==Confident readers==
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{{newreview
|author=Emily Bearn
|title=Tumtum and Nutmeg's Christmas Adventure
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I do look forward to a good children's story, and having read Tumtum and Nutmeg's [[The Pirates' Treasure (Tumtum and Nutmeg) by Emily Bearn|previous adventure on a pirate ship]] I was particularly looking forward to this one. It's Christmas, and our two friendly little mice have been working hard, preparing delicious treats and temptations ready for Christmas Day. One evening they go upstairs to check on the children who live in their house, Arthur and Lucy, and find their letters to Father Christmas. Last year the children didn't get any presents because their chimney was blocked up and Father Christmas couldn't get in. They've asked for the same presents again this year, hopeful that this year Father Christmas will manage to find a way through even though their father refuses to unblock the chimney for fear of drafts. Tumtum and Nutmeg are worried anyway that the letter won't reach Father Christmas in time, and that the children will be disappointed once again. They decide to take matters into their own hands and set off to visit the terrifying Baron Toymouse in Toy Kingdom to see if he can help. However, with clockwork cats to contend with, and the capture of Tumtum by the evil Baron, Christmas could turn out to be an even bigger disaster than they'd thought...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405250267</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary=Belladonna Johnson can see and talk to ghosts and no one else can. In fact she lives with two; her dead parents. But something is happening – the ghosts are disappearing. Her mother vanishes and her father tells her he doesn't have much time either. The doors are closing, the doors to the Other Side and there is only one left, but just as he says this, he is gone too. Not wanting to lose her parents again, Belladonna sets out on a journey with the help of Steve, a boy from school. They need to find the entrance to the Land of the Dead, the door to where the last ghost, Elsie, waits, before it's too late…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230715044</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kate Thompson
|title=The White Horse Trick
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We last saw Jenny before she made the move to Tir na n'Og and before she knew she was a changeling. These days, she's happily ensconced in the land of the fairies, where there is no time and nothing much happens, but everyone feels a huge sense of lazy contentment. Her human foster parents JJ and Aisling Liddy have also made the move and they are equally happy, in a laid back kind of way.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370329929</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
|title=The Death Defying Pepper Roux
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I love it when I discover a new book that I just can't put down, and today, for me, it was the story of Pepper Roux. Our hero, Pepper, had his future foretold at his birth, when his Aunt Mireille had a vision from Saint Constance that Pepper would be dead on his fourteenth birthday. On hearing this news his parents take very little interest in him, and Pepper grows up fully aware of his impending doom thanks to his very religious Aunt who forces him to confession every day, and ensures he is fully versed in the terrors of hell. So, as you can probably guess, his fourteenth birthday comes around and yet somehow Pepper finds that he is still alive. Through a series of chance happenings he flees the ever present menace of death, skipping from one person's life to another, afraid at how he has somehow evaded Saint Constance and the angels of death and forever guilty at the lies he is forced to tell to cover up his escape from death.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192756028</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Philip Ardagh
|title=The Far From Great Escape: Grubtown Tales
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When the Grubtown lighthouse is plunged into darkness because of the failure of its one massive lightbulb a ship called ''The Plucked Grape'' runs aground in the bay. It ploughs into ''The Rusty Dolphin'' where the locals are enjoying a Hot Chocolate and Bubble-Wrap Popping Night. As if this wasn't enough to contend with the local Police Department (all three of them) have to cope with a jail break when all six members of the Fox family make a bid for freedom. Their sentence only had another fortnight to go and when they're caught there'll be another trial and they'll be imprisoned for a much longer stretch.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571242340</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anthony Horowitz
|title=The Devil and his Boy
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Queen Elizabeth I met with her magician late one night and asked about the fate of a man she had known many years before. He was dead, but his son lived on. Meanwhile in the town of Framlingham Tom Falconer worked for the couple who had taken him in after his parents died. There was no love, or even affection, from them and when he was offered the chance of escape to London by a rich and aristocratic stranger he barely hesitated. Life was never going to be easy for the likes of Tom and before long he found himself alone in London trying to avoid Gamaliel Ratsey – the highwayman who would see him dead.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406305693</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Walter Moers
|title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Meet Echo the Crat. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is accepted.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Hilary McKay
|title=Wishing For Tomorrow
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Wishing For Tomorrow'' picks up where [[A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett]] left off. Avert your eyes if you've not read the first book - and if you haven't, why not?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340956534</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Frances Hodgson Burnett
|title=A Little Princess
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sara Crewe has started at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary For Young Ladies. She's so rich and well-behaved that she soon becomes known as the little princess. However, when her father dies shortly after going bankrupt, Sara's life is turned on its head.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340997397</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Fiona Louise Bate
|title=Gus
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gus is a beagle, who stands upright with his tail held high and in this delightful little book he tells us about his day. He shares his garden with a couple of tortoises called Dido and Hector, but only in summer as they disappear in winter. He's a dog who loves his comfort and we see him having his tummy tickled, snoozing, curled up in a chair and making artistic designs on a white duvet with his muddy paws. He's always alert though – and squirrel knows when it's best to make himself scarce, as do some plump pigeons.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312357</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Berlie Doherty
|title=Street Child
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Jim's father dies, he and his mother and sisters are thrown out of their cottage. Their new home is a single room in an overcrowded tenement. Food is scarce since Jim's mother can't earn much of a wage on her own. And when she falls ill - a cholera epidemic is sweeping Victorian London - the money runs out altogether and they are evicted again. Despite being horribly ill, Jim's mother manages to give her two daughters a chance of a job by throwing herself on the mercy of an old friend. But she and Jim are destitute and are taken to the workhouse.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007311257</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Angie Sage
|title=Syren (Septimus Heap)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After four books and 2,000 pages of plot far to complicated to recoup here, we meet ExtraOrdinary Wizard-apprentice Septimus Heap again, this time ship... um, ''dragon''-wrecked on a lonely island somewhere far out at sea. And his dragon has definitely wrecked. Its wings are badly wounded, making escape for Septimus and his friends, Beetle and Princess Jenna, impossible. To make matters worse, there's something strange about the island they've become stranded on. It's utterly deserted except for a girl and a cat-shaped lighthouse, and an eerie voice is calling to Septimus in his sleep...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594155</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Chris Mould
|title=Fangs 'n' Fire
|rating=2.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fangs 'n' Fire is a compilation of ten short stories about dragons, some original to Chris Mould, and some are traditional ones that he's retold in his own words. The traditional ones include the tale of St George, a Greek myth called the Dragon's Teeth and the Chinese story of the eyeless dragons. The original ones vary in content from dragons taking over England to dragons being tiny and living in the spines of books, but they share one thing in common: they are all surprisingly anti-dragon. There's only one in which dragons are portrayed as noble or peaceful, and that's the ancient Chinese fable. I found this slightly odd, as the children who will want to read this book will be fans of, or at least interested in dragons. It also shows a lack of imagination as it's not mandatory for every dragon to be Smaug.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340944757</amazonuk>
}}
