|summary=Laura has been in foster care since she was born, but Social Services have recently discovered that she has an uncle. So, at the beginning of this adventure mystery she finds herself moving to a house by the beach in Cornwall to live with Calvin Redfern, a man she has never met before. Laura's experiences have taught her to question everything, to be independent and to stand on her own two feet, so having an uncle who trusts her to be sensible, rather than lay down a list of rules, seems ideal. But Uncle Calvin and his house are shrouded in secrets. Why does he work such strange hours? Where does he go late at night? And why are there no signs of his past in the house?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000209</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Howard L Anderson
|title=Albert of Adelaide
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Albert the Duck-Billed Platypus lives in an Adelaide zoo but knows there's more to life than this. There must be as he's heard the stories. Somewhere beyond the cages is Old Australia, a land of dreams where there are no zoos and no human captors, just animals who are free to govern themselves and live in perpetual peace and happiness. That's a world that Albert wants to be a part of and so he escapes, realising that for the first time in his short life his future is in his own webbed paws.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668840X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Deborah Levy
|title=Swimming Home
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Joe, a poet and Isabel, his war-correspondent wife and their teenage daughter Nina rent a luxurious villa in the South of France and invite their friends Laura and Mitchell to join them. On their first day there Nina finds what appears to be a naked body floating in the swimming pool, but it's Kitty Finch. She pleads a mix-up over booking dates and when told that all the local hotels are fully booked for some days Isabel offers her the use of the spare bedroom at the villa. There's no obvious reason for why she does this, but what does become clear is that Kitty suffers from depression - and she's stopped taking her medication.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908276029</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Charlotte Haptie
|title=Granny Grabber's Whizz Bang World
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It takes a very good writer to make a robot seem endearing, and an even better one to make it nicer and kinder than most humans. But that's what Charlotte Haptie manages in this wonderfully daft tale of a child care robot called Granny Grabber that has more common sense than several parents, a firm called The Happy Home Robotics and a King.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444904086</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Manu Joseph
|title=The Illicit Happiness of Other People
|rating=3.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Meet what the first chapter calls ''the underdog family''. Tamil immigrants to Madras, they are below the breadline due to Ousep's constant drinking, and by him being a failed writer and mediocre journalist. His wife Mariamma has, shall we say, problems, their younger son is fixated on the beautiful girl next door. But their other son Unni is a ''cartoonist hottie'' - a handsome prodigy of the comic strip world - or he was until he took a nosedive off their roof three years ago, aged 17. Ousep is still tracking through his son's friends and output, trying to seek the cause of this suicide, and what we have here is the journey of the family as he struggles towards the truth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543093</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Cath Crowley
|title=Graffiti Moon
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Lucy wants to celebrate the end of school by finding the mysterious graffiti artist Shadow, whose work she's becoming obsessed with. The last thing she wants is to be stuck with Ed, a boy she briefly dated a couple of years ago, especially since that date ended with her breaking his nose after he put his hands in an inappropriate place. Ed, though, is supposed to be able to help her find Shadow, so she puts up with him. During the night, we see the story from both Lucy and Ed's sides as they gradually grow closer to each other.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444907875</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Marsden
|title=The Dead of the Night (The Tomorrow Series)
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Months after the invasion chronicled in the first book in this series, Ellie and her friends are still fighting against the enemy. Their latest plan - to rescue Kevin, who's imprisoned, and Callie, who's in a coma, after the ending of the first novel. Can they succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857388738</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Rose Tremain
|title=Merivel: A Man of His Time
|rating=5
|genre=Historical Fiction
|summary=Rose Tremain has made fans of her 1989 book ''Restoration'' wait for a long time before picking up the story of Sir Robert Merivel. Almost as much time has passed in Merivel's world with the book opening in 1683. Leaving a follow up so long can be fraught with danger. For those, like me, who loved ''Restoration'' at the time, the memory of its central character has grown in fondness over time while some of the detail has been inevitably lost to memory. Thankfully, this is one of those rare things in literature; a very good follow up.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701185201</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark Griffiths
|title=Space Lizards Ate My Sister!
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=On a school trip to an observatory, a scientist is being very stupid and silly in trying to impress the class of visitors about his work, which is very ironic considering what will happen to two of them. When the session leads to the discovery of an asteroid on its way to collide fatally with Earth, Lance and Tori are shocked to see the evil lizard they had to defeat in the first book in this series being asked for help. Soon they have to enter a cat-and-mouse chase across the very galaxy the scientist was so uncool about, to save the planet - and, as the title says, Lance's sister.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857071327</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=JM Shaw
|title=Ten Weeks in Africa
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Stephen and Martha Odinga live with their younger siblings and ailing mother in the Makera slums, near Kisuru in Batanga, Africa. Their father was killed by the Army of Celestial Peace so they try to make a living on the streets. Corruption flows through Batanga like sewage through Makera though, and the protection payments they need to pay the police to continue trading are becoming prohibitive so Stephen searches for better paid employment in questionable career areas.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340934050</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Catherine R Daly
|title=Too Many Blooms (Flower Girls 1)
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Delphinium Bloom is devoted to her grandparents and enjoys helping out in their family flower shop. For Del the shop is a haven of peace, quiet and orderliness compared to the rather chaotic, noisy but loving home she shares with her parents and three younger sisters. Del is a sensible and responsible girl and is horrified when her grandparents announce that they are moving to Florida leaving the shop in the tender care of Del’s scatter-brained parents and family. The family’s first order is for a large and very important wedding and one of the bridesmaids is to be Ashley, Del’s arch-rival at school. Will the family, and Del, be able to cope with the stress?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140712479X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Maile Meloy
|title=The Apothecary
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When 14 year old Janie Scott moves to London from California, she finds it cold, dreary and endlessly dull. She doesn’t fit in at her new school, St. Bedens, and getting used to life in 1950’s London, a life so different to the one she left behind, seems impossible. Then she meets Benjamin Burrows, another misfit. Benjamin wants to be a spy, and at the height of the Cold War, opportunities for espionage abound. But when Benjamin’s father, the local (and mysterious) apothecary is kidnapped, Janie and Benjamin get pulled into a world they could only imagine. Entrusted with the apothecary’s book of ancient knowledge, they must use it to track down Benjamin’s father, all the while keeping it from the hands of Russian spies with nuclear weapons. It seems the only chance to save the world may actually be magic.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849395063</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Melvin Burgess
|title=The Baby And Fly Pie
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fly Pie, his sister Jane and his friend Sham live in an alternate London, one full of brutality and ghettos. They are rubbish kids, employed by Mother Shelley (an alternate Fagin) to pick through rich people's rubbish for profit. Their lives are hard and brutal and, often, hungry. But they still have their dreams. Fly Pie longs to become a baker. He has cold hands; perfect for pastry. Sham wants to become one of Mother Shelley's Big Boys - and, eventually, to rise as possible through the criminal ranks to become an important person in a big gang. Jane, she's a bit different. She wants more. Not more money. More integrity. Jane wants to live a life where lying and cheating aren't necessities.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849394555</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Charles McLeod
|title=American Weather
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jim Haskin is a very odd man, doing a very odd job, in a very odd country if this book is to be believed. An advertising guru in San Francisco, he owns a touchy feely company which boasts such wonders as a ‘Dream Pod’, a room for his team to relax in with sleeping bags, TVs and a cooler brimming with organic fruit tea. That’s for their down time in between saving the world, promoting one eco-friendly item after another and doing other worthy things. Except behind the scenes, Jim Haskin is not that man. While his team are organising poetry slams to help homeless prostitutes, he’s coming up with fight-back campaigns, showing that bleach makes a beach better, chemical spills aren't as bad as you first might think, and other quite inexplicable things.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099542226</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anna Wilson
|title=The Dotty Dalmatian
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mrs Fudge's hairdressing salon and pooch-pampering parlour is doing great business and it's obvious that she can't really cope with just Pippa Peppercorn's occasional help. She needs another assistant, but finding one proves to be more difficult than she expected. Pippa's quite pleased about this as she really doesn't want to be ousted as THE personal assistant. Then Minx Polka arrives on the doorstep and she seems to have a real affinity with dogs - Mrs Fudge jumps at the opportunity to employ her. Pippa's not pleased, but she has something else on her mind. Who owns the out-of-control Dalmatian who is terrorising the neighbourhood and causing quite a bit of damage too?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330545280</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Various
|title=Hello Kitty Dictionary
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=The Hello Kitty Dictionary takes a concept that many young students might not find too interesting (me, on the other hand, I love books full of words) and puts a colourful and fun spin on it. Because if you’re having to look up how to spell a word, or what something means, it helps to have pages with lemon and violet and aquamarine borders, dotted with presents and hearts and stars. That’s not to say the dictionary isn’t clear and easy to read because it certainly is: the decorations don’t extend into the centre of the pages, and the entries themselves are bold fuchsia followed by neat black explanations, all neatly formatted on crisp white pages.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007457197</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
|title=Sunshine on Scotland Street
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I can hardly believe this is the eighth book about Scotland Street, and it's so nice to just pick up where we left off and discover what's been happening to all our friends. This time we have Angus and Domenica's wedding, Cyril's adventures whilst they're away on their honeymoon, Bruce encounters a rather strange gentleman and of course there's plenty of Bertie to entertain us!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972329</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=N K Jemisin
|title=The Shadowed Sun: Dreamblood: Book 2
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Ten years after the events of [[The Killing Moon: Dreamblood: Book 1 by N K Jemisin|The Killing Moon]], the events of the earlier book have left their mark on the world. Gujaareh is now under the oppressive rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. Worse, a plague of nightmares is killing the once peaceful city's inhabitants in their sleep. It falls to two unlikely heroes, Wanahomen, son of the late Prince, and Hanani, the first female to train as one of Hananja's priesthood, to try to save the city from both of these problems.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356500772</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Boyne
|title=The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=Whereas some children's authors make their young heroes and heroines out to be as regular human beings, [[:Category:John Boyne|John Boyne]] does things differently. After the [[The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne|boy]] whose dad had the strangest job in this world, came [[Noah Barleywater Runs Away by John Boyne|Noah Barleycorn]] and his unusual parentage, and now Barnaby Brocket. He shouldn't have turned out extraordinary in any way - both his parents are Mr and Mrs Average Australian, and his dad certainly keeps both feet on the ground - it's just Barnaby cannot. From the moment he was born, gravity has had the wrong effect on him, and he's spent his life bumping into the ceiling. Until one fateful day, when he is forced to both go and grow up, and finds out just what a rarity being normal is.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857531468</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robert L Wolke and Marlene Parrish
|title=What Einstein Kept Under His Hat: Secrets of Science in the Kitchen
|rating=3.5
|genre=Cookery
|summary=''Everyone'' knows that when you chop onions, you cry, but have you ever wondered ''exactly'' why this happens? More to the point have you ever considered what you might be able to do so that you don't need to look like a snivelling wreck every time you make kedgeree? Life is littered with such conundrums (along with the old-wives'-tale solutions) but there seem to be more of them in the kitchen than elsewhere. Robert L Wolke has a column in the ''Washington'' ''Post'' in which he debunks misconceptions and answers questions with logic, science and a healthy dose of common sense.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393341658</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Andrew Norriss
|title=Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Archie Coates has the most amazing talent for trouble, and whatever he does in all innocence, it's other people that suffer. On Monday he ends up with a teacher sitting on him, on Tuesday another one ends up half-naked. Both these and a lot more are shown with all the justification you need - and more humour than you could wish for - in this brilliant little book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560115</amazonuk>
}}
