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=Elizabeth Beresford
 
|title=The Wombles
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=A scruffy, shaggy, slightly overweight, furry creature is riding around part of South London, barely in control of his bicycle. No, not the political memoirs of the incumbent Mayor of London. Better. Far better. It's Orinoco Womble and the gang are back!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408808374</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Emily Bearn
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|author=Rob Keeley
|title=Tumtum and Nutmeg: A Circus Adventure
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I'm a big fan of the Tumtum and Nutmeg stories.  They always remind me of Mary Norton's ''The Borrowers'', with the two little mice scurrying secretly around the human's house, helping the children when possible and trying to avoid being seen.  So I was excited to read their latest adventure.
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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>1405254440</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=Tony DiTerlizzi
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|isbn= 1783064617
|title=The Search for WondLa
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Tony DiTerlizzi's name will be familiar to many readers as the co-creator of the [[A Giant Problem (Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles) by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi|Spiderwick Chronicles]], and it is entirely possible that this new trilogy will become just as popular. It is a charming tale of a young girl who has never seen another human being and who has been brought up by a kindly robot in an underground home. Right from the very first pages we suspect things are not going well: lights flicker and malfunction, machinery and furniture is chipped and scratched, and even the wheel Eva's robot mother moves around on is tread-worn. Eva is being trained to go up into the outside world to meet other humans, but there has been no contact from other Sanctuaries, as the underground homes are called, for a long time. Eva will very soon need to go out and discover for herself if there are any other humans on this strange and colourful planet.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738966X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Alan James Brown
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=The Tolpuddle Boy: Transported to Hell and Back
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=In 1834, six men from the Dorset village of Tolpuddle were deported to Australia for their trade union activities. This book, written in a very simple style for children, tells the true story of what happened to them, the politics of their arrest and deportation and the campaign by trade unionists and other supporters of trade union rights to overturn their convictions.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905512775</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
 
|title=Raven Mysteries: Vampires and Volts
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's October at Castle Otherhand.  That can only mean one thing - a return to the traditional annual pumpkin hunt.  Shame they're so damned elusive.  But when, courtesy of a bit of unsubtle arson, a Hallowe'en Ball is redirected to be held at the Castle, and things that do more than go bump in the night gatecrash - why, they're even harder to catchUnless, of course, you're a wry, arch, droll, antiquated old raven called Edgar.
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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 lonesomeWhat 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>1842556967</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Marcus Sedgwick
 
|title=Raven Mysteries: Flood and Fang
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Otherhand Castle, and all in it, is under threat, and only Edgar can save the day.  Pity, perhaps, then, that Edgar is only a raven.  But he's not your typical raven, for not only is he centuries old, and our narrator, but he is the only one who can see the connections between, and the danger involved in, a cellar full of rising floodwater, a horrific tail glimpsed in the vegetable garden, and some missing maids.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556932</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Kate Maryon
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=Glitter
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=You'd think, seeing Liberty Parfitt's life from the outside, that she'd be blissfully happy. She has everything money can buy, she loves life at her expensive boarding school and she has a wonderfully close friend. But she is not content. Her academic grades are not good, and her father clearly prefers her hard-working and successful older brother Sebastian, who is at the same school. He wins all manner of prizes, but the only area in which she shows any talent is music, a subject her father will not allow her to study. Her mother died when she was only nine months old, and Liberty imagines her life would be very different if she had a loving mother to balance her father's criticisms. And then utter disaster: the family loses every penny they own, she is whisked away from school without warning and taken to a dreary little flat where she has to cope not only with her own sadness and sense of loss but also with a father sinking deeper and deeper into depression.
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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>0007326289</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Kenneth Steven and Jane Ray
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=Stories for a Fragile Planet: Traditional Tales About Caring for the Earth
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=For Sharing
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Stories for a Fragile Planet is a wonderful anthology of  stories from long ago and also from the present. The stories come from far and wide – from China to Alaska. They all seem to involve brave characters that care greatly about their environment and who are prepared to do things differently whether it is looking after a blackbird's nest for days until the eggs hatch or caring for a young lion cub who would otherwise die. There are ten stories in total and each one is short but self contained with a very satisfying conclusion. Each one can easily be read in a single sitting and would make ideal bedtime stories for slightly older children.
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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>0745961576</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Jonathan Stroud
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=The Ring of Solomon (Bartimaeus)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Barty is back!
 
 
 
Well, he isn't actually back. But we do get to revisit him. Which is good.
 
 
 
I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. But just in case you don't, Bartimaeus is a sarcastic, wisecracking djinni and the star of a wonderful and best-selling series by Jonathan Stroud. Whilst tied to various enslaving magicians, Bartimaeus has had a finger in many pies of world history, particularly that of London. In fact, he's saved the day almost as many times as Doctor Who has. But Bartimaeus is no Doctor Who. He's a rude, sarcastic egomaniac and unselfish behaviour isn't his byword. But he cracks an irresistible one liner. And he usually comes through in the end.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385619154</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Martin Waddell and Emma Chichester Clark
 
|title=The Orchard Book Of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Anthologies
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=With ''The Princess and the Pea'', ''The Ugly Duckling'', ''The Tinderbox'', ''The Little Match Girl'', ''The Emperor's New Clothes'', ''The Tin Soldier'', ''The Swineherd'', ''The Nightingale'' and ''The Little Mermaid'', this is a must-have compendium of classic fairy tales. You can't really go wrong with Hans Christian Andersen's best, can you? Martin Waddell and Emma Chichester Clark have not just churned out the old classics, but they've given them an amazing freshness and vibrancy.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846169380</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|author=Carl Hiaasen
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|title=Scat
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|author=Rob Keeley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Nick and his friend Marta are ordinary kids. They don't look for trouble, and they don't cause it. But when an unpopular teacher punishes a difficult classmate by making him write an essay about his pimples, then trouble can't be far away. The teacher goes missing during a wildfire, and Duane (nicknamed Smoke, because he has a reputation for setting fires) gets the blame. But the evidence doesn't add up, and our young heroes decide it's up to them to discover the truth.
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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>1444000594</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=Astrid Lindgren
 
|title=Pippi Longstocking
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=A true classic of children's literature? Check. Illustrations from a modern star with her own unique and delightful style? Check. If you're not already gurgling with delight at the prospect of a Lauren Child-illustrated version of Pippi Longstocking, then, quite frankly, what are you doing at a book review website? Buy it. Buy it now. Buy it for yourself and everyone you know.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019278241X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|author=Adam Epstein and Andrew Jacobson
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|title=The Familiars: Animal Wizardry
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Aldwyn, Skylar and Gilbert, three familiars to three wizards in trainingAldwyn the cat is something of an impostor however, since unlike Skylar, a vision-casting bird, and Gilbert, a prophesying frog, he doesn't have any magical powers. He is just a cat-about-town, sneaking a fish here, dodging a meat cleaver there, and he fell into the role of familiar quite by accident whilst running into a pet shop to escape a bounty hunterStill, when the boy wizard he works for, Jack, is kidnapped along with his friends, Aldwyn and the other familiars must find a way to track them down and rescue them before they are all killed.
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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 imagineBut 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>0007371772</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Penny Dolan
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=There seem to be a lot of Victorian adventures around at the moment: the combination of neglect, poverty and fiercely-protected social divisions typical of the age allows evil and greed to flourish, and creates wonderful situations for adventure. And this book is an excellent example of the genre, with its wide range of characters both good and bad, and its child hero who must suffer and struggle as he travels through a multitude of colourful settings before reaching his goal.
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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>1408801388</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|author=Simon Cheshire
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|title=Saxby Smart: Private Detective: The Secrets of the Skull
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Saxby Smart solves mysteries brought to his office in the garden shed by friends and neighbours. So far so good, but nothing really new. What is so attractive about this series of stories is the fact that it is the reader who acts as Saxby's side-kick, playing the role of sounding-board for the young detective. Add to this exciting, complex plots and a protagonist who is warm and funny and you have a winning formula.
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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>1848120559</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Daren King and David Roberts
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=Frightfully Friendly Ghosties: Ghostly Holler-day
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After scaring all the still-alives from their house we're back with the frightfully friendly ghosties who, since it's winter, have decided that they need a holler-dayAfter an argument over their destination (will it be Frighten-on-Sea or Scare-borough?) they receive a postcard from their friend, Headless LeslieHe is in Frighten and has forgotten how to get back home! So, off they go to Frighten to enjoy the delights of a haunted pier and fun fair and to try and rescue Headless Leslie from whatever trouble he has landed himself in.
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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 withThey 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 outIt'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>0857380451</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Nadia Aguiar
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Secrets of Tamarind
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The Island of Tamarind is once again under threat, from the evils of the Red CoralOnce more Simon and his sisters Maya and Penny (but mostly Simon) must save the island that only they can reach, as it lies in some exotic Bermuda TriangleFor a second book running they must breach the barriers, solve mysteries surrounding their native friend Helix's legacy, and the native magical element ophalla, and put the island to rights.
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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 ticketWhen 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 auntThings 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>0141384336</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Horrid Henry Rocks
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Horrid Henry Rocks'' brings us four more stories from the delightfully horrid little boy, Henry.  Here we see him battle with his sappy little brother Peter, sabotage his neighbour, Moody Margaret's, sleepover, write his autobiography and finally he's evicted by security from the Dancing Daisies children's stage show where he stands on stage singing songs by The Killer Boy Rats!
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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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842551345</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=John Boyne
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=Noah Barleywater Runs Away
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Noah Barleywater gets up very early one morning. He's eight years old and he's decided to leave home in search of adventure. Off he goes through the forest and villages until he sees a marvellous tree. As he gazes at it, he meets a friendly dachshund and a (very) hungry donkey who tell him all about the toyshop behind the marvellous tree. And so Noah opens the door and goes in.
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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>0385618956</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Chris Priestley
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=The Dead of Winter
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Michael Vyner's father died when Michael was just a baby. He was a hero, sacrificing himself to save the life of Sir Stephen Clarendon whilst fighting for the British Empire in Afghanistan. This was precious little comfort to Michael and his mother, who resented the rich man's largesse over the years, wishing for the man they lost and not the charity of the man he saved. So, when Michael's mother dies too and he finds himself all alone in the world, he is not entirely overjoyed to discover that Sir Stephen is now his guardian and has invited him to spend Christmas at Hawton Mere.
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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>1408800136</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|author=Natasha Narayan
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=The Book of Bones: A Kit Salter Adventure
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I thoroughly enjoyed Kit Salter's previous two adventures, [[The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis: A Kit Salter Adventure by Natasha Narayan|The Mummy Snatcher of Memphis]] and [[The Maharajah's Monkey: A Kit Salter Adventure by Natasha Narayan|The Maharajah's Monkey]], so I was looking forward to her latest outing.  Here in ''The Book of Bones'' I read anxiously as Kit and her friends were kidnapped by their arch enemies, The Baker Brothers.  The Baker Brothers tell them that one of the friends has been poisoned, but not which one, and the only way to save themselves is if they undertake a dangerous journey to China in search of an ancient book about martial arts, the Book of Bones.  En route the children do battle with pirates, doctors of phrenology as well as the Emperor's armyWill they discover which of them has been poisoned, or find the magical book, before it's too late...?
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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 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 attackedBut surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849162417</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Pippa Funnell
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|title=Arkspire
|title=Tilly's Pony Tails: Parkview Pickle, the Naughty Show Pony
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Here at Bookbag Towers we first met Tilly Redbrow in [[Tilly's Pony Tails: Neptune the Heroic Horse by Pippa Funnell|Neptune the Heroic Horse]]Tilly's back home from her holiday in Cornwall and back at the Silver Shoe Riding Stables as often as she can be – which is before school, after school and every minute she can be at weekends and in the holidays.  There's a lot of excitement at the stables when they find out that a new show pony is moving in.  Parkview Pickle is a real beauty, although perhaps a little bit on the plump side and with a rather nervous rider and the ultimate pushy parent.
+
|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>1444000837</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=024162343X
|author=David Whitley
+
|title=Stolen History
|title=The Children of the Lost
+
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Mark and Lily have left Agora and they have no idea what to expect from the land beyond the city wallsThey have been brought up within a rigid system based on barter in a city where everything can be traded: goods, services, people, even emotions are up for saleThey have also been taught that outside the city walls is a wilderness, with no civilised lifeDo bear in mind here that their idea of civilisation is Agora…They are ill equipped to survive, and immediately make things worse by arguing with one anotherMark is furious with Lily for her part in their banishment and his actions lead to Lily being placed in great danger.
+
|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at schoolI 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''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141330120</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Aesop, Fiona Waters and Fulvio Testa
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=Aesop's Fables
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Everyone knows and loves ''Aesop's Fables''. They're part of our literary tapestry and our everyday lives. We know sour grapes, we know [[Tortoise vs. Hare - The Rematch! by Preston Rutt and Ben Redlich|the tortoise and the hare]], the boy who cried wolf and so many more. Fiona Waters has retold 60 of the most famous fables in this delightful anthology.
+
|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849390495</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Sara Starbuck
+
|title=Finding Bear
|title=Dread Pirate Fleur and the Hangman's Noose
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When a mysterious young girl in a barrel is fished from the sea and rescued by the pirate ship belonging to Fleur's uncle William, it seems bad news might be on the wayThe girl turns out to have psychic abilities - and they're just about to hit landfall at Salem, right in time for the witch-huntsBut worse is to come.  William gets captured there, and someone Fleur thought long dead starts to take his place on board instead.  Fleur then has to skipper the craft herself, on a rescue mission, in a very tense domestic situation.  That's hard enough when you're a mere teenaged girl, against ruffians and pirates, but when the ship has secrets of her own to be revealed...
+
|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>1862307296</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Rupert Kingfisher
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=Madame Pamplemousse and the Enchanted Sweet Shop
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is not a stereotypical fantasy. Madeleine, the heroine, is not required to find mystical items or defeat evil beings in order to save the world. And although she lives in a world where magic exists, she does not have any other-worldly powers herself. She is quite simply, despite her young age, an extremely good cook. Mind you, this quaint little book is set in the centre of Paris, so to be gifted in ''la gastronomie'' probably does count as magic - the French see these things differently, after all. No, she is just a little girl who is bullied at school by someone who seems determined to humiliate and hurt her by preying on her natural shyness. The bullying is skilfully done, by emphasising  Madeleine's gift for creating wonderful meals and turning it into a reason to pity her. Fortunately for our heroine, she is noticed crying in Notre-Dame Cathedral, and is comforted by a kindly sweet-shop owner, Madame Bonbon. But is this woman really so kind? And doesn't Madeleine know she shouldn't take sweets from strangers?
+
|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>1408805057</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|author=Holly Webb
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|title=Rose and the Magician's Mask
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The cover of this book has lots of pretty gold stars and a girl with a cute round face, but don't be fooled: while young girls will love all the magic and adventure, there is a fair amount of darkness in this third book in the Rose series. A magical mask has been stolen by an evil magician, and if he wears it in Venice, on the first Sunday of the New Year, he will gain enormous power. Needless to say, Rose and the other members of the household set off to prevent this.
+
|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>140830449X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=L J Smith
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=The Night of the Solstice
+
|rating=4
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Claudia knew she wasn't really supposed to follow the fox - not on her own, to the old, forbidden house on the hill. But she did. And it will change everything. The fox is the familiar of Morgana Shee, powerful sorceress and only guardian of the passageway to another universe, Wildworld. But Morgana has gone missing and she must be found before the solstice, for then the gateway will be open to all, including Cadal Forge, an evil magician dedicated to conquering Earth. Claudia, and her siblings, Charles, Jane and leader Alys, must find her. And find her quickly, for everything hangs in the balance on the night of the Winter Solstice.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070509</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cathy Cassidy
 
|title=Cherry Crush: The Chocolate Box Girls
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Cherry Costello told her teachers that she was leaving Glasgow and moving to live in a cliff-top house in Somerset where her father would make organic chocolates everyone thought that it was just another of her tall tales.  But this one was true.  Not only was Cherry moving to Somerset the Costellos, father and daughter, were going to live with his girlfriend and her four daughters.  From it just being the two of them there would be seven altogether.  How will Cherry cope?  And how will the Tanberry family cope with two new members?
+
|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>0141384794</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
}}
 
 
 
{{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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Jenny Nimmo
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=The Witch's Tears
 
 
|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...
+
|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>0007364717</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Jenny Valentine
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|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!
+
|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>0007283652</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=Ellen Renner
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=City of Thieves
 
 
|rating=5
 
|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 . . .  
+
|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>1408304465</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=Alan MacDonald
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=Arrrrgh! Slimosaur!
+
|rating=4
|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.
+
|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>1408803356</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=David Calcutt
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=The Map of Marvels
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=2.5
 
|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
 
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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729675</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Katie Davies
 
|title=The Great Rabbit Rescue
 
|rating=4.5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385966</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michelle Lovric
 
|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...  
+
|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>1842557017</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything...''
|author=Anthony Browne
 
|title=Play The Shape Game
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406331317</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
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?
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
 
|title=Stop the Train
 
|rating=5
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192718819</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=Pull Out All The Stops!
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=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!
|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.
+
|isbn=1444960261
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192789953</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|author=Anne-Marie Conway
 
|title=Phoebe Finds Her Voice (Star Makers Club)
 
|rating=4
 
|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 shy.  She 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 confidence.  Against 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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409516512</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

0008666482.jpg

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

1398527122.jpg

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

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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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