Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[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=Gary Crew and Shaun Tan
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|title=The Viewer
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The story concerns a young lad who loves scavenging and exploring. Finding a Hellraiser-styled box of tricks contains a Viewmaster-type machine, he puts it to his eyes and sees something a lot more serious than, say, a Thunderbirds episode in thirty 3D images, which was all I ever saw in mine.  Instead, Tristan sees nothing but death and destruction, and a compelling sense of - well, something.
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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>0734411898</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
|author=Deirdre Madden
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|isbn= 1783064617
|title=Jasper and the Green Marvel
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Have you read [[Snakes' Elbows by Deirdre Madden|Snakes' Elbows]] yet?  If not, you really should.  And although you can follow this story without having read the first one it's much nicer to know all about everyone really, isn't it?  So, let's carry on as if you have read ''Snakes' Elbows'' so you know all about the little town of Woodford and a certain millionaire who lives there called Jasper Jellit. He's a rather nasty piece of work, and it was with great relief at the end of the first book that we saw him get locked up in prison.  However, he's served his time and he's just been released back into the community, which can only mean more trouble for Woodford...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571260071</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Robert Swindells
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=A Skull in Shadows Lane
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The war has ended but life is still pretty dour Josh and Jinty. Rationing is still in place and it's difficult to get enough to eat, let alone anything that's nice to eat. Most of the Yanks have gone home. And they're about to head into one of the coldest winters on record. Kicking around looking for some excitement, the siblings decide to explore the deserted cottage in Shadows Lane. Even though rumours say the house is haunted, they don't really expect to find anything. So the discovery of a human tooth in lane is rather more than they had bargained for. And when a skeletal face appears at the window, they hot foot it just as quickly as they can...
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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>0552564095</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Deirdre Madden
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=Snakes' Elbows
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Barney Barrington, the millionaire pianist, is returning to live in his home town of Woodford, but the current local millionaire, Jasper Jellit, doesn't like it one little bit.  Jasper revels in parading around town as the most extravagant millionaire, throwing ridiculous parties to show off his riches, and he resents the entrance of a competitor to the townBarney, however, lives a quiet, reclusive life and wants no part in Jasper's shenanigans.  But when a rare, beautiful painting comes up for sale they both decide they want itJasper, much like a spoilt child, will stop at nothing to get his way, but he may have a fight on his hands since there are a few animals who intend to save the day...!
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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>057127336X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Karen McCombie
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=You Me and Thing: The Dreaded Noodle-doodles
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We first met Thing in [[You, Me and Thing: The Curse of the Jelly Babies by Karen McCombie|You, Me and Thing: The Curse of the Jelly Babies]] where he caused rather a lot of chaos with a large number of jelly babies.  He's back again, and this time he really, really wants to go to school with Ruby and Jackson... it can only end in disaster!
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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>0571272592</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Francesca Simon
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=Horrid Henry's A - Z of Everything Horrid
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry is a very popular little boy, although you might have a different opinion if you actually had to put up with his antics yourself. A slightly modernised embodiment of 'slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails' concept of boyhood, Henry is naughtiness personified, combining irreverence for authority with a huge dose of gross-out crude humour that really appeals to the target readership of early primary school children.  Add a somewhat nostalgic, timeless feel, trademark alliterations, subtle (and not so subtle) digs at family dynamics, sibling rivalry and particularly at modern middle-class manners and sensibilities and you have a winning character and a base for a very successful edutainment franchise.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002260</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alan Gibbons
 
|title=Street of Tall People
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's the East End of London, and it's 1936, and it's a time of fighting.  Jewish lad Benny, and Jimmy, who's rather more C-of-E, are going to become firm friends through having a boxing bout against each otherBenny is fighting against the more extreme anti-Goyim sentiments of his neighbour YaroJimmy has to fight, it seems, against life, what with his father dieing and his mother having found a new boyfriend, putting a sense of social outcast on the ladAnd all through this is the fight to come, around the corner, against Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts.
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every directionAnd yet, he still has a tiny amount of hopeHe is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907869239</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|author=Frank Cottrell Boyce
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|title=The Unforgotten Coat
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|author=Rob Keeley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Julie lives in Bootle and is in her last year of primary school. She's like every little girl, hoping to be invited to her friends' houses for tea and just beginning to think about boys. She's never thought much about the world outside Bootle but the arrival of Chingis and his younger brother Nergui is about to change all that. The two boys are nomads from Mongolia and they arrive at school on a hot summer's day, wearing traditional Mongolian furry coats and hats. Taking a shine to Julie, Chingis appoints her his Good Guide to the UK. And in return he tells her stories of horsemen and eagles and shows her Polaroid photos of a land far away.  
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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>1406333859</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=Alan Early
 
|title=Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent (The Father of Lies Chronicles)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=When Joe Quinn is offered a great job working on the new Metro tunnels, within just a few days, he and his son Arthur have packed up and moved from a peaceful life in Kerry across country to central Dublin.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1856358275</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|author=Melanie Welsh
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|title=Heart of Stone
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We're back in the coastal town of Wellow to catch up with Verity Gallant and her pals. Verity has had a marvellous summer spent sailing with Henry but we all know peaceful times are unlikely to last...
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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>0385617674</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Dave Shelton
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=A Boy and a Bear in a Boat
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=''A boy and a bear go to sea, equipped with a suitcase, a comic book and ukulele. They are only travelling a short distance and it really shouldn't take too long. But then their boat encounters "unforeseeable anomalies"... Faced with turbulent stormy seas, a terrifying sea monster and the rank remains of The Very Last Sandwich, the odds soon become pitted against our unlikely heroes.''
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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>0385618964</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|author=Adele Geras, Anne Fine, Henrietta Branford, Jacqueline Wilson, Malorie Blackman, Philip Pullman, Tony Mitton, Alan Garner, Berlie Doherty, Gillian Cross, Kit Wright, Michael Morpurgo, Susan Gates and Linda Newbery
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|title=Magic Beans
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=I was attracted to this book because it features stories from [[:Category:Jacqueline Wilson|Jacqueline Wilson]], [[:Category:Philip Pullman|Philip Pullman]], [[:Category:Michael Morpurgo|Michael Morpurgo]], [[:Category:Alan Garner|Alan Garner]] and many other prominent children's writers.  I thought it might make a great Christmas or birthday present (and it would).  There's a selection of stories from traditional sources such as Hans Christian Andersen, and Aesop, and I imagine that the authors were inveigled into writing for publisher David Fickling with a free choice of original stories.  So don't expect a collection or compendium, but rather an anthology of tales that have entranced and inspired these writers in their own childhoods  – magic beans indeed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560433</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Steve Backshall
 
|title=Predators
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=Many readers would probably know that on the simple count of humans they helped to dispatch, mosquitoes may be the most deadly animals ever. But did you know that if you take into account the success rate of hunts, diversity and spread, ladybirds are more successful predators than tigers?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444004174</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nicola Pierce
 
|title=Spirit of the Titanic
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Samuel Joseph Scott was fifteen years old when he landed a job in the Belfast shipyards. But when Sam plunges to his death while working on construction of the magnificent Titanic, he doesn't leave her behind. Sam becomes a spirit on board, realising his dream of sailing away with his beloved Titanic on her first... and, of course final voyage. Sam roams freely throughout the ship, from the luxurious first class all the way down to the engine room. He observes the lives of the people on board, become privy to their hopes, dreams and fears. Sam takes particular interest in one third-class family, Jim, Isobel and their children, as they sail away to their new and better life in America. But when disaster threatens the lives of all on board, can Sam find a way to lead the family to safety? And what will become of Sam as the Titanic sinks to the ocean's bed?
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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>1847171907</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Garrett Carr
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=Deep Deep Down
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ewan can see monsters, wherever he isThat's not because he has any special abilities - unlike his friend May, who can telepathically talk to the animals, or Andrew, who starts this book a sub-human, with a Hellboy-type mutated and very mighty arm, and demons writhing inside him sending him berserkNo, Ewan can see monsters everywhere he looks because life is like that - especially adultsSo when May decides a fabled pool of magical water is what can cure Andrew, they go and find an idyllic place of long life, peace and UtopiaAnd still Ewan can see monsters.  But which side is of more danger to the other?
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|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catIn 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 withThey nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it.  And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast outIt's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive.  This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted.  But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386008</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Cat Clarke
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Torn
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
A week in the Scottish Wilderness doesn't exactly sound fun, not to Alice King, but that's what she's about to embark on. Her and her classmates are off on an activity holiday together – walking, climbing, caving. Alice is fortunately put in a cabin with her best friend Cass, so things can't be too bad. But, then Tara Chambers, the popular girl, gets put in their cabin too - things definitely just got worse. Tara, though beautiful is powerful, mean and likes nothing more than putting people down.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857382055</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mary Norton
 
|title=The Borrowers: The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=
 
Most people will be aware of the story of the Borrowers. First published in 1952, it has been dramatised several times, most recently as Arrietty, the beautiful Studio Ghibli animated film. A little girl called Kate is told a story by an elderly lady, Mrs May, who lodges with her parents. Her brother was sent as a small boy to stay with an elderly great-aunt in a large house near Leighton Buzzard, a market town in the Home Counties. He is recovering from a serious illness. The house is an ideal place for the Clock family, tiny people who survive by 'borrowing' from humans (even their names - Pod, Homily and Arrietty - sound as though they're repurposed from human names. However, the boy spots Arrietty, and this leads to disaster for the Borrowers.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005812</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cathy MacPhail
 
|title=Out of the Depths
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It must be cool to have some superpower, right? Be able to fly, or hold your breath for an hour underwater, or see dead people? Hmm . . . not so much. Tyler isn't at all impressed when she suddenly starts to see people who really shouldn't be there, and neither are her classmates. In fact, they think she's either lying to get attention, or she's insane. And Tyler is beginning to wonder if they're right.
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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>0747599092</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Chris Barnardo
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Dragonolia
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=
 
This book is, first of all, a rather beautiful book to behold.  The red cloth hardback cover with the curled-up golden dragon on the front immediately make you want to pick it up and look inside!  It's also a rather unusual book, being a mix of both fiction and non-fiction, so when you begin it you're initially not quite sure what you're looking at.  As you read on you discover that there's a story running throughout by Sir Richard Barons, a famous dragon hunter, and with each story he tells there is also a craft project of something related to make!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904967248</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Joan Aiken and Jan Pienkowski
 
|title=The Kingdom Under the Sea
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I do like a good collection of fairytales, and by that I mean the rather more menacing, edgy versions, rather than the sanitised re-tellings that we often seeHere Joan Aiken is retelling some European fairytales and they are full of dragons and mermaids and goblins and witchesIt's exactly the sort of more unusual collection of stories that would have kept me happy and quiet on a dull, rainy afternoon as a child and it has the added attraction of many atmospheric and beautiful illustrations by Pienkowski.  
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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 monthAnd it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problemAnd 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>0857550098</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Ian Beck
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=The Haunting of Charity Delafield
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
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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?
Charity Delafield has grown up in a very solitary way. Rattling around in Stone Green Hall, her father's ancestral home, she has been isolated from the outside world by her strict and forbidding father because of a "condition" she has apparently suffered from since birth. With only her governess, Rose, and her cat, Mr Tompkins, for company, Charity is a lonely child.  
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|isbn=0571363148
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370332105</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Melvin Burgess
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=The Cry of the Wolf
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=hought to have been extinct in Britain for centuries, there are actually 70 English wolves left when Ben meets the Hunter. Burning with mortification at being mocked for poor shooting skills, Ben lets the carefully-guarded secret slip to this awful, vile man. And over the next three years, the Hunter makes it his business to find and kill these beautiful, rare creatures. Eventually, there is only one family left and Silver and Conna will do anything to protect their cub, the last of his kind...
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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>1849393753</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|author=Amy Ignatow
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=The Popularity Papers
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|rating=3
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The RRP of this book is a whole £4 more than the average [[Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell|Dork Diary]]What do you get for that extra outlay, and why do I even point this out? Well, both this series and that are designed as if they were created by a member of the target audience - an American tweenage girl with a lot to say about herself, her school life and how, once you've avoided your parents embarrassing you, the popular girls at school being condescending and rude at the best of times, everything in life will still work its damnedest to heap ignominy and embarrassment on you.
+
|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-pathsThe girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum '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>1419700634</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Antony Wootten
+
|title=Arkspire
|title=A Tiger Too Many
+
|rating=4
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Jill's brother, Pete, was a keeper at London Zoo and when her mother was at work she would go to the zoo with him.  She became very attached to an elderly tiger by the name of Ronny but with the outbreak of war tough decisions had to be made.  What would happen if poisonous snakes escaped during a bombing raid?  What about the elderly and dangerous animals?  Jill is heart-broken when Ronny is shot but there's consolation in the form of a tiger cub, the runt of a litter rejected by his mother, who would need all Jill's care if he was to survive.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0953712311</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sian Pattenden
 
|title=The Peppers and the International Magic Guys
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Esme and Monty are the Pepper twins, and whilst their hippie parents are away on holiday 'reconnecting with nature' the twins are left with Uncle Potty who is a member of the International Magic Guys clubUnfortunately the club is threatened with closure, and the more nervous Uncle Potty becomes about the club's future the more disastrous his tricks are! Will he ever be able to perform in the show that must save the club?
+
|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 warBeing trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007430019</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=024162343X
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
+
|title=Stolen History
|title=George and the Dragon and a World of Other Stories
+
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=
+
|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''.
Some people may wonder if we really need yet another collection of stories: after all, many of the tales in this book are already well-known. But that would be to miss the point. What is distinctive about this book is the fact that it is written by the multi-award-winning Geraldine McCaughrean, one of our most skilful, respected and prolific authors. Each of the stories here is like a gem made of words: beautifully told, using description which ranges from the lyrical to the comic, and both parents and children will derive a huge amount of pleasure from them.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002384</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Jamie Thomson
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=Dark Lord: The Teenage Years
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What would you think, if you met a thirteen-year-old boy who turned up out of the blue and insisted, loudly and colourfully, that he was an evil demon and that he intended to smite you dead or submit you to a thousand terrible torments? Or both? Yup – the kid's nuttier than a fruit cake. Got a screw loose. Several sandwiches short of a picnic. And he's clearly played way too many computer games in his short life. So, despite his threats and protestations, he's got to go into foster care until his real family is found: after all, he can't be left sitting in a car park forever, can he?  And once you realise there is no sign of a relative anywhere, well, there's his education to consider.
+
|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>1408315114</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Chris d'Lacey
+
|title=Finding Bear
|title=Fire World
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=David Rain is an impressionable, imaginative boy who can ''imagineer'' (that is, visualise objects and make them solid). He is a threat to the highly organised society of Co:pern:ica, particularly to the terrifying Aunts who control society on behalf of the Higher, and his parents are blamed for their own faulty emotions, thoughts and abilities, and punished. David is sent to the librarium, the repository for obsolete books, where he meets a mysterious girl called Rosa. She will play a part, along with the beautiful but threatening firebirds and unexpected members of David's own family, in discovering the secrets of the ancient tapestry of the librarium and confronting threatening forces from Co:pern:ica and beyond.
+
|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>1408309599</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Francesca Simon
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=The Sleeping Army
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Francesca Simon was invited to write about anything she liked, she decided to put the Lewis chessmen at the centre of an adventure. They have long fascinated her, and she has always wondered why they look so glum and worried. Add to this the fact (which she admitted in a recent interview for the Guardian) that if she were left alone in the British Museum she would want to touch everything, pick up everything and generally run amok (rather like that naughty Loki the Trickster, not to mention an equally horrid young boy called Henry . . .) and the seeds of her story were sown.  
+
|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>1846682789</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|author=Laura Owen and Korky Paul
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|title=The Misadventures of Winnie the Witch
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Have you met Winnie the Witch yet?  I do hope so.  She's really quite bonkers, often rather disgusting, and she has a fat, long-suffering cat called Wilbur.  She's a bit of a favourite in our house, so we were eager to sit down and read her newest stories together!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192732145</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Bond
 
|title=The Tales of Olga Da Polga
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Olga, a proud, loveable and loving guinea pig. We see her first, as does a girl called Karen, living in a pet shop with some friends, and after a cycle of short stories she will end by living with friends of very different kinds. In between she has to experience life with humans (or sawdust people) and survive scrapes in the wilder world, but still has time to explain where guinea pigs' tails went and how they got their squeak.
+
|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>0192731939</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Jonathan Meres
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=May Contain Nuts (The World of Norm)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Nothing, but nothing, is Norm's fault.  If he virtually sleepwalks into weeing in his parent's wardrobe it's because they've downsized to a new, smaller home.  If his best friend crashes Norm's own bike, it's his brother's fault.  If his parents have had it up to there with him it's up to them to really state their mind and not be obtuse.  When everything happens - lies, deceit, unhappiness and dog poo on the carpet - it's the world's fault for being so unfair.
+
|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>1408313030</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Jayne Woodhouse
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=And Rocky Too
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We [[The Stephensons'  Rocket by Jayne Woodhouse|first met Rocky]] when Anna's father, the feckless Pete, brought him home as the latest in his many money-making schemes which inevitably cost the family dearThis one was to have a longer-lasting effect than most though through his affection for Rocky, the retired racing greyhound, Pete realised that he had to support his family and Anna's brother Darren made a friend of another boyEven Wilf, the pensioner who lived next door found hidden talents and it looked as though the family was set fair, right?
+
|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 worldDuring 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>0954925696</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Simon Packham
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=The Bex Factor
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Reality TV, especially the kind of talent competition where the backstory of the contestants is as much a part of the programme as their performance on stage, is a part of most young people's lives. A whole culture has grown up which dangles big breaks, lucrative contracts and happiness-ever-after to those talented few who can sing or dance, or, better still, do both at once. Fourteen-year-old Bex dreams of singing her way to stardom via the latest TV show, called 'The Tingle Factor'. All she needs to do is persuade geeky Year Ten Matthew to accompany her on the guitar.
+
|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>1848121636</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=J R R Tolkien
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=Mr Bliss
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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 livesThey 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 familyThey 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 placeBut 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 maintainThe 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.
If you wanted to produce a classic of children's literature, it would probably look a lot like thisIt would be written by a famous name as a private exercise for their children, with the author's own illustrationsIt would feature a title character, with a typical Edwardian headstrong attitude, yet with an ability to create slapstickIt may well have fairytale characters as you've never seen them beforeAnd it would be presented in a deluxe, pristine heritage edition such as this.
+
|isbn=0571348785
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000743619X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=David Borgenicht
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=WCS Ultimate Adventure: Mars! (Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure)
+
|rating=4
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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 exampleAisha 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 existedFor 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?
How many endings do you prefer your books to have?  This claims 24, is the reason I askI can't be sure that the original Fighting Fantasy books of old didn't have a lot more, as well as the combat process, but in this style of choose-your-own-adventure franchise, two dozen isn't too bad at allIt's a younger-styled decision-making read, for the under-thirteens, and follows Borgenicht's seeming lifelong plan to get all sorts of survival info, either vital or trivial, into as many books as possible.
+
|isbn=0241573483
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>081187124X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
 +
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
 +
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
  
{{newreview
+
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything...''
|author=Sarah Gibb
 
|title=Best-loved Classics: Rapunzel
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Educators are, apparently, concerned at the moment at the number of children starting school who don't know any of the old traditional fairy tales, so it's nice to see a new version of Rapunzel that is based on the original story by The Brothers Grimm. This is a lovely book to share and stays closer to the original story than Disney's 'Tangled' film.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007364806</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he?  And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
|author=Joanna Nadin
 
|title=Penny Dreadful is a Complete Catastrophe
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=Penny is not really Penny Dreadful. She is Penny Jones. But when her encounters with a rat called Rooney, a cat called Barry and her cousin Georgia May, and her testing of a patent burglar trap and digging for buried treasure all end in catastrophes, is it surprising that she is known as a Disaster Magnet?  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409536076</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Angie Sage
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=Septimus Heap: Darke
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricks.  His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|summary=The seventh son of a seventh son has magical powers, as we all know. And Septimus is that son, although it took quite a time for him to find it out. Now he's apprenticed to Extraordinary Wizard Marcia Overstrand, she of the short temper and fabulous shoes, and he's about to embark on a horrendously dangerous part of his training, called Darke Week. For this exercise he has chosen to rescue Alther, a ghost who was accidentally Banished (a lot of words start with capital letters in these books) by Marcia, but once again the baddies have other ideas.
+
|isbn=1444960261
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408806282</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|author=Jean Clemens Loftus
 
|title=Ruby Rocksparkle: Her Wildly Incredible Adventure
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Ruby Rocksparkle and her thirteen - yes! thirteen! - siblings are all named after gemstones. Ruby's father is a peasant farmer in the happy little kingdom of Felicitania. Felicitania is ruled by the kingly King Flavian and his beautiful second wife, Queen Morgana. His son, Prince Alano, is busily preparing for the day when he must rule, and the time for him to find a wife is fast approaching. Ruby, a vivid, read-headed beauty, dreams of marrying Prince Alano. If only he could ever marry a commoner - but even Ruby knows that could never be.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1452059780</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

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

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Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out? Full Review

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

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

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

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

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

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

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

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

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

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

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Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

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

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

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

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

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

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Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

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

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Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

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

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Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

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

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Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

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Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with? Full Review

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Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

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

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Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

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

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Review of

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

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

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Review of

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

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

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

And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock? Full Review

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Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

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

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