[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author=Ryder Windham
|title=Star Wars: A New Hope Junior Novel (Star Wars Junior Novel 1)
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It takes a greater mind than mine to keep track of all the different versions of ''Star Wars – A New Hope'' that there have been. That was never the name it was known under at the start, for one thing, but beyond the exuberant cinema classic known to so many, you get the digitally retouched version, then the DVD version, which both added to and took away some of those changes. And as it is with the film, so it is with the novels. This new presentation of the YA trilogy, while bearing the 2017 Copyright mark, is the 2004 children's novelisations, as far as I can make out, minus the pictures. You do get, on this first one, a '40 years of Star Wars' sticker, which is proof this is a classic we're looking at, but more than that, just goes to make me feel old…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405285427</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matthew Clark Smith and Matt Tavares
|summary=It's one thing for a non-fiction book for the young to show them something they themselves can explore – the pattern of the stars, perhaps, or the life in their back yard. But when it gets to things that are equally important to know about but are impossible to see in real life, why, then the game is changed. The artistic imagination has to be key, in portraying the invisible, and presenting what can only come from the pages of a book. And this example does it at its best, as it delves into the layers of the soil below said back yard, down and down, through all the different kinds of rock, until we reach the unattainable centre of the planet. And there's only one way to go from there – back out the other side, with yet more for us to be shown. It's a fantastic journey, then – and a quite fantastic volume.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784937312</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Matilda Woods
|title=The Boy, the Bird and the Coffin Maker
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Alberto is a carpenter, the very best in the town of Allora. But after the plague sweeps through the town, taking many of the citizens and Alberto's wife and children, he turns his skills away from furniture and toys to making coffins. Wrapped in sadness, and waiting only for the plague to come and claim his life too, Alberto lives alone, keeping company with the dead who are delivered to his house to await their coffin. One day, however, he realises that he must have a living visitor, as food starts to go missing. He begins to leave scraps of food, to try and discover who his mystery thief is…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407178695</amazonuk>
}}