had to leave the island and go away to school.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005529</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Caroline Lawrence
|title=The P K Pinkerton Mysteries: The Case of the Good-looking Corpse
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=PK is a skilled tracker with a keen eye and an excellent sense of smell. But he does suffer from a few disadvantages. Firstly, his Thorn: he has trouble understanding the expressions he sees on people's faces. Secondly, his Foible: he gets what his foster-mother used to call the Mulligrubs, going into a trance and rocking back and forth when things upset him. Thirdly, his Secret, which he is at great pains to conceal from everyone. And lastly, his Eccentricity: he loves to collect things. In this, the second book in the series, he begins to collect different kinds of tobacco.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001701</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Julia Jones and Claudia Myatt
|title=Strong Winds Trilogy: Ghosting Home
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We first met Donny Walker in [[Strong Winds Trilogy: The Salt-Stained Book by Julia Jones and Claudia Myatt|The Salt-Stained Book]] as he and his mother Skye left their home on the outskirts of Leeds and headed off to the Suffolk coast. When his deaf-and-mute mother had a breakdown fourteen-year-old Donny was taken into care and the only good thing in his life was that he was introduced (almost accidentally) to sailing. He was a natural. The worst parts of his life were that he wasn't allowed to see his mother and no matter what he did he seemed to keep running foul of Social Services and a certain police inspector. Something was going on, but could Donny and his new friends work out what it was? And would his great Aunt, known as Golden Dragon, be able to help him when she arrived in her boat ''Strong Winds''?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262067</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Ellie Irving
|title=Billie Templar's War
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Billie Templar’s dad is abroad, fighting for Queen and country. She wants him home – partly because they need to defend their record of winning the three-legged race at the school carnival, but more importantly because his best friend has just been seriously hurt and she’s worried it could be him next. She hits on a foolproof idea to bring him back – she just needs to ask the Queen herself to give him permission to come back. But getting to see the Queen is harder than she thinks… so she hatches a plan to stage a military tattoo to get the Queen to her village during the Jubilee celebrations. With an allergy-prone boy, a girl who has no friends, a bunch of old age pensioners and a brass band who only know one song trying to help, it couldn’t possibly work – could it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370331990</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Sarah Lean
|title=A Dog Called Homeless
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's a year since Cally's mum was killed in an accident, but the family is still barely coping with the loss. Her brother shuts himself in his room and plays on the computer for hours. Her father has packed away all her mother's belongings and cannot stand to hear her name mentioned, and Cally herself has become difficult and disruptive at school. It feels to her that when the others refuse to mention her mother, it makes her disappear even more. The whole family is getting more and more trapped in a spiral of misery and silence, isolated from each other and losing contact with their former friends and colleagues.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007455038</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Victoria Eveleigh
|title=Katy's Pony Surprise
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We've been with Katy Squires for a few years now. We first met her in [[Katy's Wild Foal by Victoria Eveleigh|Katy's Wild Foal]] when she discovered a new-born foal on snowy Exmoor. Co-incidentally it was Katy's birthday and the foal would be Trifle. It's not difficult to guess how things went in [[Katy's Champion Pony by Victoria Eveleigh|Katy's Champion Pony]], but it was great to see Trifle ''and'' Katy growing and maturing together. We've now come to the final part of this lovely trilogy and it's another that's going to be loved by the pony-mad tween girl. Even if you're not keen on horses and ponies it's still going to be a good read.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005537</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Ruth Eastham
|title=The Messenger Bird
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Three days before Nathan's thirteenth birthday, his father, who works for the Ministry of Defence, is arrested for leaking top secret information to the enemy and causing the deaths of British soldiers. As he is dragged into a police car, he manages to mutter a few words to Nathan, asking him to follow a trail of clues and solve the mystery which will prove his father's innocence. But he urges Nathan to trust absolutely no one. He must not even confide in his mother and sister, because telling them will put them in danger too. Frightened, weary and confused, Nathan must use every ounce of his courage and ingenuity to save his father.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407124617</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Roddy Doyle
|title=A Greyhound of a Girl
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mary's life seems full of grief at the moment. Her grandmother, whom she loves dearly, is dying in hospital, and at the very moment when she needs the comfort of a good friend, her bestie Ava has had to move away. But unlike many young fictional heroines, Mary has a strong and loving family to support her, and it is with them that she shares this glorious adventure.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407129341</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Karen McCombie
|title=You, Me and Thing: The Legend of the Loch Ness Lilo
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ruby lives next door to Jackson and although he can be somewhat annoying, being a boy, they share a BIG secret. At the bottom of their garden lives a Thing. There's no other way to describe it really, but Thing can be cute, funny, adorable - and something of a liability when it decides to do a little magic. You see, when Thing gets upset (which happens quite frequently - the world can get very confusing when you're only a little Thing) its magic spells are not completely reliable, which is why Ruby and Jackson went to a pool party and found themselves face-to-face with a giant inflatable monster.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571272614</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Iggy and Me and the New Baby
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Flo's little sister Iggy seems to have just one thing on her mind at the moment and that's babies. She's desperate for Mummy to have another baby but Mummy says that two are quite enough - 'one under each arm in an emergency'. Actually, Iggy has something else on her mind too. She ''longs'' to grow. At one point she was the smallest in her class - which meant that she was the smallest child in the school. She will do anything to grow - however odd it might seem to everyone else!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007463545</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Jeff Norton
|title=MetaWars: The Fight for the Future
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Welcome to the world of Web 4.0 - a totally immersive world of virtual reality, jacked into your spine, and the perfect place to escape, live and work - as opposed to the near-Apocalyptic conditions on Earth, with global warming, over-population and anarchic ruin everywhere. Jonah uses the Metasphere to go to school by day, and his rollerskates to try and win race prize purses by night. But the world is about to turn upside down for him. For the inventor of Web 4.0, who alone can control and profit from this other reality, is out of prison, and the 'terrorists' against him are stepping up their activities too. Secrets in both worlds will conspire to drag Jonah in, but in an existence where you can be killed virtually or IRL and they both have the same result, the danger he faces is only going to mount up...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408314592</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Garth Nix and Sean Williams
|title=Troubletwisters: The Monster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This book really should be required reading for anyone charged with bringing up children with magical powers — especially if they've already saved the world a time or two. In a nutshell, it shows what happens when you answer all the said young people's questions with some vague promise to explain everything when the time is right. As if that's going to satisfy them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258632</amazonuk>
}}