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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==Confident readers==
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rob Keeley
|author=Judith Viorst and Lane Smith
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|title=Lulu and the Brontosaurus
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lulu is every parent's worst nightmare. She always, ''always'' gets what she wants, quite often by rolling around on the floor screaming until the light bulbs pop.  She is, quite simply, a child in desperate need of Supernanny!  For her birthday Lulu decides she would like a Brontosaurus.  Her parents, for once, say no, and no amount of screaming makes them change their mind.  So Lulu sets off into the forest to find a brontosaurus by herself. The trouble is, when she finally does find one he isn't too keen on the idea of being her pet and actually would much prefer that she became his pet!
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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>0857071475</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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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Alan Silberberg
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Milo and the Restart Button
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary='Starting over is like pressing the reset button on a game that makes you lose all your points and wipes out any of the good stuff you've spent hundreds of hours learning...'
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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?
 
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|isbn=0008666482
Milo's restart button was pressed by the death of his mother. Since that awful day, life has not been good. His father has retreated inwards, his sister is always angry, and they've moved house several times.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857071904</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Sharon King and Rose King
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=The Daily Journal of Arabella Crumblestone
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Arabella Crumblestone was making her way along a dry-stone wall in Northumbria, courtesy of a sheep named Leroy, when she met the two human children, Faith and GeorgeGeorge gave her a piece of chocolate (although she didn't know that's what it was) and she was grateful. The boy had no words, but he hummed.  The next day he returned to the wall with his sister who never seemed to stop talkingArabella was lonely – but could she trust Faith and George? Hunger, cold and loneliness made her decision for her and before long she had a bed in Faith's warm pocket.
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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 wayUnfortunately 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 teamWhat chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956741304</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=Derek Keilty
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=Will Gallows and the Snake-bellied Troll
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Will Gallows is not your average boy. Finding out the name of the baddie who gunned down his policeman father, he takes it upon himself to get revenge, by bringing him in - even though he's the nastiest gunslinger around.  Oh, and a troll with snakes coming from his belly. Will, being not your average boy, is half-elf, however, and can talk to his flying horse to help him on his way.  But is there more to the story of his father's death than he thinks, and just what is it with all the earthquakes his town is suffering?
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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>1849392366</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Elliot Skell
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=Neversuch House
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Omnia is a girl who likes to know things, and when she sees something unusual she sets out to find out what is happening. It is a decision which almost kills her. Something is not right at the heart of Neversuch House, and at least one person is determined to stop her finding out what it is.
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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>1847387438</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1805141872
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
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|author=Rob Keeley
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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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...''
  
{{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=Ruthie Knapp and Jill McElmurry
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}}
|title=Who Stole Mona Lisa?
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{{Frontpage
|rating=3.5
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|author=Christopher Edge
 +
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Taking in a history of its production, as well as its theft, ''Who Stole Mona Lisa?'' is an intriguing look at La Gioconda. The story is told from the point of view of Leonardo da Vinci's painting herself, and will strike a chord with any intelligent and curious youngsters.
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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>1408811588</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Chris Mould
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=Spindlewood: Pip and the Wood Witch Curse
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=Pip doesn't want to be sold to Captain Snarks as a pirate's cabin boy. He is sure he'll get sea-sick, and he would far rather continue to work at the stable yard. But the foul-breathed drunkard who runs the orphanage refuses to listen: he will receive more money for the lad if he sends him to sea. On the way to the docks Pip manages to escape, and he stows away in the rear carriage of the Stage Fright Theatre Company, charmingly described as 'dancing masters of the macabre'. Our hero remains there for many days, hidden from everyone and only occasionally sneaking out to find a bone to gnaw, until the travelling troupe arrives at its destination, Hangman's Hollow. And then Pip's troubles begin in earnest.
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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>0340970693</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|author=Melissa Wareham
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|title=Take Me Home: Tales of Battersea Dogs
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Melissa Wareham always wanted a dog but her parents would never allow it and she didn't get good enough exam results for her next option – becoming a vetNot one to be deterred she joined the staff at Battersea Dogs Home, first as a kennel maid and eventually as the head of rehoming'Take Me Home' is the story of some of the highlights of her life at the home and some of the dogs which she met whilst she was there.
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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 familyA 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 beastThis 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>1849413924</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Betty G Birney
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=School According to Humphrey
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After six near-perfect books' worth of adventures in Room 26, the class pet Humphrey the hamster faces a nightmare at the start of termThe entire pupil population has changed, and all his friends he's got to know and love (and be loved by) have been replaced by a new intakeHere are the absurdly tall and the unfortunately short, both with the same first name; here is the girl in a wheelchair pestered by an over-attentive helperCan Humphrey solve all their problems - as he usually does - and, is the biggest problem of all the fact that his old friends no longer have a classroom pet?
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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 cheesesAnyway, 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 aliveThis 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 distractedBut will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571255418</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Morris Gleitzman
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Grace
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary='In the beginning there was me and Mum and Dad and the twins. And talk about happy families, we were bountiful. But it came to pass that I started doing sins. And lo, that's when all our problems began.'
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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!
 
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|isbn=0571376169
This is exactly how Grace talks because she lives with her family as part of a separatist fundamental Christian sect. She goes to a church school. The school bus driver is a church Elder because she mustn't talk to or touch an outsider as outsiders are unclean. She can't eat outsider food without purifying it first - even ice cream must be microwaved. She wears her unruly, curly hair in a bun and woe is upon her when wisps free themselves from her hairpins.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014133603X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Sorrel Anderson
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=The Clumsies Make A Mess of the Big Show
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|rating=3
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is the third book about The Clumsies, two small mice who live in Howard Armitage's office, and manage, whatever the situation, to make a mess! A big show is being put on at work, and Howard's boss wants Howard to sing.  The Clumsies decide to intervene, in order to help out Howard, and chaos ensues...
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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>0007339364</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=David Petersen
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=Mouse Guard: Legends of The Guard
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=To start with, I have never heard of Mr Petersen and his Mouse Guard franchiseBut I'm often up for an introduction to a fantasy cycle, and I always relish being welcomed to an author by the most esoteric, unusual, quirky and short routeMy first entry to the His Dark Materials world was [[Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman|a collector's spin-off]], and I'm just as likely to start the Twilight series, if ever, with the latest brief whimsyAnd for those of a similar mind-set, this collection of tales from the pens of guest writers and illustrators, serves as an odd-shaped doorway on to this particular universe.
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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 missingHer 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 worriedAll 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 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>0857681427</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=Horrid Henry's Thank You Letter
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I'm sure most of us have, at one time or another, found ourselves being forced to write a huge pile of thank you letters to distant relatives, perhaps even for gifts that we weren't all that excited to receive in the first place!  This is the predicament that Henry finds himself in, and rather than knuckle down to get them over and done with he, of course, procrastinates as much as possible before coming up with an ingenious, money-making scheme!
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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>1444001051</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|author=Richmal Crompton
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=Just William
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|rating=3
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Whether it's a trip to the cinema, babysitting a youngster, being a page boy at a wedding, or running away from home to take a job below stairs, the 11-year old William Brown can always be relied on to create chaos and havoc wherever he goes. This short story collection (the first of 38 books) is a wonderful introduction to a classic character.
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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 attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330507451</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Hans Christian Andersen, Naomi Lewis and Christian Birmingham
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|title=Arkspire
|title=The Snow Queen
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Kay and Gerda are dear, dear friends. However, Kay gets splinters from the Devil's shattered magic mirror in his eye and heart, changing his personality for the worse. Shortly after, he is whisked away by the Snow Queen. Everyone assumes Kay must have fallen in the river and drowned, but Gerda is sure her friend is still alive, and embarks on a magical quest to bring him home again.
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|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 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406319708</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|author=Patrick Dillon and P J Lynch
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|title=Stolen History
|title=The Story of Britain
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Author Patrick Dillon has put together a clear, well-written and beautifully concise story of Britain, summing up the history of Britain and Ireland in a little over 320 pages. Significant events, ranging from the Norman Conquest to the South Sea Bubble, and groups of people ranging from highwaymen to the Romantic poets, are each dealt with in between 1 and 3 pages written in Dillon's chatty, easy to read style. There are also maps, including those of the D-Day landings and the Civil War battles, a timeline for each major period (Middle Ages, Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians, Victorians and Twentieth Century) and some gorgeous illustrations by former Kate Greenaway winner PJ Lynch.
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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>1406311928</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Lucy Christopher
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|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=Flyaway
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Isla has a wonderful relationship with her father. He is the kind of man, she says, who would never tell her to come in out of the rain, because he would be out there too, enjoying the pleasure of jumping in puddles. But his heart is weak, and when he collapses and has to be rushed into hospital, Isla is bereft.
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|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>190529476X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Katherine Rundell
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|title=Finding Bear
|title=The Girl Savage
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In Zimbabwe, Nice Will Silver has lived all her life with her father Nice William Silver, his employer Nice Captain Browne, and her friend Nice Simon. But when Nice Captain Browne falls in love with Nasty Cynthia Vincy, Nice Will is uprooted from her roots and sent to an English boarding school, run by Nice Miss Blake and her assistant Nasty Mrs Robinson. How will she cope?
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|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571254314</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|author=Elizabeth Beresford
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|title=Deadlock
|title=The Wombles at Work
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bloomsbury have re-issued another tranche of the original Womble books, following the release of the first titles in late 2010. This brings the total to six available titles for you to have a Wombling good time with. And quite frankly, what's not to love here? Any story featuring Elisabeth Beresford's environmentally-minded, charming characters is a delight, for young and old alike.
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|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>1408808366</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Cath Howe
|author=Simon Scarrow
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|title=My Life on Fire
|title=Gladiator: Fight for Freedom
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|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Marcus's father was a centurion in the Roman legions. After the slave revolt led by Spartacus was finally put down, he retired from the army and bought a farm on a small Greek island. Marcus has spent most of his boyhood on the farm, learning to train dogs, shoot his sling accurately and dreaming of one day becoming a fighter like his father. But the farm is in debt and Marcus's life is about to crumble...
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|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>0141333634</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Hazel Allan
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|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=Bree McCready and the Flame of Irenus
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bree is back! She and her best friends, Sandy and Honey, are enjoying the summer holidays until one day Mimi, Honey's little sister, goes missing.  The three friends find themselves once more having to search out the old, mysterious book that fits with the heart locket in order to try to find and save Mimi. Back in the mysterious land they went to during the [[Bree McCready and the Half-heart Locket by Hazel Allan|first of Bree's adventures]] the three friends face more challenges than ever before, and this time Mimi's life hangs in the balance so they must succeed!
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|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>1905537174</amazonuk>
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|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Jonathan Stroud
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|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=The Amulet of Samarkand
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=When you summon a demon the last thing you want is for you to lose power over it - for the shoe to end up on the other foot.  Especially when the demon shifts shape and is currently an eight-legged spider.  That's what's happened to young Nathaniel, having summoned Bartimaeus for a task of vengeance.  But perhaps it's worst of all when you have to rely on the same demon's help to protect you from an even greater evil - the wicked intent of a fellow man.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552563706</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Melanie Watt
 
|title=Scaredy Squirrel at Night
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Scaredy Squirrel is scared to go to sleep at night.  He has all sorts of tricks to keep himself awake so that he doesn't have to face his night-time fears.  But his sleeplessness is having a toll on his healthCan he find a solution to his problem?
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|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 InstituteBut 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>1846471109</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Terry Deary
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|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=Put Out The Light
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In 1940, Billy and Sally Thomas are living in Sheffield, a city which is well aware that German bombs will almost surely find their way there sooner or later. As the air raid sirens blare out, they help friendly Warden Crane to make sure the blackout is kept up  - but when they find that people are having money stolen while they're in the shelters, they try to solve the crime. Meanwhile, in Germany, Manfred and Hansl are determined to do their bit for the war effort by getting into the bomb factory and writing an English soldier's name on a bomb. Then they meet Polish youngster Irena and become quickly embroiled in a frantic escape attempt. By December, the two sets of children will both have been thrust into the thick of the action, and we get a finale that's truly explosive – in more ways than one!
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|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>1408130548</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=Sally Prue
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|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=Ice Maiden
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Franz isn't popular in the village. It's 1939, and the German boy is on an extended holiday in England. Unsurprisingly, the local boys don't appreciate an enemy in their midst. Franz isn't happy at home either - he mistrusts his Nazi parents and he remembers the rounding up of the disabled, the gypsies and the Jews, and the smashing glass at night. Lonely, Franz spends a lot of time on the common, observing the natural world and the wildlife, in all its beauty and cruelty.  
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|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>0192729659</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=M T McGuire
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|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=K'Barthan Trilogy: Few Are Chosen
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The Pan of Hamgee is a relatively inconspicuous fellow living in the world of K'Barth, the setting of the battle between the overbearing, alien Grongolian settlers and the fanatic Resistance, described aptly by The Pan as being 'The lesser, but only very slightly lesser of two evils, possibly.' Naturally, The Pan wants nothing to do with this political conflict but due to a number of unfortunate cases of wrong place, wrong time and disastrous luck, he has somehow been drafted in as the getaway driver of a group of bank robbers, and somehow come into possession of a magical thimble with the power to allow teleportation, an object greatly desired by K'Barth's despot ruler Lord Vernon.
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|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>1907809007</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=Philip Threadneedle
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=The Astronaut's Apprentice
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|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bradley is as normal as any boy could beHe lives on a farm with his father and grandma and loves all sorts of boy thingsBut it's at this point that things begin to get a little bit, well, oddHis grandpa is an alien and his mother is in the attic, but she's deadGrandma's not your normal cuddly version, either. She's of the opinion that childbirth is much over-rated, both from the point of view of the mother and the child and she's not above calling her husband a love rat and a womaniser.  Still, even the best of families have their little oddities…
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|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleepA 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 grandfatherHe 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>1453843809</amazonuk>
+
 
}}
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''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the timeAnd time isn't good for anything...''
  
{{newreview
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And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bedIt was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six timesThere was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he?  And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
|author=Alan Snow
 
|title=Ratbridge Chronicles: Worse Things Happen at Sea
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Meet the Nautical LaundryA boat, crewed by piratical rats who weren't wicked enough to bring themselves to actual piracy, it's wedged under a bridge in the town of RatbridgeThey're trying to lead a humble life, doing the town's laundry - but when someone sees the scanties displayed for all around to see, they're whisked to court - and fined a pirate's treasure.  Luckily, there might be help at hand - the local miracle medicine man, who's just started curing everyone of everything with the same gloop, called Black Jollop, is willing to pay a king's ransom for a boat to take him for new supplies.  Or, is there something else, secret and evil behind these weird happenings?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192719653</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Nigel Baines
|author=P L Travers
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=Mary Poppins: The Complete Collection
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|genre=Confident Readers
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|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=It is coming up for eighty years since ''Mary Poppins'' was first published in Great Britain, but it is still one of those children's books you will find in every library and bookshop. Almost everyone in the country, young and old, can tell you the story and describe all the main characters, and the Poppins name, along with the carpet bag and the parrot-headed umbrella, has become a cultural reference. But to be honest, what most people actually know is the 1960s Disney film: the original nanny who blew into the life of the Banks children is a much darker, more mysterious being altogether.
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|isbn=1444960261
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007398557</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|author=Rebecca Stead
 
|title=When You Reach Me
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Miranda has quite a bit going on in her life. Since her best friend Sal was punched on the street for no reason, he's been distant, shutting Miranda out of his life. This loss leaves Miranda somewhat adrift, as she and Sal have been inseparable since they were at day care together. So she strikes up a friendship with Annemarie, but that involves coming between Annemarie and the stuck-up Julia. And then Colin joins the group, which adds yet more complications - Miranda likes Colin, but she's worried he might like Annemarie.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392129</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

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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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