==Confident readers==
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{{newreview
|author=Philip Ardagh
|title=Trick Eggs and Rubber Chickens: Grubtown Tales
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you haven't been to Grubtown before, then feel welcome. As newly arrived lorry driver John Jones finds out, it's a place of exceedingly silly names for people – Blue-Ridge Handheld my favourite so far – and exceedingly silly things happening for exceedingly silly reasons. One of those silly things is John Jones arriving into town with a giant octopus on the back of his lorry – a real, live one, destined for the brand new aquarium and carwash. Another, coinciding, silly thing, is the mayor having a huge festival day for the opening of his new home, which he has just finished knitting.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571247938</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Emily Bearn
|summary=It's obvious really. When an earthquake hits Castle Otherhand, Valevine, the head of the household, decides what the place needs is a machine to predict the future, and a new tutor for his two oldest children. And why not? There are only those children, the suicidal baby twins, Valevine's dreadful failed inventions and experiments, Edgar the raven that narrates this series of books, and a monkey. With bells on. Clearly there is not enough weirdness there already to go around.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556959</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Adam Blade
|title=Creta the Winged Terror (Beast Quest)
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Our hero, Tom, is finding his fishing trip with his father bugged - literally - by a plague of sickening cockroach things. What's more, the whole land of Avantia is suffering some form of horrid heatwave. Can Tom, recognising yet another threat to his country from the evil Malvel, defeat his nemesis yet again - especially as said baddie has as a new weapon of darkness a massive host of the roaches, swarming as one giant monster?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408307359</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lucy Coats and Anthony Lewis
|title=The Beasts in the Jar (Greek Beasts and Heroes)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Atticus the sandalmaker is heading to the great storytelling competition in Troy. On his way, he meets a number of people and, always eager for an opportunity to hone his skills, relates to them tales from Ancient Greek myths and legends. The beasts in the jar of the title? Pandora released them from what we mistakenly call her box.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000659</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Glenn Dakin
|title=Candle Man: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Birthdays for Theo are not exactly how we would recognise them. One bland, forgettable present from each of the three people who live in his household. Some pink cake at the best of times. A trip to the cemetery, with the butler making sure nobody else is in sight. But this one is different - some person unknown leaves something for him. And by the time burglars break in, and force Theo to leave the confines of his bedroom and find some of the secrets of the house, it is too late - Theo is set on a nightmarish trail between two warring forces, as the truths of his destiny, his origins, and his hands, come to the fore.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405246766</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Diana Wynne-Jones
|title=Enchanted Glass
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Andrew Hope, a rather woolly professor, learns that his magical grandfather has died, leaving him his house and his field-of-care. Andrew remembers some things from when he was a little boy, such as his grandfather leaving vegetables on the roof of the shed for someone, or something, to eat each night. He also remembers that there is something special about the beautiful, old coloured glass above the kitchen door, but not exactly what that is. It seems he has forgotten a lot of what his grandfather taught him, including the mystery of the field-of-care he has inherited. But with the entrance of Aidan Cain, an orphan, into his house and his life the mysteries deepen. The two are drawn to each other, however, and slowly start to unravel the truth that surrounds them.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007320787</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jean Ure
|title=Ice Lolly
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's the funeral. Laurel - Lolly to those that love her - is concentrating very hard and trying desperately to turn into an ice lolly. Ice lollies are frozen, you see, and they don't feel so much. They can't miss people - mothers - who are gone and people who are still around can't hurt them. A frozen heart is a sad thing, but it's a safe thing. Auntie Ellen doesn't like the music at the service, she thinks it's inappropriate. It isn't even a hymn. But it was one of Laurel's mother's favourites, and Laurel think it's just perfect. Special.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281730</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Philip Womack
|title=The Liberators
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Ivo's parents have gone off on a South American expedition. As it's the school holidays, Ivo is off to London to stay with some glamorous relatives. Aunt Lydia is a socialite and art expert who arranges exhibitions and parties for the great and the good. Uncle Jago is in finance and there isn't much about wheeling and dealing that he doesn't know. They're fond of Ivo and the kind of guardians who are likely to practise some benign neglect, so what Ivo is really looking forward to about his stay is freedom - he intends to explore London and enjoy everything it has to offer.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747595526</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jaclyn Dolamore
|title=Magic Under Glass
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Namira is a trouser girl - a music hall performer. In Lorinar, she's regarded as a faintly risque curiosity but at home in Tiansher it wasn't like this. Performers like her mother were feted and respected and Namira grew up in a palace. In Lorianar, she lives in poverty, performing for drunken fools who don't understand her art. And then suddenly, she's freed from the seedy music hall by Hollin Parry, a wealthy man and a member of Lorinar's Sorcerer Council. Parry has an automaton, a curiosity that plays the piano, and he wants Namira's unique voice to accompany it.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802120</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Pseudonymous Bosch
|title=This Book is Not Good for You
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Cass is not having the best of time when it comes to secrets. It's all very well being involved in a top-secret society, designed to keep the secret of the most secretive secret ever, but those pesky people called adults are keeping things from her as well - namely, her very origins. Can Max-Ernest and she wade through their junk store base and find the box she was delivered in? Can they survive the mysterious clown school they end up visiting? And can they keep a mystical tuning fork from falling into the wrong hands?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409506312</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Betty G Birney
|title=Holidays According to Humphrey
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Humphrey the hamster is worried. Everywhere he turns his little pink ears he hears noises about the school being closed. How can he survive without all his adoring fans in room 26, and what is life like for a classroom pet without a classroom? Luckily, this is only the summer holiday he is misunderstanding, and what do you know - he will soon be meeting familiar faces, not at school, but at summer camp.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571250904</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Keith Mansfield
|title=Johnny Mackintosh: Star Blaze
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Before I get into the review of this book, I'd like to suggest that if you haven't read Keith Mansfield's first Johnny Mackintosh book, [[Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London by Keith Mansfield|The Spirit of London]], you go off and read the review of that first and then go and read the book itself. It's a fantastic read. But because this is a sequel, there are obviously going to be some SPOILERS ahead.
So, done that have you?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849161267</amazonuk>
}}
