Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Confident readers==
 
__NOTOC__
 
{{newreview
 
|author=James Rollins
 
|title=Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The prologue to this splendid book recounts a terrifying chase, the discovery of fabulous Mayan artifacts, and a shadowy enemy. And that gripping scene sets the tone for the rest of the book. After the strange disappearance of their parents, who were on an archeological dig on the Mountain of Bones, Jake Ransom and his sister Kady are sent a parcel containing two halves of a Mayan coin, their mother's sketchbook and their father's notebook. There is no indication what these things mean or what to do with them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000616</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Andy Stanton
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|author=Rob Keeley
|title=Mr Gum and the Cherry Tree
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary="Woe, woe, woe, and a bottle of glum" declares a character in this story, and you would to if you shared the sensibilities of Polly, her friend Alan Taylor (the ridiculously named gingerbread man who serves as electrified schoolmaster to some ex-goblins), or any right minded person.  The problem is that all the right minded people have switched to being wrong minded.  For the old granny they call Old Granny has declared the Old Times back, and taken the entire village population (except for a magician who vanishes from the story) to a sacred glade in a nearby wood, where a tree spirit of Old is trying to enslave them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405252189</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Gregory Hughes
 
|title=Unhooking the Moon
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The Rat and Bob are prairie children. Winnipeg is a land ''so flat you can watch your dog run away for three days''. When their father dies and they're orphaned, they are determined to avoid a children's home at all costs and embark upon a road trip to New York City, in search of their long-lost uncle. Bob is pretty much the hanger-on - he knows that the Rat is a special kid who would never make it in an institution and so he puts his fears aside to follow his singular sister.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162956</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sophie McKenzie
 
|title=Time Train to the Blitz
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The summer holidays is a time for relaxing, playing in the sun, and getting bored – precisely what Joe and Scarlett are doing when we encounter them at the beginning of this thrilling book. It is hardly surprising then, that when the two children see a ghostly train racing towards them in the woods, they take a risk and step inside. The train itself is strange, but when they find clothes laid out in the single compartment with their own names marked on them, Joe starts to get really worried. His sister Scarlett, however, is more curious – or more reckless – and she immediately begins to try on the blue dress which has been left for her. And then Joe's phone starts to count down from an hour . . .
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0746097530</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Eleanor Updale
 
|title=Johnny Swanson
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary='Strength in What Remains' is the inspirational account of Deogratias, a man who has fled from the genocide and civil war in Burundi (just south of the equator in East Central Africa, bordering Rwanda). He escapes to New York, out of fear and want of a safer life; only his new found American life isn't quite what it promised.
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|summary=Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hector.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385616422</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
|author=Lynne Reid Banks
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|isbn= 1783064617
|title=I, Houdini
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Houdini is not your usual, commonplace hamster. Oh no, he is a hamster on a mission, a mission to escape!  From his very first glorious taste of freedom he spends his life inventing ways to escape and scurrying away (usually straight into a heap of trouble) at every possible opportunity.  This is his tale, related entirely from his own, rather conceited, point of view.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007341539</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=The Merchant Of Venice (Shakespeare Stories)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bassanio's got the hots for Portia, and she for him. His friend, Antonio, borrows money from Shylock so Bassanio can woo her. Antonio is usually well-off, but all his money is tied up with his ships at the moment. Due to past rivalries, Shylock demands that Antonio pay him back with a pound of flesh if he can't come up with the money. Meanwhile, Portia is putting various suitors to the test. As someone wise once said elsewhere, the course of true love never did run smooth.
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got 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 blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408305046</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Gabrielle Lord
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=April (Conspiracy 365)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It's April and Cal has survived three months of his year on the run. Will the fourth bring him any closer to answers about the Ormond Singularity? And can he trust Winter Frey?
 
 
You guys last saw Cal in January, feeling rather shell-shocked after his father's death from a mysterious disease and his brush with a crazed lunatic who told him that his father was murdered and he'd be next unless he could hold out until next New Year's Eve. Within days, Cal found himself on the run, accused of battering his own sister, and in search of something called the Ormond Singularity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340996471</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Zizou Corder
 
|title=Halo
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Halo is a baby, a centaur finds her crawling up a beach, the sole survivor of a shipwreck. This scene shows, right from the first page, the courage and determination which characterise her during the course of this book. No one has any idea who this human child is, but the golden owl amulet and the curious tattoo on her forehead suggest she is special. She is adopted by the family and for ten years she and her centaur brother Arko lead an idyllic life on the island of Zakynthos. But ten years later Halo is kidnapped by fishermen and sold into slavery. She escapes and disguises herself as a boy because as a girl she can have little or no respect, and no freedom of action. Still disguised as a boy she lives with the Spartans, falls in love, and is given clues to her true identity by the famous Oracle at Delphi.
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|summary=Meet Kit.  Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical 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's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141328304</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Philip Ardagh
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=Trick Eggs and Rubber Chickens: Grubtown Tales
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|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.
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|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571247938</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Emily Bearn
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=A Seaside Adventure (Tumtum and Nutmeg)
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There's something very comforting about returning to a story with familiar friends and this latest in the Tumtum and Nutmeg series does not disappointOur brave little mousey friends are heading off for some new excitement, this time travelling by train to the seaside to keep an eye on Arthur and Lucy who have been sent to stay with their UncleNutmeg is sure it won't be any bother, but Tumtum suspects they may well end up on another adventure!
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he 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, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hopeHe is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248203</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|author=Joe Friedman
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|title=Boobela and Worm Ride the Waves
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|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=
 
Boobela is a girl who is just like any other little girl, except for the fact that she isn't little - she's a giant.  Worm is her best friend (he actually is a worm) and he rides around in a box she straps to her shoulder.  This outing sees them visiting some underground caves and learning to surf, amongst other adventures.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556819</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sally Gardner
 
|title=The Red Necklace
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Paris's streets are already humming with talk of revolution, when the young gypsy Yann Margoza is summoned to perform his magic at the chateau of a selfish, debt-ridden marquise. He is to tell the assembled aristocracy their future. But what he hoped would be the ticket to a better life turns into a nightmare when he has a vision of the richly-dressed crowd drowning in a sea of blood.
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|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556347</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
|author=Kaye Umansky
 
|title=Clover Twig and the Perilous Path
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=There's non-stop fun and action in this story.  Granny Dismal comes to warn Mrs Eckles that the Perilous Path has been spotted in the forest, and this kicks off a funny story involving witches (both good and bad), trolls, missing little boys, clowns, imps and magic sweeties.  It's the sequel to Clover Twig and the Incredible Flying Cottage, but I don't think I lost out too much for not having read that first.  Everyone is generally so well described, and previous story arcs are quickly filled in if required.  This is the sort of book I would have stayed up late reading under the covers with a torch when I was a little girl myself, and is now the sort of book I would steal from my daughter's room late at night so I can keep reading it without waiting for a chapter a night!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408801876</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|author=R J Anderson
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|title=Rebel (Knife)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Fifteen years after the events of Knife, the Queen of the Oakenwyld is dying of old age. She charges Knife's daughter, Linden, with the task of finding other faeries out in the world. Knife is now living in the human world with her husband Paul, and her mission to protect the Oak is put in jeopardy by the arrival of Paul's teenage cousin, Timothy.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408307375</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Justin Richards
 
|title=The Chamber of Shadows
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's London, 1886.  A company building those new underground train tunnels finds a hidden vault at impossible depth - and seems to release into the world The Lord of FliesA mysterious masked stage magician does the obviously impossible.  A robotic killer stalks the streets, and a street gang of ruffians-on-the-up decides to solve the mystery. A man in charge of Fortean artefacts at the British Museum has a new employer, asking something much more evil from him.  Surely all of that cannot be connected in some way?  Surely one book can not have all those dark and mysterious elements we can probably all recognise, and put them into one period thriller without coming over as a horrendous porridge of parody?
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|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on?  Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571237991</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Yelland
 
|title=The Truth About Leo
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Leo lives inside his own head for much of the time. You can't really blame him. He's always tired for a start. That's because he's often up early, tidying up the house after one of his father's rampages. His father drinks too much, you see, and sometimes he smashes up the house. Leo can't risk this being discovered because his father's the only person he's got since his mother died of cancer. He misses her like crazy, and he's afraid he'll be taken into care if anyone finds out about his dad's drinking.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141330031</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Richard Denning
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=Tomorrow's Guardian
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=Eleven year old Tom Oakley thinks he's going mad when he seems to relive short periods of his life, and dreams about other people from different times. The reality is far stranger – he's a Walker, with the power to rescue those he dreamed about. Travelling to the battle of Isandlwana, the Great Fire of London, and a German U-Boat, guided by the mysterious Professor, Tom saves the lives of soldier Edward, servant Mary, and Able Seaman Charlie, who also have powers. There are others, however, with similar powers, who aren't as pleasant as Tom's new friends – and the four of them, allied with the Professor and his roguish helper Septimus, are pitched into a battle to save the worlds. That's intentionally plural – there are two parallel universes at stake here.
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|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs.  This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445251388</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|author=Steve Voake
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|title=Hooey Higgins and the Shark
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A shark has been spotted in Shrimpton-on-Sea's bay. The local chocolate shop has a mahousive egg for sale for £65. Hooey Higgins decides to capture the former so he can charge admission and buy the latter. He's helped out on his adventures by Twig and Will, whilst they all hope they won't fall foul of the big bully Basbo.
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|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs.  Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast.  This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406322342</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Kate Maryon
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=Shine
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=''You and me, Mum, you and me.''
 
 
 
Twelve-year-old Tiff and her mother are a double act. They're so close that they're almost more like sisters than mother and daughter. They both like shiny, girly, things, and Tiff's mum seemingly has an endless supply of new, ever more glamorous baubles for them to share. There's only one problem: how she comes by them. Because Tiff's mum has rather sticky fingers. She shoplifts. She defrauds credit cards. She's very naughty and sometimes it makes Tiff feel rather uncomfortable. She knows deep down that it can't last.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007326270</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Anthony McGowan
 
|title=Einstein's Underpants - And How They Saved The World
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A delightfully silly school cum sci-fi romp for confident readers, with plenty of pants-based humour, but never at the expense of a rollicking good read.
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|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat.  In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses.  Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, 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 visuals on it.  And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out.  It's almost as if 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 half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0440869242</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Alec Sillifant
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Jake Highfield: Chaos Unleashed
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What's this that Jake is doing - breaking into a building? Vandalising it with graffiti, having ruined someone's privacy and infiltrated something he shouldn't have done? Three years ago he would have been doing this as a yobbish kick, but now he's a teenage agent of a shadowy organisation called the Academy, and people want him to succeed in his mission.  But do they all want that?  Who are his taskmasters after all? And what does the Void have in store for his future?
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|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult.  Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of.  But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845393481</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Garth Edwards
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Shipwrecked (The Adventures of Titch and Mitch)
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|rating=3
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Titch and Mitch are two little pixies who have run away from homeThrough a series of misadventures they find themselves shipwrecked on an island, and the story revolves around them making new friends thereThey come to the rescue of a strange coloured seagull, they save a trapped fairy, they play dentist for a little dragon mouse and they aid and abet an intelligent turkey who is trying to escape from the turkey farm.
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|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for schoolBut when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days.  But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other monthAnd it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem.  And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on.  OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956231500</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Steve Voake
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=Fightback
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Meet Kier.  A smart, yet lonely, young teen, he's been farmed off to a private school by his dad since mother died.  Among his achievements are several successes on the karate mat, but all this is about to change.  When his father is rammed off a motorway and murdered, Kier finds he's even more alone, and duty-bound to fight even more, when he gets clues to just who his father might have been, and how to go about responding to his death.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571230032</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Gordon
 
|title=Fen Runners
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Years ago, a boy fell through the ice under Cottle's Bridge. He said afterwards that something pulled him, a sleek silvery creature dragging him down into the blackness. Now, decades later, two boys go swimming in the very same spot and find one of his ice skates, a so-called fen runner, buried in the mud at the bottom of the channel. But when they take it home, dark secrets begin to resurface around them and they become aware that an ancient evil is stirring out in the fens.
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|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell.  So who is going to look after Caro?  Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried.  All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to 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 mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people.  Is the painting somehow linked to the gang?  And what has happened to Caro's mother?  Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556843</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Sarah McConnell and Lucy Courtenay
+
|title=Nowhere Island
|title=Swashbuckle School (Scarlet Silver)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young Scarlet Silver had always wanted to be a pirate and eventually her wish came true when she and her family took to the high seas in their pirate ship, 55 Ocean Drive. The problem was though that neither Scarlet nor anyone else in the family knew how to be a pirate and they soon discovered that it was quite a tricky business. Scarlet became the self appointed captain and did her best but her parents, brother Cedric, grandfather and his mate One Eyed Jake formed a pretty inept crew. This resulted in them all soon falling foul to hostile pirate ships and narrowly escaping death and disaster!
+
|summary=Meet Gil.  Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself.  He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future.  That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340959673</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
 
+
|author=Helen Peters
{{newreview
+
|title=Friends and Traitors
|author=Liz Kessler
+
|rating=3
|title=Philippa Fisher and the Dream Maker's Daughter
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Since her fairy godsister Daisy went back to ATC - fairy high command - and moved on to other missions, Philippa Fisher has felt rather lonely. Her parents are as oddball as ever, wandering through life with the kind of benign muddleheadedness that makes them loveable, but more than a tad inattentive. They haven't really picked up on the fact that Philippa's human best friend has moved away and lost touch, or that she hasn't yet found a group of friends at secondary school. She misses Daisy like mad.  
+
|summary=England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook.  One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her.  The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths.  The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so.  But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un.  Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842557831</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Elise Broach
+
|title=Arkspire
|title=Masterpiece
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Marvin and his family are a kindly bunchThey even get him to go down inside the bathroom sink drainpipe to retrieve a missing contact lensThis is not so difficult when you're a small kind of beetle like Marvin.  But when they worry about the standard of birthday presents given to James, the boy of the human family that have unwittingly fostered them, things get very unpredictableMarvin sees James being given a pen and ink sketching set, and when trying to deliver a special coin to James, falls into making a sketch himself of the view outside the windowA sketch James could never have created - an ink masterwork that makes far too many adult human eyes bulge with surprise, delight - and possibly greed.
+
|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese.  Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the BadlandsElodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warBeing trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family.  But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406321834</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241586143
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=024162343X
 +
|title=Stolen History
 +
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 +
|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school.  I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'.  Where was the proof?  In history lessons, it was probably worse stillNot too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first placeLooking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely.  I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Linda Newbery
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=Lob
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lob is a Green Man – an ancient nature spirit and garden helper. Can you spot him hiding on the front cover of the book? Lucy believes in Lob, though her Mum and Dad tell her 'it's just Grandpa's story'.  When Lucy finally manages to catch a fleeting glimpse of Lob, she is entranced and delighted to share Grandpa's secret.  But when Grandpa dies and his home is sold Lucy is heartbroken.  She wonders if she will ever see Lob again.  What follows is a journey through the seasons tracing Lucy's life after Grandpa's death and Lob's search to find a new garden home.
+
|summary=Meet TrixieForever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance.  But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changesSuddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake)Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from usAnd so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385610815</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Scott Westerfeld
 
|title=Extras
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In the future city of this book, many people live with what is called a reputation economyWith everybody practically a cyborg, they're online permanently, using optical and brain implants to see everybody's status, output and moreMany people have hovercam companions, to make their own documentaries and film their own livesThey rely on metablogs to interact and keep their popularity up.  They continuously spread their opinions and interests in order to become more well-known.  A girl called Aya is struggling to get any renown, but things change, when she meets other people doing incredibly notorious things, but in complete secrecy and anonymity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389228</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Emma Thompson
+
|title=Finding Bear
|title=Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mr and Mrs Green are a happily married couple, living on a farm with their three children, but with the start of the war, Mr Green goes off to fight leaving his wife, Isabel, and the children to fend for themselvesThey are struggling to manage the upkeep of the farm and it looks as if Isabel may have to sellTo make matters worse, her estranged sister sends her two very rich, very spoilt children to live on the farm to escape the bombs in London, but they are immediately at loggerheads with their rather wild country cousins.  They are fighting wildly, wreaking havoc and destruction and ignoring Isabel's pleas to stop when there is a sudden knock at the door from, of course, the terrifyingly ugly, magical Nanny McPhee.
+
|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear.  Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onFor a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and woundedDesperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408805014</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Kate Saunders
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=Beswitched
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Flora is furious at being sent away to boarding school, even one which is very progressive with luxurious facilities and school rock bands. Her parents need to sell her grandmother's house in Italy and build a granny flat at home, and Flora is resentful at having her life turned upside down for a grumpy, unpleasant old woman. On the train, she falls asleep and wakes up to find herself in another era. Trendy 21st century Flora is horrified to find herself in a hideous pinafore dress with a childish haircut and no make up. What has happened to her Ipod, mobile phone and brand new laptop?
+
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407108972</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|author=Jo Nesbo
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|title=Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lisa's best friend has moved away. The neighbourhood bullies, Truls and Trym Trane, are causing havoc. Her dad is getting ready for Norway's Independence Day celebrations. Oh, and there's an anaconda on the loose in the sewers. Then Nilly moves into her street, and the two of them meet Doctor Proctor and discover his amazing fart powder.
+
|summary=Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat.  When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things.  Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already.  But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386539</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=K A S Quinn
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=The Queen Must Die (Chronicles of the Tempus)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In this historical time-travelling extravaganza, Katie Berger-Jones-Burg (I know, it's a mouthful, but stay with me) is the daughter of Mimi, an ex-girl band member who has been married three times, so far, hence Katie's hyphenated name.  Katie has come home from school to find that Mimi has gone off with another man, Dr Fishberg, and as she begins to stress about the potential new addition to her surname she crawls into her hidey-hole space beneath her bed to escape for a little while.  Here she keeps her diary and her stash of books, and she curls up to read her latest book, a compilation of letters from Princess Alice, Queen Victoria's youngest daughter.  She starts to feel a bit sleepy, but is suddenly startled awake by a flash of light.  She finds herself in Victorian England, underneath a sofa and staring into the eyes of Princess Alice, who is just as startled as she is.
+
|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848873700</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Joanne Owen
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=The Alchemist and the Angel
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Jan's parents die of the plague, he is sent to the great city of Vienna to live with his aunt and uncle. His uncle is a distinguished alchemist, and, hoping to take the boy's mind off his grief, hires him as his apprentice. Jan loves the work, learns quickly, and soon the two of them are on the verge of perfecting a serum said to bring the dead back to life. But then his uncle is found dead, and Jan is being whisked off to Prague by his vain and calculating aunt. She has her own plans for the serum, and she will stop at nothing to accomplish them.
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friends.  The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and 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 seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world.  During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001507</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=Timecatcher
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Jessie Minahan is a pretty average fictional twelve year old girl: she has a dog side-kick named Duff and she craves adventure. One day, when her scatty mother has an urgent need for buttons Jessie discovers the abandoned Dublin Button Factory in an old mill, now inhabited by two detectives, who have a big, big secret. She also meets G who is not your average fictional twelve year old boy - for one, he's dead. His worst enemy is Greenwood – a large ghost who lives in the mill and is full of rules. Greenwood is also involved in this big secret which Jessie and G soon discover is the Timecatcher.  It opens every seven years for three days and reveals the past - 'shadow days' and 'shadow people'. It is about to open again and there is a ghostly villain named Sullivan Ellz'mede who would do anything to have the power source at its heart...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556770</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Philip Ardagh
 
|title=The Wrong End of the Dog (Grubtown Tales)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you haven't been to Grubtown before, then feel welcome.  It's an auspicious day for the town of grubby and inept people with names like Rambo Sanskrit, and Mango Claptrap, as wellFor today is the day of film star Tawdrey Hipbone's gala charity premiereBut there's to be no gala, and little charity either, when a pelican (and not the town mascot either, but a different one) comes and steals - yes, steals - the beloved dog Snooks - yes, Snooks - from where he was living the fine life in Tawdrey's hair - yes, hair.
+
|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town.  Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen itShe also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder.  With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop?  Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057124792X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=David Grimstone
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=Gladiator Boy vs The Living Dead
+
|rating=5
|rating=2.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[A Hero's Quest (Gladiator Boy) by David Grimstone|A Hero's Quest]] introduced us to Decimus Rex. This seventh book in the overall ''Gladiator Boy'' series (and start of a new sub-series of 6) begins with our hero, Decimus Rex, and his friends all having received messages from their former ally Teo. I say former because they all thought Teo was dead. They're all hoping against hope that Teo is really alive, but there's a nagging doubt that their nemesis Slavious Doom is setting a trap for them...
+
|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''.  Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives.  They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a family.  They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place.  But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989270</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=Jenny Valentine
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=Iggy and Me and the Happy Birthday
+
|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ooh, hooray! Iggy and Flo are back! We loved their [[Iggy and Me by Jenny Valentine|first outing]], just as we love all Jenny Valentine's books for older readers. Flo's just your everyday run of the mill eight year old. Iggy's a normal five year old (going on six). Iggy's a funny little thing, Flo's sweet. They're sisters who do what sisters do, in a regular family. They learn to swim, they fall ill, they make cakes, they ride bikes. They toddle along with life and have a lovely time.
+
|summary=Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example.  Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there.  The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage.  The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007283636</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=Gene Kemp
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=No Way Out
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Alex and Adam are twins, and they're telepathic to boot. They're very close, but are also like chalk and cheese: Adam's looking forward to their holiday on Uncle Ben and Aunt Sadie's farm, but Alex can't think of anything worse. Adam is always happy to read to their little sister Emmy, but Alex resents the attention she gets (she's disabled, y'see). By and large, they're just ordinary kids, with ordinary grumbles. When the car they're in goes through thick fog and crashes, they find themselves in a town from times past, with inhabitants who don't want to let them leave, and who have an eye on Emmy.
+
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind.  It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather.  He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571244556</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
''Who needs old clocks anywayAll they do is tell the timeAnd time isn't good for anything...''
|author=Lindsey Leavitt
 
|title=Princess for Hire
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Desi is not the happiest of teenagers, although when are teenage girls ever actually happyAnyway, her ex-best friend Celeste is doing everything possible to humiliate and alienate her from their friends, and to top it all off Celeste is also dating the boy Desi has a huge crush on, Hayden(He is perhaps a dubious prospect for Desi since he can't even get her name right).  Still, she has landed herself summer job working for a pet store and although it involves being dressed in a furry groundhog costume at least no-one can tell it's her in there. Well, not until Celeste comes along and unmasks her. In front of Hayden. Desi finds herself feeling more and more like vapour every day, that she doesn't matter or almost doesn't exist.  Cue the fairy-godmother style entrance of Meredith, an agent for Facade which is a magical company that offer jobs to teens with magical potential to work as substitute princesses...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524612X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bedIt was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six timesThere 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?
|author=Victoria Forester
 
|title=The Girl Who Could Fly
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could fly?  It would be such a wonderful sensation, soaring through the air, looping the loop, swooping down over your house and gardenBut have you also stopped to think what other people might think if they saw that you could fly whilst no one else could?  Would children still want to be your friend?  What would your family think? The little girl in this story, Piper McCloud, can flyShe lives on her parents farm and was always a little, well, unusual, and after her mum found her floating in the air one day when she was a baby she decided to home school Piper, rather than expose her to the gossips in the village.  But one day, at the village picnic, Piper flies during the baseball match as she tries to catch the ball, and suddenly her whole life is turned upside down...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512536</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=Lunatics and Luck (Raven Mysteries)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary=It's obvious reallyWhen 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.
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksHis father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper.  But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be.  And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556959</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hector.

The Childish Spirits series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters Full Review

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got 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 blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

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Review of

Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial by Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical 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's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed? Full Review

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Full Review

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

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Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he 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, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

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Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...

Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving Full Review

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

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Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives? Full Review

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

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Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do… Full Review

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Review of

The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts by Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh

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Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. Full Review

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

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Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, 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 visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if 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 half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out? Full Review

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

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Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo! Full Review

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

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We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, 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' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time. Full Review

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

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Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to 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 mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too? Full Review

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

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Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself. He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work… Full Review

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

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England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand? Full Review

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Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

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Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad… Full Review

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

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I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's Stolen History. Full Review

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

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Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters. Full Review

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Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

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Last time, April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue. Full Review

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

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Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions. Full Review

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Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

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Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing? Full Review

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Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

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Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings. Full Review

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Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

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Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and 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 seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with? Full Review

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Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

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At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions… Full Review

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Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

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This story is another excellent adventure from the author of Voyage of the Sparrowhawk. Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place. But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down. Full Review

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Review of

Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street by Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson

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Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen? Full Review

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Review of

Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock by Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski

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Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.

Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything...

And 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? Full Review

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Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

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Cooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he really doesn't know what's going on anymore! Full Review

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