132,602
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanMax Boucherat|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= So. We're back to the Merge with meet Lori on the first chapter in the third volume of Darren Shanevening she's saga of Archibald Loxgot 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 young man who can pick blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the locks of portals from our world to another-building, called the ''Merge'critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. Since his last adventure, Archie But first Lori has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the topic server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of his regular disappearancestampering. They don't ask too many questions When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and Archie has settled into a fairly peaceful routine of visiting Winston, his lock-picking mentor her safe place in the ''Merge'' and showing Kojogame has been doctored – well, the young guardian, around our world of the Born. where is a girl to turn?|isbn= B09Z2MTCZD0008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=Clarice BeanDungeon Runners: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildHero Trial|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was a hot summer day right at Meet Kit. Like most of the beginning people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the summer holidays sport where a team of warrior, mage and Clarice Bean was bored: ''Nothing ever happens except for sometimes... And only on rarehealer enter specially prepared, century-sh occasionsold, which is hardly evermagical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he'' There are seven members s seen of the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives latest race on the ground floor because he's wobbly)inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, Mum and Dadeaten, Clarice's older brother, Kurt and younger brother, Minal Cricketa new trio of questors is needed. There's also MarciePossibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, who's main claim he has taken to fame seems to be that she steals the batteries goading from Claricethe token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he's torch, which means that she can't read in the airing cupboardll enter as a team. Clarice would love to What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have someone who listened to herin actually managing that, rather than wanting and how could he possibly hope to talk, but the only one who does that is Granny and she lives in New York. The Bean family is ''different''.succeed?|isbn=1839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona LongmuirJames Sherwood Metts|title=Looking for EmilyPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet LilyThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. She AI and her mother automation have just moved from a city been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to a tiny seaside town called Edge, do and everyone from said mother other tasks that took time to her teacher are making demands of Lily that she make new friendsaccomplish. 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 Just as they were beginning to get used to make herself known, all this technological change and in a big way. But where does Emily come from? Well, Lily used that name because starting to think of what she'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of the most mundane objectsother, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming doornew ways to spend time, in a place calling itself 'The Museum of Emily'along came an awful pandemic. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum'Life was pretty much shut down and, tooalong with it, leaving all the two girls to make sure many daily social interactions on which they leave no stone unturned in finding what's behind the intrigue..depend so heavily.|isbn=18399427541736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800901232Tom Percival|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve ColeThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted to be Will's life is difficult, in a fashion designermultitude of ways. Life in He is bullied because he has 'the rural village where she lived with her family was happywrong shoes', if not prosperoushe has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came to his dad can't work because he lost his job at the village to offer Hahn college, was working a cash-in-hand job in Hanoi it was on a building site and had an opportunity not to be missedaccident. Some money changed hands Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Hanh was on the mini-bus to HanoiWill's life seems bleak in every direction. OnlyAnd yet, Hanh and the other girls were not going to work in he still has a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factorytiny amount of hope. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery He is good at art, and beading on the legs? The ones with clings to the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft moments of joy when you touched them? It's quite possible he is drawing, that Hanh and her co-workers made themfeel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=07112662041805141872|title=The Secret Life of BirdsTeacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)Rob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=I have recently discovered a great pleasure: I sit ''Seventeen banks and watch the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on a daily basisjeweller’s have been raided. An hour can pass without my noticing. I've established which species feed from The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the groundtruth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, which pop to the feeders for is really a quick snatch of some food safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and who settles in Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeableone last job... It would have been wonderful if'' Goodness me, as that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a child, I'd had access nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a book such as bad 'un like Al? We'The Secret Life ll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of Birds''. So – what a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is it?worth saving
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jason RohanChristopher Edge|title=S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access DeniedBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Arun Lucas and Sam have had little to do with Donna, his friends are all booked in for a girl movie marathon at their school. But things immediately change at the start of this extended sprint of local cinema, a novel, when she insists Arun's house place that has become the attention nickname of plain-clothes coppers and that 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they should bunk off school 're looking forward to find out why. And thus an unlikely trio lots of misfit young heroes is formed – Sam is really not Donna's idea of companyexciting films, and many, many snacks! However, but he is as the computer buffmovie starts, Donna seems to know all the criminal ins and outs and survival skillsthey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and Arun? Well, it's his lot to find out that all he based his family life on isnthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't true, and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpectedeven imagine. But how can this disparate trio hope as they lurch from one film genre to best MI6the next, kidnappers, people able can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to keep the truth about themselves secret for decadescinema, and so much moreto their real lives?|isbn=18399433861839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lissa EvansAdam Stower|title=WishedMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=When things contrive Murray is supposed to force Ed be a humble, tidy and his sister Roo (aka Lucy) friendly cat, one who is able to stay with the neighbourhood spinsterish old womansleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Miss Fileywell, for a week whatever takes his fancy next of half-term, they're not looking forward to itthe two. For one thing, she thinks Wi-Fi is But he's a special brand of biscuit. They donbad magician't particularly take to Willard eithers cat, the new kid next doorso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, who seems to ebulliently take over everything and everywhere. But things soon change when the catflap they find some tiny old birthday candles, and manage to work both use can chuck them out that these candles, for as long as their flames lastnot into the regular back garden, make birthday wishes come truebut into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. How will things change for This time round it drops them into a second time when they realise thatViking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, having used up three of themone much bigger than Murray was, these should really to be used for the wishes of someone two generations older than them?honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=178845202X0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Richard SmithAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Time Trap TwoThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= ''Jamie and Todd are horrified to learn that the Grand Plan, which they thought had been defeated, Eli is about to be implemented a busy lad – by day an apprentice in 1775the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, America. Hector and Catherine have to thwart Travis - an agent of in the evening a helper at the Grand Plan - who is hell bent on world dominationdessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Jamie and Todd go Eli lives with Hector and Catherine on a mission to 1775his lovely gran, to prevent too – for there is a super gun from being used generation missing in the Battle of Bunker Hillfamily. A few short years ago, during Eli's parents were both lost to the American War of Independencetitular race, but only a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have days to stop history from being altered.'' The second book in navigate the ''Time Trap'' series, as you can see, has an urgent a mission for our young heroes as the first, which took place world in the smog company of Victorian Londona magical beast. This time, Jamie and Todd are off has made the race anathema to the grand landscapes of North America. Travis, an agent of pair – but when a bad incident at the Grand Planeatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is attempting to take dare to enter what he most hates, with the Gatling gun back in time and change sole aim the outcome prize of magic at the Battle of Bunker Hill, a pivotal episode in end – the American War of Independenceonly thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=B094ZFF85P0571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justyn EdwardsHelen Cooper|title=The Great Fox IllusionTaming of the Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The latest incoming reality TV show is a contest with a differenceOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. No singing In this case, no dancingprincipally, this show is looking for magical children! Children who can understand how magic tricks workwe have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and who can attempt to win The Great Foxin case you's magical legacy - re seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the secrets names used here seem to all be the names of his tricks! Flick cheeses. Anyway, Brie is determined to winshunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, but not because she wants to own for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the tricksvisuals on it. She is interested And that story-telling will come in just ''handy one'' tricknight, the trick that The Great Fox stole from her fatherwhen he feels all alone and cast out. And she It's hoping almost as if she can find that trick then she will be able 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 bring her missing father homehalf-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=15295019460571376010
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Ann JuckesLauren St John|title=The Hunt for the NightingaleFinding Wonder|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jasper is a little boy who has some struggles, and whilst weRoo're never told why exactly, we can see that he s life has anxiety and panic attacks, and has difficulty dealing with change and big emotionsbecome almost impossibly difficult. His big sister, Rosie, has been a huge support to him, talking him down Her mum died when things were difficult, encouraging himshe was young, and writing a book with him, all about birds, now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that he can read when he gets scared her dad has dropped dead on his way to help him calm down. His parents seem completely caught up in their business, and so it is Rosie he always turns the corner shop tobuy a lottery ticket. Even though When asked what other family she has gone away to University now, she has promised him that can only name her aunt, Joni, who she will still be there when he needs knows her. But now he candad didn't find Rosiethink very highly of. She hasn't come home when But she said she wouldhas no one else, and so off she isn't answering goes to live with her phoneunreliable aunt. His parents won't speak Things continue to him or get worse for Roo, as when they do, he doesn't understand or take she and Joni leave London in what theyJoni're saying. Nothing seems to be rights old campervan, and it breaks down in the only way he feels he can find any peace is if he can find Rosie, middle of nowhere and if they can find the nightingale and listen to its song, as they do together every Spring.then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=13985108900571376169
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alastair Chisholm Adam Baron and Eric DeschampsBenji Davies|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas and IronskinOscar's Lion|rating=43
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Tomas. Happy We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to work with have his mother – or father in the blacksmith, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents's forgebedroom, all he's almost of the age to become sees is a full apprenticemahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and help with the new batch of dragonswords is certainly neededadmitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. Not that But there are any dragons, of course benefits to having a lion around – they vanished centuries ago. Except..it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. Strange signals from within the forge furnaceAnd it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a peculiar invite problem. And it's wonderful to become an apprentice clerk instead, are things for Tom to puzzle over have around the house – until it all comes out in the wash, that yes dragons do still exist in this worldnot limiting his biscuit intake, and that Tom is rare in being much more lax about the ability to summon them, share magical attributesrules, and ride with them.so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|isbn=18399400260008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Louie StowellJudith Eagle|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodThe Stolen Songbird|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided thereCaro's only one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki is spending mother, a month both in exile world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and in the physical form of a middle-school kid here on Earthis now missing. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents Her other mother, and Thor has come along as wellRonnie, is having to be the more suave, more popular and more successful brother go up North to take care of the twoher sister who is unwell. Loki So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has a month to redeem his reputationheard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and get his moral compass pointing the right way again, or else, confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to prove it he has practise her gymnastics are brought to write the text we read a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a sentient notebookmystery, that is able to cry foul as she discovers a painting of his liesa bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and judge his progressall across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. But Loki is Is the painting somehow linked to the kind of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going gang? And what has happened to be a walk Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the park...rightmystery too?|isbn=14063997520571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Strange and Pam SmyTania Unsworth|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is no mermaid in the millpondMeet Gil. That at least is what Bess Just twelve, he is telling herself. Neither will there be a friend for her in amongst all the other kids, who have had their entire childhoods sold so determined to escape the mill-owners by care system – the London workhouse they used to call system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a homefor himself. Bess knows there He is no time for friendship in a hand-en route to-mouthyet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, every man for himself kind and lets it ride him to his future. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of existence. But despite herself Bess does find belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a bit camp on an island between the two directions of a kindred spirit in the slight little Dotmotorway, a place inaccessible and despite everything that life has taught her about betrayal definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and how befriending people only leads to harmseclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there might be , albeit so much more successfully. Over a glimmer of companionship in the tired-out mill workers. But surely that doesn't mean there few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is any truth in the existence of the mermaid?one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=180090049X1804540080
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeHelen Peters|title=Escape RoomFriends and Traitors
|rating=3
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've seen junior variants of England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the process by which female generations before her. The other is Sidney, a character or characters start by being trapped in girl from a specific locationhoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and have to solve problems in order to get their way out. What Iif we hadn've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for t guessed that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventure, then their behaviour with the regular second person narrative replaced by the each other over their firstencounters would only prove it so. Here But something is amiss, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new to each other first separately and booked into then in combination they realise the game without any Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of their friendssecrecy, are a team – starting out at the game's main officestalk is made of meetings with Germans, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are not only that, a world-changerlocal Spitfire factory has been attacked. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite surely the ramped-up threat levelsgirls are wrong, change much in and the world of literatureupper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=17880079641788004647
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeJamie Littler|title=FledglingArkspire|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=BavariaTwo sisters, 1900. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop houseJuniper and Elodie, built bit by bit over the decadesborn fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods belowcheese. It's Juniper is an eccentric houseeager hunter and trader in illicit magic, to host eccentrics, so including relics from prior major wars left out in the library shelving system Badlands. Elodie is not as we'd know it, intent on getting closer to power in one of the roof is retractablereligious districts of Arkspire, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, and so on. At perhaps even to become the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for child in line to inherit the long-standing family hobby power of taxidermythe Watcher, the closest to a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudlyruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all magic that only five people can use would definitely change the maintenance status of this bizarre machine-like abodethe whole family. Oh but it's also going to house someone or But in finding something elseoddly magical, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going Juniper might just be able to be a completely great and wonderful thinggain some power of her own – for good, or for very, think again...very bad…|isbn=183994188X0241586143
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall024162343X|title=The Beatryce ProphecyStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=''Stories have joy and surprises I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in themreligious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god', we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story Where was the proof? In history lessons, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportionwas probably worse still. We start with a group Not too long after the end of monksWWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, British army's successes (and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingoccasional failures, trampling but we didn't dwell on and biting those) in what came to be called 'the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when colonies' as want to dispute what right the beast takes a totally maternal approach army had to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King be there in his castle, desperate to find the girlfirst place. Looking back, for it is prophesied I still believe I was right - but I regret that a young child can unseat I lacked the maturity to approach 'the throne and cause great changeproblem' politely. 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?|isbn=1529500893I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithThiago de Moraes|title=The Great Dream RobberyOld Gods New Tricks|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Maya's father is a professor who invented an amazing dream machineMeet Trixie. But something went wrong Forever getting into scrapes, larks and now he can't wake upadventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. Or at least, that But just when she's what Maya has been being toldthat by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. In Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friendpower-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and discovers all that powers 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 thereInternet, just for our convenience's everything sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from llamas and bananasus. And so she begins her epic quest, dream machines made to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from hairdresser castmyth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-offsdeities, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|isbn=024147051X178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Keith GrayHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=The ClimbersFinding Bear|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sully is the best tree climber in the village. He has what's known amongst the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up in town? A new kid[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], called NottinghamApril had been on Bear Island, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threateneda lot further north than many people would venture, and not only finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – thatshe called Bear. Back home, that his chance to name things on the finaldomestic and family front are a bit advanced, unnamed big tree in the park by being the first to conquer itbut not perfect for her, might and so can easily be snatched ignored when word comes through from his handsthe islands Bear was last left on. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, or maybe even all she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of his friendsvery white and very dangerous things, to do so?she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.|isbn=17811299910008582017
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettSimon Fox|title=Locked Out LilyDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lily Late one night Graham Blake islate back from his shift on the force, or wasand then suddenly rings Archie, or has been, very illdemanding he fetch something from a secret place, and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need join him on the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing to do withrun. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents They get together, and but barely begin to smell the babe-in-arms, already installed. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get whiff of Southern trains when the family back intactfather is arrested, even if it's not leaving Archie on the family Lily wants – and all she has late express to help her in the task are some talking animals – CrowBrighton, Moletoting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, Mouse and Snakethe bearer of a whole heap of questions.|isbn=14711948331839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Philip ReeveCath Howe|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the DeepMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In a word, rich. There Ren's family home is certainly an abundance of riches destroyed in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildseafire. She, British but way westher parents, beyond the Scilliesand her little brother lose everything. There are troll people on it She doesn't have any of her clothes, and seaor any of her special little knick-witchesknacks from her cupboard, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, now she is living at her grandmother's house where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcherthey can't touch anything, Andreweor do anything, who has or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to keep notes of activity from school she discovers that the Hidden Landsclass are doing a special art project, his brother Will who creating boxes of their lives in London with too much science in his head , to display things that are important to worry about such local yokel superstitions, them and Andrewe's foundling daughter, show who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years agothey are as a person. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himselfRen has nothing to put in a box, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their islandso she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, like it or notwhen they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=17884523721839942835
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex FoulkesRob Keeley|title=Rules for VampiresThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a Vampire. She drinks blood, she sleeps during the day, and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock of bats to travel around, although not all of them remember return to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Now, on the night of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oopsshort story format! And The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to make things worseeleven new tales, the ghosts of one of the orphans and the evil master of the orphanage come back to haunt her. So, not only does Leo have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, she has each as fun to do it all while hiding it from her familyread as his previous offerings. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955XB0BVW69N1G
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Angharad WalkerLaura Noakes|title= The Ash House|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he is used to the system, used to different places and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him the rules of The Ash House. These rules centre on Cosima Unfortunate Steals 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 the arrival of the Doctor. By the end of the story, lives will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be the same again.|isbn=1912626977}}{{Frontpage|author=Emma Carroll|title=The Week at World's EndStar
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=FirstMeet Number One. Or rather, the titleCosima Unfortunate. We're in World's End Close Or rather, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie just Cos to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog and with the boy over the road. But we could also be at World's End, because something taking a great chunk of The practice in the fun away home she lives in is for the fact that girls to just be named by the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries number they correspond to reduce in the risk of nuclear missiles offshoreledger, and not much they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else is able seems to make be known about where she came from, as the news. That said, Vie has news of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna hasfirst ever inmate, and unique in having no short time, taken a strong interest known family in the American airforce base behind outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the Closekitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to leaveadopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, and implied her life was at risk. But surely this bit of intrigue what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has got nothing to do so little link with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=05713644380008579059
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Ian Mark and Louis GhibaultAlice M Ross|title=Monster Hunting For BeginnersThe Nowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet JackAt last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town. Now Jack Elsbeth knows very little this because she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being fearless and nimble and quickfound out, for he's a slight boybecause she has the ability to leave this world, and although he wants for danger use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and peril the buildings are generally empty of humans and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out of his sightripe for plunder. That's because Jack's mother knew all about monsters With eviction imminent, and look what happened can Elsbeth nab anything to her – she died. Luckily or unluckily thenactually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, depending on your point of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOLis the answer, Jack will fluke but the ogre's death, fact a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''...mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=07555019421839943769
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lisa ThompsonNatasha Farrant|title=The Small ThingsRescue of Ravenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Although Anna has friends at schoolThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. Ravenwood is an old house, she feels like she never really fits inthe North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. Her They are part of a complex, extended family don't have enough money to let her do after school activitiesarrangement, and so she feels like her life at home as Bea is boring in comparison to theirs. When a new girl joins there with her classUncle Leo, Anna and Raffy is asked to partner herthere with his mum, but things and they are complicated because living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the new girlcove, Ellieroaming through the trees, is unwell completely at one with all of the nature around the house and so can't attend school in personloving every inch of the place. Instead But now the house is under threat, she joins in with as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the class by using property to a robotdeveloper as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. Can Anna overcome the challenge of making friends with someone through a robot The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and is she even interesting enough to if Ravenwood itself will be a good friend to Ellie?torn down.|isbn=17811296490571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex CotterRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Secret Beast Club: The House on the EdgeUnicorns of Silver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=FaithJayden's family home nose is teetering on the edge of forever in a cliffbook, literally. Is that crack in which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the garden getting bigger? Is phoenixes and unicorns of the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apartworld, so is Faith's familyfor example. Her dad has disappeared, and her mum Aisha is struggling addicted to copeher new tablet, barely leaving her bedwhere she can see videos of anything that might be out there. So The problem, as their mothers see it, is that leaves Faith in chargethey are never 'out there' themselves, taking care exploring the outside world of her little brother NoahHackney, taking care of her mum, feeding everyoneLondon. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, getting Noah to schooleducational purpose, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the cellar? What should one Aisha thinks she do about 's seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the house? Can she find boat, including a way living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to raise enough money to fix it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries join in. Dare they side with Leila, the weight of all these worries woman on board, and her constantlyrelative who lives as a figure in a painting, and she doesn't know how much longer become saviours of the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on.unseen?|isbn=17880086260241573483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de FrestonB09XWSXSKY|title=Julia Maestro Orpheus and the SharkWorld Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=JuliaFrederick (or Fred, our pre-teen heroinebut never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from rather like the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for ticking of a summer, clock was playing over and over in the far NE of the Scottish islandshis mind. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish islandIt happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. Dad is going He hadn't really wanted to be automating the lanterncome; after all, which he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt tell the elusive Greenland sharktime. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one nighttime isn't good for anything...''|isbn=1510107789And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Louie StowellNigel Baines|title=OtherlandA Tricky Kind of Magic|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary= Myra and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra is loudCooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a magician, bright and hates rules, while Rohan is very polite, serious and worries about named Cooper after the tiniest thingsgreat Tommy Cooper. Their only connection? Being born But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and briefly dying at the same time at the same hospital on Midsummernow Cooper doesn's day. And sot quite know who to be, every year their families get together or how to celebrate the two's birthday/deathdaybe. But And when Rohanhis dad's little sister Shilpa is taken by the fairy queen, they must journey prop rabbit starts talking to the Otherlandhim, a magical realm full of fairies, vampires, dragons, and Gods. Ithe ''really'' doesn't know what's going to be the worst night of their lives.on anymore!|isbn=17880004631444960261
}}
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]