Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
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==Confident readers==
 
__NOTOC__
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tom Angleberger
 
|title=Darth Paper Strikes Back: An Origami Yoda Book
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=In this follow up to ''The Strange Case of Origami Yoda'' there is a new paper finger puppet in school.  Harvey has made himself a Darth Vader (Darth Paper) and it is, of course, turning him to the dark side!  I hadn't read the original story to begin with, so I must admit that there were times when I wondered quite what was going on!  It seems that one of the boys at school, Dwight, made an Origami Yoda finger puppet and this puppet gave his classmates amazing advice, advice that helped them in their school relationships and resolved various problems.  Origami Yoda was, undoubtedly, using the force!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1419701274</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lesley Howarth
 
|title=Maphead
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=MapHead and his father Ran are of the Subtle World. Ran can travel through time, make things disappear and erase human memories. MapHead can flash the map of any place across his face and bald scalp. MapHead is a halfling and now he is almost 12, Ran has brought him to meet his human mother. As they need to pass for humans, they've taken new names - Boothe and Powers, from a random movie - practised their English, and enrolled MapHead at the same school as his half-brother.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846471206</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
 
|author=Rob Keeley
 
|author=Rob Keeley
|title=The Alien in the Garage and Other Stories
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Would aliens like custard creams? Can fake tan hide a big lie? Are TV remotes sinister objects? Do secrets make you popular?
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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.
  
Rob Keeley explores all these questions and more in a super collection of slightly spooky, blackly comic short stories. They're beautifully observed and you can see that Rob knows children well. He has the emotional landscape exactly right and is equally accurate when describing - and sometimes gently mocking - peer relationships.
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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
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848765797</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 1783064617
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Susan Cooper, Joseph Delaney, Berlie Doherty, Jamila Gavin, Matt Haig, Robin Jarvis, Derek Landy, Sam Llewellyn, Mal Peet, Philip Reeve and Eleanor Updale
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Haunted
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've always enjoyed a good ghost story whether at a sleepover when I was a teenager, or even now reading horror stories in bed in the middle of the night. As soon as I saw this book I knew I wanted to read it, and it did not disappoint; a group of excellent authors from all genres have come together and the result is a collection of brilliant stories not to be missed by any ghost hunters out there.
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome.  What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world.  But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849393214</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Joyce Lankester Brisley
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=Milly-Molly-Mandy's Friends
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Milly-Molly-Mandy doesn't much mind being an only child when she has people like Little Friend Susan, Billy Blunt and Miss Muggins's Jilly to play with. And what fun they have! With overnight guests, trips in the pony-trap, dressing up as Proper Ladies, running races and even forming secret clubs, there's never a dull moment.
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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>023075497X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Joyce Lankester Brisley
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=Milly-Molly-Mandy's Family
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Millicent Margaret Amanda (that's Milly-Molly-Mandy to you and me) lives with Father and Mother and Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle and Aunty (and Toby the dog) in a nice white cottage with a thatched roof. And do you know, she has all sorts of adventures. She goes out into town alone to fetch things for her extended family, she goes to a concert where she even knows one of the performers, she gets invited to parties in the village hall, and she does it all with the company of Little Friend Susan and Billy Blunt.
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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>0230754988</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Saviour Pirotta and Mark Robertson
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=The Giant Book of Giants
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There's a rather large giant's eye starting back at me from the cover of this book...I'm not scared though, because the book promises that the giant contained within is a gentle giant who will guard my room! And he really is contained within since this is a book set which includes a book of giant stories from around the world as well as a huge giant poster (over one metre high!) which is in 3D and contains moving parts!
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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>1405260084</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|author=Cathy Cassidy
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|title=The Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye
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|author=Rob Keeley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It doesn't seem like a year since I first met the Tanberry sisters in [[Cherry Crush: The Chocolate Box Girls by Cathy Cassidy|Cherry Crush]] because they're all very fresh in my mind. The five girls – four of them are called Tanberry and Cherry is their step-sister are all just preteen or in their early teens, with Honey as the oldest and Coco as the youngest.  Honey is still not coping with the fact that her father has left – and is now living in Australia – or with the arrival of Paddy and Cherry. On occasions she's not just difficult – she's ''dreadful''.
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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>0141384808</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=K M Grant
 
|title=Hartslove
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=1861, Epsom. A young lad, Garth, is at the start of the biggest horse race in the land, astride The One, an ungainly but lightning-fast three year old who had never been ridden until just months ago.  At the side of the track, Garth's five sisters, and friends, are willing him on.  How can this young jockey win the race, upon which the fate of their castle home and so much more depends?  And what are we to learn after the prologue that sets all this out, that would make us want him to NOT win?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857381873</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=Paul Geraghty
 
|title=The Hunter
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=At the start of 'The Hunter', Jamina and her grandfather are walking in the bush collecting honey. Jamina wants to see elephants but her grandfather tells her it is unlikely because not many have been seen since the hunters came. Initially, she is quite enthralled by the idea of hunters and proclaims that she wants to be one. She starts to play at hunting but this game ends in her becoming lost. She is drawn towards a sad and desperate cry and eventually comes across a small baby elephant trying to wake his dead mother. She leads the baby away and hopes to head towards home but all around she senses danger and is aware that the poachers are never that far away. She feels hunted herself and through this journey she comes to realise that hunting is bad and that she no longer wishes to become a hunter.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849393761</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|author=Fiona Dunbar
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|title=Kitty Slade: Fire and Roses
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In the second in the Kitty Slade series, Kitty lives with her Greek grandmother (Maro) who home educates Kitty, her brother Sam and sister Flossie. Kitty has a rare condition: she can see ghosts. On a trip to Oxenden to stay with Maro's friends, Kitty experiences some strange Poltergeist-type phenomena, and discovers that the family of Sir Ambrose Vyner (Maro's friends Dinky, Charlie and their children Louis and Emily) are under a curse.
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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>1408309297</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Ian Beck
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=The Hidden Kingdom
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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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…
|summary=Prince Osamu is a pampered, spoiled young orphan who has never known friends his own age or been told what to do. He spends his life surrounded by beauty and riches in a world where most people do not even dare to raise their eyes to his face, collecting the exquisite pots made by Master Masumi and writing poems. His tutors have told him about the demons of Hades which try, every few centuries, to break through the barrier and take over this world, and that it is his responsibility to repel them, but he dismisses all this as old wives' tales. And then one night the forces of the Emissary attack the palace, and every certainty he had is gone in a flash.
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|isbn=0008561249
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192755633</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|author=Martin King
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|title=Jack Hunter - Secret of the King
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Jack Hunter was not impressed by the idea of moving from Southend to Barnoldswick.  It was a long journey, he'd left all his friends behind and to cap it all the rather sassy girl next door announced that his bedroom was haunted.  The family had moved north because his Mum's father was getting a bit frail and needed looking after, but when Jack goes to see Grandad he realises that there's a lot more to the old man than meets the eye.  He has a secret to share with Jack – and a gold coin which does seem to show that what Grandad says about buried treasure is true.  He hunted for it for years and now he's handed the quest on to Jack.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B005EIQ3ZE</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jana Oliver
 
|title=The Demon Trappers: Forbidden
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After the demon attack on the Tabernacle, Riley Blackthorne has got a lot to think about. Her (dead) Father turned up to warn her about the impending attack, but just made him and Riley look guilty in the process. Riley doesn't care about that, she wants to know who reanimated her Father and stole his body. Her bet is on Ozymandias, the creepiest of all the necromancers plus she did tick him off.
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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>0330519484</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Gareth P Jones
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=The Considine Curse
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fourteen-year-old Mariel and her mother emigrated to Australia when she was very small. It's just the two of them, apart from her mother's succession of boyfriends, and Mariel has always believed they have no family and are alone in the world. Then one day her mother tells her that her maternal grandmother has died and that they're going back to England for the funeral. And what's more, when she gets there she will meet her five uncles and six cousins for the first time since she was a baby. Mariel is both angry and mystified. Why did her mother keep the information about the family a secret? What right did she have to deny Mariel the opportunity to belong to a big loving family group? And what was it about Grandma that made her mother hate her so much? But Mariel's mother, true to form, won't answer any of her questions, and relations between them remained strained throughout the book.
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|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with.  They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted.  But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408811510</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Rob Stevens
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B.: Secret Team of Intrepid-Natured Kids Battling Odious Masterminds, Basically
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Archie loves planes, and is never happier than when his pilot father lets him take the controls of his Dragonfly 600 jet aircraft, with its ability to hover, move at five times the speed of a helicopter and land and take off vertically. But in the honourable tradition of the hidden hero, his slightly nerdy preoccupation with flying, not to mention going round with chocolate-guzzling Barney who lives in a dream-world of spies, conspiracies and enemy agents, gets him bullied at school and nagged at by his teachers.
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|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult.  Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket.  When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt.  Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames!  Poor Roo!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330530240</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Adam Gidwitz
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=A Tale Dark and Grimm
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Not many books begin with the hero and heroine losing their heads (literally) before page thirty. And that's not the only misfortune to befall Hansel and his sister. No sooner are their heads and necks reunited, and they've fled their murderous parents, than the two children find themselves in front of an edible house. And we all know what happens if you eat people's homes, don't we? Well, maybe.
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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>1849393702</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Sam Osman
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=Serpent's Gold
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most children probably know more about Hindu gods and Creation myths than they do about ley lines, so there is a whole wealth of new information and ideas to be found in this series of books about the adventures of Wolfie, Tala and Zi'ib. Ancient beliefs about stone circles and megaliths, magic circles, the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Knights Templar are linked through these mysterious lines with modern sites like Battersea Power Station and the Tate Modern as our three heroes battle the forces of wickedness.
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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>1407105760</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Lucinda Hare
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=Dragon Whisperer: Flight to Dragon Isle
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Quenelda DeWinter is the twelve year old daughter of Earl Rufus DeWinter, the commander of the Stealth Dragon Services. As a member of the nobility, Quenelda should be at Grimalkin's College for Young Ladies and learning how to curtsey properly, like her jealous brother Darcy's fiancee, the ladylike Armelia. However, Quenelda is a dragon whisperer, and can communicate both telepathically and through dreams with dragons, and her ambition is to enrol at the Stealth Dragon Services Battle Academy at Dragon Isle.
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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>0552560235</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|author=Albert Uderzo and Renee Goscinny
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=Where's Asterix?
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Following in the tradition of 'Where's Wally' books here we have 'Where's Asterix?There are 12 different scenes from the Asterix stories where you have to find not just Asterix but a whole range of other characters hidden throughout as wellTurn it into a competition as you win a laurel wreath for each character you find!
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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>1444004441</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Emily Bearn
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|title=Arkspire
|title=Tumtum and Nutmeg: Trouble at Rose Cottage
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mysterious things are afoot in Rose CottageIt appears that some new mice, one with golden teeth, have moved into the kitchen and are threatening the tranquil lives of Tumtum and Nutmeg who live in Nutmouse HallAfter some investigation they discover the new mice are town mice, intent on causing troubleWill the children discover who has been stealing their things, or discover a way to stop their father from selling Rose Cottage before it's too late and their lives, as well as Tumtum and Nutmeg's, are changed forever?
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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 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 familyBut 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>1405256559</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|author=David Benedictus
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|title=Stolen History
|title=Return to the Hundred Acre Wood
+
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Christopher Robin is back! At least that's what the Rumour spreading like wild fire through the Hundred Acre Wood says. He's returning for more adventures with Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit and Owl and Kanga and Roo and Tigger and Eeyore and, as I'm sure you'll agree, that is a Very Good Thing. From exciting new friends (Lottie the Otter giving Kanga some welcome female company) to adventures and competitions, with water slides to locate, bees to relocate, books to write and schools to found, this book picks up where the previous one left off, and really does read like an organic 3rd part of a trilogy (poetry books excepted) rather than a tag on that comes some 80-plus years after the original and from the pen of another.
+
|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>1405251603</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Jackie Martin
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=Burglar Boy
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Burglar Boy'' opens with a big scene - Dean is halfway though robbing a house when the owner returns. Chased by an irate man with a good aim and a golf club, he barely makes it out in one piece. But he dutifully returns home and divvies up a pile of ill-gotten goods to Callum, his older brother, who rewards him for the risk and the bruises with a paltry fiver. Still, it's more pocket money than Dean is likely to see from his mother, who has lapsed further and further into a bottle of vodka since her most recent boyfriend left.  
+
|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>1907552146</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Emma Kennedy
+
|title=Finding Bear
|title=Wilma Tenderfoot and the Case of the Rascal's Revenge
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Wilma Tenderfoot, assistant to the great Detective Theodore P. Goodman, is off to solve another case with the help of her loving dog, PickleThe future of Copper Island hangs in the balance, and Wilma thinks it's possible that she may just yet discover who her parents really are...make sure you're sitting comfortably, you won't want to put this one down!
+
|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onFor a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and 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>0330535234</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kay Woodward
 
|title=Wuthering Hearts
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=book a real pain, she still wants to be Cathy in the school production - who wouldn't, especially with the utterly gorgeous new boy Robert as leading man? Robert, though, resembles Wuthering Heights' moody Heathcliff in more ways than just being good-looking, and Emily finds it very hard to get to know him properly, even after a development which means they're spending much more time together. Can two people find romance on the Yorkshire moors?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849392994</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Anne-Marie Conway
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=Star Makers Club: Polly Plays Her Part
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Polly Conway is having to deal with rather a lot at the moment. Her mum has got a fabulous new job – but it’s in Spain! That leaves Polly to live with her dad, her new stepmother who she can’t stand, and her baby brother who’s just annoying. Depressed by the problems in her life, she ignores her dad’s rules and turns to the friend2friend website to find comfort. As she gets increasingly addicted to the
+
|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.
site, she starts to lose focus on the important things in her life – including her family and the Star Makers’ new production.
+
|isbn=1839944420
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409520919</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|author=Elliott Skell
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|title=Neversuch House: Mask of the Evergones
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The Halibuts are an extraordinary family. Almost two centuries ago the Captain used his immense wealth to buy up land and surround it by a high wall. He took a wife, and employed families of servants to serve his every need. Money was no object, and subsequent generations of Halibuts had anything they desired on one condition: if they ever left the grounds of the House, they could never return.
+
|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>1847387446</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Diana Wynne Jones
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=Earwig and the Witch
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Earwig lives at St Morwald's children's home.  Unlike some orphans in literature she's perfectly happy there since she seems to have everyone answering her every whim, and she loves spending time with her best friend Custard.  Things are soon to change though as one day a rather strange couple, Bella Yaga and the Mandrake, come to look for a child to foster and the one they pick is Earwig!
+
|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>0007416857</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Francesca Simon and Pete Williamson
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=The Parent Swap Shop
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=For Sharing
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friendsThe 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?
|summary=Ava's parents like to nagThey nag her about her spelling, about eating with her knife and fork, or sitting straight on her chair, or going to bed on time...nag, nag, nag! But then one day she finds a card advertising 'The Parent Swap Shop' and when her parents nag her one more time she packs them off and sets out to find herself a new set of parents!
+
|isbn=0008579059
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002678</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Philip Ardagh
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=The Eddie Dickens Trilogy
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Eddie DickensAged eleven years old, he's only been allowed to be away from home twice in his life - once for about eight years on a boat, when a crate of luggage went to school in his place, and once for about three years.  Now though he is being forced to move in with Mad Uncle Jack and Even Madder Aunt Maud, as his parents are very illBut they're so deliriously bonkers, there's very little chance of him getting to actually move in with them. Who knows - he might even end up stuck in an orphanage instead?
+
|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside townElsbeth 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 plunderWith 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>0571274692</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=Precious and the Monkeys
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Someone has been stealing food at Precious' school.  There are suspicions about who it might be, but no one is sure so Precious sets out to try and discover the truth as to just where all those snacks are disappearing off to...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972043</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Suzanne LaFleur
 
|title=Eight Keys
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=On moving to middle school, eleven year old Elise's life takes a turn for the worse. She's bullied by her cool and popular locker-buddy Amanda, and embarrassed by her best friend Franklin – who's decidedly uncool and certainly not popular – she's also
+
|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.
struggling to cope with the new arrivals at her home, Aunt Bessie's younger sister Annie and her baby daughter Ava. Just when she doesn't know how she can cope with everything, help arrives in the form of a strange key with her name on it. As she opens a door to find out about her past, Elise starts to realise that she can take control of her future.
+
|isbn=0571348785
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141336064</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=Morris Gleitzman
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=Too Small to Fail
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Oliver's parents own an investment bank. They are very rich and also very busy and they need to be in the city for their work. This means that Oliver lives in a penthouse flat, largely in the company of a succession of housekeepers, and he can't have a pet. Of late, Oliver has been spending a lot of time with his nose pressed up against a pet shop window, falling in love with a black-and-white dog that he knows he'll never be able to take home.
+
|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>0241955203</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=James Rollins
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=James Rollins has hit upon a truly brilliant premise in this series. People and creatures from our world have been transported at various times to a savage, prehistoric place called Calypsos, and in the first volume, [[Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow by James Rollins|Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow]] Jake and his sister find themselves suddenly whisked to a city where Romans, Mayans, Neanderthals and groups from many other societies, places and eras live more or less peaceably side by side. Their archaeologist parents disappeared three years before, and the two young people's struggles to survive, and to defeat Kalverum Rex, the Skull King, go side by side with their hope of finding a trace there of their mother and father.
+
|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>1444000853</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time.  And time isn't good for anything...''
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
 
|title=King Arthur and a World of Other Stories
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The prolific, award winning author Geraldine McCaughrean has collected together twenty four stories from around the world in this highly impressive collection, garnered from four earlier collections. It includes the familiar from the Western tradition (Wilhelm Tell, Pygmalion, King Arthur) to those that are completely new to me, from Bolivia, Togo, Japan, the Middle East. The stories are no more than five pages long, making them ideal for bedtime reading (or hometime reading in a school).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002376</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 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=Julia Jones and Claudia Myatt
 
|title=Strong Winds Trilogy: The Salt-Stained Book
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Donny and his mother left their bungalow on the outskirts of Leeds and headed off to Suffolk to meet Donny's great aunt.  It was never going to be easy as Skye, Donny's mother, was deaf and just about muteShe and Donny communicated by signing and usually they managed quite well, but when Skye had a breakdown in a car park in Colchester, their camper van was towed away and fourteen-year-old Donny was taken into care.  He couldn't understand why none of the officials would believe him – in fact, were they all that they seemed?  And why will no one let him see his mother?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262040</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Kallie George and Abigail Halpin
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=The Melancholic Mermaid
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary=Maude is a mermaid who was born with two tailsHer parents tell her it makes her special, stronger and faster, but amongst the other mermaid children it makes her an outcastShe is lonely, and she longs for a friend.  Feeling sorry for herself one day she isn't paying attention and she is captured by a fisherman who sells her to a circus.  On the same day that Maude was born, Tony was born in a cottage by the seaHe has webbed hands and, like Maude, is teased at school and left lonely and sad.  His parents send him to live with the circus, believing he will be accepted and happy there but Tony is still lonely and he misses the sea.  But then one day he is put in charge of a new attraction for the circus.  A mermaid with two tails...
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksHis father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy CooperBut sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to beAnd when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1897476531</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

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

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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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