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=Kelly McKain
 
|title=Half a Sister
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=When Hannah's parents begin to have whispered, but obviously heated discussions about something her immediate thought is that they're splitting up.  There's quite a bit of that at school and Hannah would hate it to happen to her.  But when it all comes out the reality is rather different.  Sam has just discovered that he has a fifteen year old daughter living in Paris and that her mother has been in a serious car accident.  Sam sees no alternative but to bring Ellie to live with them, but Charlotte is worried about how this will affect their daughter.  When it's put to Hannah she has visions of long girly chats and swopping clothes and makeup and agrees without further thought.  To begin with it's everything she hoped it would be but then a darker side of Ellie emerges and life turns into a nightmare for Hannah.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0746091249</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jenny Nimmo
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|author=Rob Keeley
|title=The Witch's Tears
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Theo and Dodie's cat is missing, it's snowing, their clock-mender dad is away, and Mr Oak from the village has warned Theo all about witches. It's almost impossible to detect a witch, y'know, but if by some small miracle you can get them to cry, their tears turn to crystal. When Mrs Scarum turns up at Theo and Dodie's house, Theo is incredibly wary...
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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>0007364717</amazonuk>
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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
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|isbn= 1783064617
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Jenny Valentine
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Iggy and Me On Holiday
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We've already met Iggy and Flo [[Iggy and Me by Jenny Valentine|twice]] [[Iggy and Me and the Happy Birthday by Jenny Valentine|before]]. They're back again, with their tales of daily life, and this time the short stories cover their summer holidays. We've been massive fans of the ''Iggy and Me'' books from day one, and will continue to be so. They're super!
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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>0007283652</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=Ellen Renner
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=City of Thieves
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There's nothing better than an adventure story where the thrills and shocks just keep on coming, where you sneak a look at the number of pages left and think nothing more can be piled on the unfortunate heroes, only to see them hit again - and then again! - with shocks and reversals of fortune. At the beginning of this gripping Gothic tale twelve-year-old Charlie has found her long-lost mother, and is about to be crowned Queen Charlotte of Quale; her dear friend and playmate Tobias is still in shock from the revelation that his father is the traitor who plotted to betray their country. The villain, who also killed Charlie's father the King, is about to be hanged for his crimes and the two young people feel once he is dead they will be able to get on with their lives. But mere hours before he is due to die, the devious and complex Windlass escapes from his prison cell . . .  
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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>1408304465</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Alan MacDonald
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=Arrrrgh! Slimosaur!
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Iggy the Urk wants to spend his days playing boulderball with his friends, and trying to get one over on his nemesis Snark. His dad takes him hunting - Iggy is desperate to bag a woolly mammoth or snaggle-toothed tiger. When they come across huge tracks and an even bigger poo, his dad worries, and Iggy's Grumma warns him about the scary slimosaur that's out there. Life for a caveboy isn't easy.
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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>1408803356</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=David Calcutt
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=The Map of Marvels
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|rating=5
|rating=2.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Connor is trying to draw a map for a school project but can't find any inspiration until an old book drops on the floor. Opening it to find a map, he gets inspired and starts work on his project. He's drawn to putting a tower in which he feels will complete it, and gets upset with his younger sister Alice when she scribbles it
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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 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.
out after claiming she's seen a nasty face in it - so he retaliates by kicking down her tower that she'd made of stuff from her toybox. As he does so, he finds himself transported onto the ship of Sindbad, King of the Pirates, and his daughter.
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|isbn=1398527122
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729675</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|author=Katie Davies
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|title=The Great Rabbit Rescue
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|author=Rob Keeley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Joe-Down-The-Road has a new love in his life. It's his new pet rabbit, a replacement for the old one that died of fright. As a result he keeps it guarded day and night, water-pistolling anything that might or might not be a threat to its safety.  But when he leaves home to live with his dad, what becomes of the rabbit? What if it isn't the right move for Joe - or the rabbit - and they need to be reunited?  Only Anna and friends can possibly help.
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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>1847385966</amazonuk>
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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
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|author=Michelle Lovric
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|title=The Mourning Emporium
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Two years ago in 1898, Teodora, the Undrowned Child of prophecy, saved Venice from its resurrected traitor, Bajamonte Tiepolo. Since then, she and her partner-in-prophecy Lorenzo, the Studious Son, have led a fairly uneventful existence. But now, Venice is in peril once more. Ice creeps through its lagoon, vampire eels encased menacingly within it, and black cormorants have returned to spy on the city in their great, black clouds. Teodora knows baddened magic when she sees it, and her heart sinks at the awful realisation - il Traditore is back...
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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>1842557017</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Anthony Browne
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=Play The Shape Game
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|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
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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…
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|isbn=0008561249
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
 +
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=You might have already played the shape game. It involves doing a squiggle on a piece of paper, then either you or someone else has to turn that squiggle into a full picture. Anthony Browne played it lots when he was little, and now he's playing it with 45 celebrities and you. Proceeds from the book and the auction of the artwork are going to [http://www.rainbowtrust.org.uk The Rainbow Trust Children's Charity], who provide emotional and practical support to families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness. A fantastic cause.
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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>1406331317</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=Stop the Train
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|rating=3.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Cissy and her family have come to set up a grocery store in the brand new town of Florence, Oklahoma, near the railroad. She quickly makes friends with a very chatty, kind boy called Kookie, short for Habbakuk. Other people come to stake their claim on plots of land, and open up businesses. It is all very exciting but the settlers of this new town soon discover they have a serious problem. The railroad company wanted the land the town is being built on, and when everyone turns down the cash they are offered to give up their claims, the railroad boss announces his trains will not stop in Florence. The railroad is the reason for the town's existence, and without it Florence will collapse before it is properly started.
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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>0192718819</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Pull Out All The Stops!
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A diphtheria epidemic is in town and has already claimed several victims including pupils at school. The school is closed and all the remaining children sent out of town to stay with relatives and friends until the danger is over. Cissy and two of her classmates are sent away to stay with their former teacher, Miss Loucien, now part of a touring theatre company with her new actor husband. Their new teacher, Miss May March, comes along as a chaperone on the train journey, motivated by a sense of duty and concern for her charges' welfare.
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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>0192789953</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Anne-Marie Conway
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Phoebe Finds Her Voice (Star Makers Club)
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is a sweet story in which Anne-Marie Conway makes good use of the current obsession with all-singing, all-dancing shows.  Her lead character, Phoebe, is painfully shyShe never used to be though, and always loved singing and dancing before, but since she moved up to the big school, and things started to go wrong at home, she has lost her confidenceAgainst all her inner fears she somehow ends up joining the local drama club, and whilst she tries to find ways to deal with her crippling stage fright she also begins fighting to get her parents back together again.
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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 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 daysBut 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 onOK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409516512</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Nick Green
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=The Cat Kin
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A group of misfit children find themselves at the local sports centre having arrived to take various different classes but find they're all part of a group being run by the strange Mrs Powell who teaches them about PashkiPashki shows them how to 'find their inner cat' as it were (I know - bear with me, it does get better!) and utilise their new skills to move quietly, stealthily and even super-humanly across fences, tree branches, skipping from pole to pole and even from one bus rooftop to another in an exciting chase sequenceBen and Tiffany both have their own sets of troubles at home, and so Pashki becomes an escape for them bothHowever, they soon find their new skills get them into more trouble than they could ever have imagined.
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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 unwellSo 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 tooBut 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 peopleIs 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>1905537166</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Tony Bradman and Tony Ross
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=The Orchard Book of Swords, Sorcerers and Superheroes
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jason and the Argonauts, King Arthur, Aladdin, William Tell, Hercules, Sinbad, St George, Ali Baba, Theseus and Robin Hood. If you love myths and legends as much as [[Top Ten Retellings of Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales|we do]] then those ten heroes will have got your juices flowing, and you'll be desperate to dive in to this collection of adventures. It's fantastic. You'll love it!
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|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>1408309211</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|author=Betty G Birney
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=Humphrey's Great-Great-Great Book of Stories
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|rating=3
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is nothing quite like being proven correctAnd this is one of those rare times I have been.  From the evidence of the sixth main Humphrey book, [[Holidays According to Humphrey by Betty G Birney|Holidays According to...]], I declared the whole series to be quite brilliantThe books, I decided, were cute without ever being cloying, clever without being too clever-clever, full of morals without ever forcing them on the reader, and packed with entertaining plot and lovely charactersAnd now the book reviewing gods have decided I read a fantastic collection of the last three novels, to expand my knowledge of the series.
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|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 herThe other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-pathsThe 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 'unMidnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attackedBut surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571255949</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Philip Ardagh
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|title=Arkspire
|title=Grubtown Tales: Splash, Crash and Loads of Cash
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If there's one thing that we've learnt from the previous five Grubtown Tales, it's that Jilly Cheeter and Mango Claptrap are never separatedWhatever extraordinary circumstance of life turns up, they'll always work togetherSo why is Mango, in his shortest of short trousers as usual, sat on top of a floating mayor, in shark-infested seas, and why is Jilly only taking her poorly dog to the vet's? And what sort of help can we expect from a back story involving some liberated lab rats?
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|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheeseJuniper 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 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571253490</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|author=Michael Rosen
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|title=Stolen History
|title=Michael Rosen's Big Book of Bad Things
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=When he was little, Michael Rosen's dad remembered all the bad things he'd done and reminded him of them when appropriate, so Michael imagined he'd written them all down in a Big Book of Bad Things. Here he presents the eponymous poem, as well as many many other tales of childhood, from the horrors of being a second late to school, to making a raft, to going to a café. Some bad, some sad, some quirky, some funny, some touching, some light-hearted, all wonderful.
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|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 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''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141324511</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Simon Packham
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|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=comin 2 gt u
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Sam Tennant is reasonably happy at school, generally gets on alright with people, and doesn't have much to worry about – until he's murdered in the first chapter of this novel. Oh, not '''really''' murdered – his character in a game he plays online is killed. But then, the two who kill him refer to him by his real name instead of his computer persona, and he realises that virtual life has just become very nasty indeed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848120958</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John E Smelcer
 
|title=The Edge of Nowhere
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Could you survive in the wilds of Alaska if you were washed overboard from a fishing boat during a storm and somehow, amazingly, managed to make it to dry land?  This is the challenge facing Seth and his loyal dog, TuckerThey are out on Seth's father's fishing boat during a terrible storm and neither Seth's dad or his friend realise that the boy and dog have been washed overboard until they reach home and are found to be missing from the boatA search party is sent out, but Seth is assumed drownedLuckily, Seth and his dog manage to get to one of the tiny islands that run along the coast of Alaska, and after realising that no one is coming to help them they slowly make their way hundreds of miles over many months. Will they starve to death, or freeze, or be eaten by bears before they manage to make it home?
+
|summary=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 nuisanceBut 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 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>1849391963</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Teresa Flavin
+
|title=Finding Bear
|title=The Blackhope Enigma
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=14-year old Sunni finds it bad enough that when she's trying to do some research on a famous Fausto Corvo painting in Blackhope Tower's Mariner's Chamber, she gets lumbered with her annoying stepbrother to look after. Add to that the presence of her classmate Blaise, a boy who's better at art than she is, and her day is looking depressing – and that's '''before''' Dean mysteriously vanishing when walking around the chamber's labyrinth.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848770340</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Joshua Doder
 
|title=Grk Down Under
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you'd ever wondered where speed and agility, and a huge appetite for going where he shouldn't and eating what he oughtn't can get a dog, you only have to turn to this book for evidenceI won't let on how a tiny dog manages to get himself to Australia unaided, but he does - leaving his human owners back in England, and young Tim Malt especially desperate for his return.  But the dog called Grk is about to find out how dangerous and nasty Australians can be...
+
|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 on.  For 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>1842709313</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Julia Jarman
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=The Time-travelling Cat and the Great Victorian Stink
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Consider cats.  Normally they like to leave you things like poop, and dead animals, generally in the middle of the kitchen floor.  Topher's cat leaves himself a stone statue version of himself when he decides to time travel to some past time of history.  I know - odd.  I can also introduce you to a very different Topher, one just escaped from the workhouse in Victorian London - if only he could escape the stench of the open sewers in London, and the hunger in his stomach just as easilyWell, I could - but actually they are the same person, just with a completely different mind.  When our Topher travels through time as well - on the back of a bird - he finds himself in the person of the second, historical lad.  Will that homework project about Victorian history be enough to help him out, and perhaps prevent a nasty crime or two?
+
|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 runThey 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>1849390193</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|author=Candy Gourlay
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|title=Tall Story
+
|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Andi is a young teenager in the UK.  She's not very tall, but she is brilliant at basketballAnd she has finally been chosen to play for her school team.
+
|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 eatWhen 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 personBut Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal thingsSmall 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?
 
+
|isbn=1839942835
Bernardo is an extremely tall teenager in the PhilippinesHe lives with his aunt and uncle, and keeps on growingHe is surrounded by superstition, since his name is the same as that of a legendary giant who supposedly protected his village during a major earthquake.  Oddly enough, there have not been any earthquakes for some years... ever since Bernardo had his first dramatic growth spurt.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385618948</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Pippa Funnell
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=Tilly's Pony Tails: Neptune the Heroic Horse
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tilly has recently been reunited with her brother – they know nothing of their birth mother and were adopted by different families – and she's just been invited to go on holiday to Cornwall with him and his family.  It will mean leaving the horses and ponies at the local stables but she's sure that they'll all manage without her for a week.  Once in Cornwall she's delighted to find that there's a riding stable nearby and she soon makes friends, particularly with a horse called Neptune.  She also meets a girl called Megan who loves swimming, but can't understand why Megan is frightened of horses and doesn't want to learn to ride, despite the encouragement she gets from her parents.
+
|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>1444000829</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Ceci Jenkinson
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=Doctor Doom: Oli and Skipjack's Tales of Trouble
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Eleven-year-old Skipjack is in serious trouble: his team lost a cricket match because he fell asleep, and now Slugger Stubbins is after him. Slugger has two things in mind: to bash Skipjack, and to squeeze out of him the ten pounds he lost betting on the match. Skipjack, therefore, spends a large part of this wonderfully silly book hiding from his nemesis using a variety of fancy dress costumes from his friend Doctor Hamish Levity's shop. Oli, on the other hand, has weightier matters to deal with: he has discovered an International Criminal Mastermind. And because he has always dreamed of being a secret agent, this promises to be the perfect opportunity to try out the practical tips on espionage contained in ''The Good Spy's Handbook'', which he has recently been given.
+
|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>0571249701</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Stephanie Burgis
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=A Most Improper Magick
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The very first sentence of this charming and funny book sets the tone. Twelve-year-old Kat is setting off, dressed as a boy, to earn her fortune, pay back her brother's gambling debts, and save her two sisters from having to marry rich old men. Fortunately for Kat, she is stopped before she gets to the end of the front garden. All the trappings of Regency romance are here: fainting heroines, evil stepmothers, handsome young men with no prospects, and even a highwayman. But in this, the first book of a trilogy, there is something extra: Kat's late mother was a witch.
+
|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 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848770073</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=Eoin Colfer
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Artemis Fowl is trying to save the world. No wonder Holly Short and Foaly think he's not himself. He might stand to make another huge fortune, but he's thinking about global warming, and technological cures for it. But he's also thinking about a lot of other things - in particular, the patterns of the number five. His mind seems stuck making him tap things in multiples of five times, and use sentences with five words in. But when his demonstration in Iceland goes wrong with a four-engined fairy space probe crashing, he certainly becomes something other than himself.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141328029</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Adam Blade
 
|title=First Hero (The Chronicles Of Avantia)
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There's a land under threat from an evil man leading a well-drilled, lethal army. And there's a boy, and his companion, and his destiny is to save the land from the evil man, who will only get more evil if he gets what he wants, which is currently in four pieces. If this sounds like a well-worn template, don't blame me. [[:Category:Adam Blade|Adam Blade]] writes as if by committee, and that's because he is one - it's a pseudonym for a cabal of pre-teen fantasy churners. But enough of him - we should be talking of Tanner, the lad in this book.
+
|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>1408307472</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=Margaret Mahy
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=Organ Music
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=David and Harley are out later than they should be. David is getting anxious: he knows his mother will be worrying already, and he's not the type to break rules or get into trouble of any kind. But Harley's feeling rebellious; he's having a tough time at home at the moment, and he's up for pushing at some boundaries. So they wander along Forbes Street, in a down-at-heel area of town, looking for a bit of adventure. And surely enough, they find it in a car left with its keys temptingly in the ignition.
+
|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>1877467472</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=Rachel Renee Russell
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=Dork Diaries: Party Time
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is the second in the series of [[Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney|'Wimpy Kid' for girls]] books, full as usual of comic cutaways to cartoon strips, illustrations, OMGs, BTWs, BFFs, smileys and over-used exclamation marks!!!!! It's October, and Nikki is stuck between a rock and a hard placeThe place is the school's Halloween Ball, ideally with Brandon, the crush of her life for this term at middle schoolThe rock is as usual the evil Mackenzie, the Cruella de Vil of snobbish, bullyish school bitchesCan Nikki resolve her dilemma - just for the fortnight this diary spans, and get her beau to the ball - especially when she double-books herself?
+
|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>184738742X</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
''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 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?
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Nick Garlick and Nick Maland
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=Aunt Severe and the Dragons
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksHis father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy CooperBut sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to beAnd when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|summary=Daniel is a little boy whose parents have gone away exploringThey telephone him every day, but then one day the phone calls stop and so Daniel has to go to live with his Aunt SevereShe takes his toys away, feeds him spinach sandwiches, wakes him every day at four-thirty and gets him helping with her rather strange rubbish-collecting activitiesThings get more interesting for Daniel when he discovers four little lost dragons hiding in Aunt Severe's garden.  He tries to help them, but before he can do anything three of the dragons are captured and locked up in a zoo.  Daniel is left to rescue them with only the fourth dragon, Dud's, help and, as you can imagine, he's called 'Dud' for a reason!
+
|isbn=1444960261
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184939055X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|author=Garen Ewing
 
|title=The Rainbow Orchid: Adventures of Julius Chancer 2
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Oh to be popular - and the rainbow orchid certainly is.  If, in fact, it exists at all.  A collecting challenge for rare plants might hinge on its recovery, imperial British explorers would like to know the truth about it - and its presence on some mysterious ancient carved tablets hints at some mystical part it may once have played in a superweapon.  Hence, where this book starts, everyone - from a film starlet, to a dashing explorer's assistant, to a plucky aviator, to an evil henchwoman of an overweight industrialist - is after it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140525047X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

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

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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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