Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
 
Line 1: Line 1:
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]
+
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Confident readers==
 
__NOTOC__
 
  
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Roy Apps
+
|author=Rob Keeley
|title=The Party Animal and Don't Look Under the Bed (Deadly Tales)
+
|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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.
''Bored with sleeping soundly? Fed up with sweet dreams? Well this is the book for you! ''Deadly Tales'' features two nightmare urban legends that you'll pray aren't true''.
+
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445103389</amazonuk>
+
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
 +
|isbn= 1783064617
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|author=E Nesbit
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=The Railway Children
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Few people can be unaware of ''The Railway Children''.  It's a story which has stood the test of time not least because of the wonderful images of steam trains which it evokes for today's readersRoberta (Bobbie), Peter and Phyllis (Phil) have to leave their London home when their father goes away unexpectedly and they move to a cottage in the countryside which is near the local railway stationThey make friends with the porter, Albert Perks and the 'Old Gentleman' who is regularly on the 9.15 train.  There's fun and they have adventures but they still wonder if their father is ever going to come home.
+
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldBut 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 tamperingWhen 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>0192758195</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Jenny Smith
+
|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=My Big Fat Teen Crisis
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sam’s left alone when her best friend moves to the Outer Hebrides. Can she take this opportunity to reinvent herself as a cooler, more sophisticated person? And will she manage to win the heart of the new boy at school, David? Aided by her childhood friend Cat, who’s just returned to the area, she’ll do her best – as long as the nasty Tania doesn’t get in the way.
+
|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>1407115952</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Anne-Marie Conway
+
|title=Planet Storyland
|title=Butterfly Summer
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Becky isn't best pleased to be moved from her home in the city, where she has friends and a place, to the countryside where her mother grew up. There's a whole secret past that Becky feels on the verge of discovering - starting with friends her mother never mentioned, friends who drop unintentional hints about the father Becky has never met, and ending with the photo she finds of her mother with a baby - dated 12 years before she was born.
+
|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>1409538591</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1736128426
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Tom Percival
 +
|title=The Wrong Shoes
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1805141872
 +
|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
 +
|author=Rob Keeley
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
  
{{newreview
+
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=Giles Andreae and Tony Ross
+
}}
|title=Me, the Queen and Christopher
+
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Christopher Edge
 +
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Freya, who is seven years old, received a very important letter.  On the back of the envelope it said ''Buckingham Palace'' and it was from the Queen, inviting her to tea. It looked as though the day was going to be a disaster as Freya curtsied - and managed to knock the Queen over.  But the Queen is nothing if not resilient and up she got and off they went to her private quarters where she and Freya made themselves baked beans on toast and mugs of tea ('always dip your tea bag exactly twenty-seven times' is the Queen's advice for a good cuppa) and really it's rather like being in Freya's Gran's flat.
+
|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>1408320053</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Adam Stower
|author=Tom Becker
+
|title=Murray and Bun
|title=The Traitors
+
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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…
 +
|isbn=0008561249
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
 +
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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 beastThis has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.
What's the saying - sin in haste, repent at leisure? Well Adam is going to be the embodiment of thatOne moment where he plants a kiss on his best mate's girl's lips, even though they seem to have split up - at least temporarily - and lo and behold he's snatched by a passing dirigible, and shipped across the universe, to a place outside of time, where the idea is he has three hundred years in prison as penance, after which he will be inserted into the very instance he leaves, remembering only that he should behave a bit more diplomatically in futureOf course, Adam has other ideas...
+
|isbn=0571382231
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407109529</amazonuk>
+
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Helen Cooper
 +
|title=The Taming of the Cat
 +
|rating=3.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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 aliveThis makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
 +
|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Lauren St John
|author=Cathy MacPhail
+
|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Secret of the Shadows
+
|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If there's one thing, more than any other, which strikes you about the Tyler Lawless books, it's how ordinary and everyday the heroine is. She could easily be the girl up the road, or the one who sits next to you in geography: solid, real, utterly normal. And that is Cathy Macphail's skill: she can create characters who are absolutely convincing and lifelike, who live in the same reality as us, liking the same clothes and food and music. And yet, Tyler sees ghosts.
+
|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>1408812681</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Astrid Lindgren and Tony Ross
+
|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Pippi Longstocking
+
|rating=3
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Pippi Longstocking lives the life of every girl's dreamHer mother is dead and her father was blown off his ship.  Pippi believes that he's away being the King of the Cannibals (and that she's therefore a Princess of the Cannibals) and in the meantime she lives on her own - well except for a horse, a monkey and a suitcase full of gold - and with NO grown-ups to tell her what to doWell, a few do try, but Pippi always gives them short shrift and gets on with living her life the way that she wants to live it.
+
|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 schoolBut 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 onOK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192733060</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Nicola Davies
+
|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=Rubbish Town Hero
+
|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What is most striking about this excellent little book is the utterly matter-of-fact way it is recounted. Violence, near-slavery, starvation and disease are as familiar to the children we meet in this story as television and homework are to its readers. The story is told through the eyes of Chipo, a young boy who can neither read nor write but who willingly took over responsibility for his little sister Gentle when the bombs killed the rest of his family. Gentle has a cleft palate and finds it hard to swallow or speak, but she dreams of a place she calls Happy Split-face Land, where people like her can be healed. She saves up for the trip by washing old plastic bags (she is paid a penny for every hundred), and although Chipo does not believe such a place exists the big brother in him will do nothing to take away her hope. There is no self-pity, no jealousy or resentment evident in either child for the things they do not have, simply a determination to survive and make enough money to stave off hunger and disease. The result is a cracking good story, full of heart-stopping danger and wild escapes, extraordinary encounters and heart-breaking generosity.
+
|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>0552563021</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=M G Harris
+
|title=Nowhere Island
|title=Apocalypse Moon (The Joshua Files)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Well, I didn't see this comingAfter four lurid, neon plastic covers to these books, the fifth and final one is stark blackThe hero, Josh Garcia, probably didn't predict this, either - that every step he seems to have gone towards understanding and preventing the end of the world in December 2012, is looking to have been in vainAnd even having seen so much throughout the series, even he hasn't seen anything as galling, disappointing and hellish as earth, after the end event, as foreseen so long ago by the MayansThat black is very appropriate.
+
|summary=Meet GilJust 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 himselfHe 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 seclusionThem, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullyOver 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>1407111043</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Helen Peters
|author=Jo Nesbo
+
|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder: The End of the World. Maybe.
+
|rating=3
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=England, WW2.  Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook.  One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her.  The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths.  The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so.  But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
 +
|isbn=1788004647
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Jamie Littler
 +
|title=Arkspire
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you put authors you least expect to diversify from more literary to children's works on a scale of one to ten, [[:Category:Jeanette Winterson|Jeanette Winterson]] must be a four, [[:Category:Ian McEwan|Ian McEwan]] a high eight, and [[:Category:Jo Nesbo|Jo Nesbo]], Nordic crime sensation de nos jours at least elevenBut this is now the third in the series of youthful, frivolous adventures, and this time the titular professor, diminutive smart Alec Nilly and Lisa (and their seven-legged spider) have to save the world.
+
|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 war.  Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family.  But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857073893</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=024162343X
|author=Christopher Edge
+
|title=Stolen History
|title=Twelve Minutes to Midnight
+
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 +
|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''.
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Thiago de Moraes
 +
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The year is 1899. Each night at twelve minutes to midnight, the inmates of Bedlam (London's Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane) rise up from their sleep and begin scribbling strange words and messages everywhere they can... scraps of paper, the walls, scraps from their clothes, even on their own skin. These insane ramblings seem to depict the impossible and hint at the future. Thirteen year old Penelope Tredwell, orphan heiress and writer of best-selling magazine The Penny Dreadful, is intrigued. Hiding behind an actor hired to play the noted author of the Penny Dreadful mysteries, Penny drags him unwillingly into a macabre investigation. As she seeks to discover the meaning of insane ramblings of these unfortunate inmates, and turn them into what would be her best-selling and most famous story ever, Penny finds that she's uncovered a sinister plot controlled by a very real, very evil, very unlikely villain, and she may well be the next victim.
+
|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>0857630504</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Philip Reeve
+
|title=Finding Bear
|title=Goblins
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Poor Skarper. He's such a loser. In the violent and bloodthirsty goblin world where fighting and eating and taking other people's loot are all-time-favourite, number-one activities, he has a terrible handicap. He thinks. In fact, he's pretty clever, for a goblin, to the extent that he uses the goblins' bumwipe heaps for . . . reading. Yup, you heard me. Reading. The foolish hatchling works out that the black squiggles on the mouldering heaps of soft and crinkly stuff left, long ago, by the ancient inhabitants of the tower, are written words, and instead of going out raiding like any sensible goblin, he creeps off to a quiet corner to work out what they mean. Silly, eh?
+
|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>1407115278</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=Black Arts
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=London, 1592. Jack successfully completes a test with a local crime family and becomes a "nipper" or cutpurse thief. But Jack's first victim accidentally brings him into contact with a London even more dangerous than the one he already knows - one where magic is real and the fight between good and evil can have fatal consequences. Jack returns home to find his mother murdered by Nicholas Webb, a charismatic Puritan preacher currently whipping up the London crowds against demons and witches.  
+
|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>0385615132</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Cath Howe
 +
|title=My Life on Fire
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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?
 +
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Saviour Pirotta and Cecilia Johansson
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=Grimm's Fairy Tales: Rumplestiltskin
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Rumpelstiltskin is one of the better known of the tales from the Brothers Grimm and a perennial favourite.  The poor miller shows off in front of the king about the abilities of his beautiful daughter - she can apparently spin straw into gold. The king insists that the girl be sent to the palace and when she arrives tells her to get a load of straw spun into gold - or suffer the (fatal) consequences.  The girl is saved by the appearance of a dwarf who works his magic in return for the girl's necklace; on the second night it's her ring she gives up and on the third it's the promise of her first-born child.
+
|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>140830841X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Saviour Pirotta and Cecilia Johansson
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=Grimm's Fairy Tales: Twelve Dancing Princesses
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There was once a king who had twelve beautiful daughtersFrightened that they would sneak out and go dancing he locked them in a big bedroom at night, but each morning he would find their satin shoes danced to piecesAs he couldn't work out how they escaped he issued a proclamation to all the young men of the landAny prince who worked out how they escaped could marry one of the daughters and would inherit the kingdomBut - if after three nights he hadn't discovered the secret, he would lose his head.
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima UnfortunateOr 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 uponBut 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 Institute. But why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408308436</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Conrad Mason
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=The Demon's Watch
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=''We're the Demon's Watch, son. Best you don't think of us as the good folk. More like the dangerous folk.''
 
 
Joseph Grubb lives in Fayt, a busy port between the Old and the New Worlds. In Fayt, humans, elves, trolls, ogres and fairies live together in relative peace. But it's not all harmony. The League of Light is threatening the port, wanting to force back into the Old World way of segregation and persecution of the fey folk. And there is suspicion of multiculturalims even in Fayt itself - Joseph is a half-goblin and an orphan. His goblin father was murdered for marrying a human woman and Joseph now lives and works at a tavern owned by an uncle who despises him and calls him Mongrel.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560298</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Carl Hiaasen
 
|title=Chomp
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Wahoo isn't a cool kid. He can't play sports, and he doesn't have the latest gear. But no one at school bullies him because Alice, the twelve-foot alligator who lives in his dad's zoo, accidentally bit his thumb off one day. The other kids reckon if he can walk away from an ordeal like that, then he must have something going for him. And by the time this story is over, he'll be up to his ears in street-cred.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005065</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ellen Emerson White
 
|title=Titanic: An Edwardian Girl's Diary 1912
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=Margaret Anne Brady had been at the orphanage for several years when one of the Sisters told her that she'd been asked to accompany a lady who was crossing the Atlantic.  This was a dream come true for Margaret as he only relative - her brother William - lived in Boston and he'd been trying to save up her fare so that she could join him in the USA.  Mrs Carstairs is wealthy and she and Margaret will be travelling First Class - on the maiden voyage of RMS ''Titanic''.  All Margaret's dreams seemed to be coming true at once.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407131419</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Catherine Jinks
 
|title=The Paradise Trap
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Marcus's mum has to economise over their holidays, it means just the two of them, revisiting a campsite she herself knew as a child, in a grotty old second-hand caravanIt's a greasy, shabby, squeaky little closet of a caravan, and no-one can agree on what the awful stink pervading it reminds them of.  But when the trip is hyped up as a great time for both, it seems to have a chance of coming true, for a bizarre cellar to the caravan leads everyone to their dream trip - if only, unfortunately, one way...
+
|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 itShe 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>0857386735</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=Nicky Singer
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=The Flask
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Twelve-year-old Jess is dealing with a lot. Her beloved Aunt Edie has just died. Her mother is expecting twins - but these new babies will be Jess's half-brothers and will complete Jess's mother's marriage to her stepfather. But will they complete Jess's family? Will they even survive? Because the twins are conjoined. And in 70% of separations, only one twin lives. And if this weren't enough in the way of trials and tribulations, Jess's best friend Zoe is moving towards a relationship with a boy. Does this mean she will leave Jess behind?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007438761</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Steve Cole
 
|title=Cows in Action: The Viking Emoo-gency
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The future world's balance between cows and humans is a lot different to our own, as the bovine species has evolved into something a lot more intelligent; so much so that in order to gain the upper hand, both parties are using time travel to snatch advantages in other times and placesIn this episode of the series, it's a robotic ter-moo-nator and a fundamentalist scientist who have gone back to Viking times, leaving just three special cows from the current age with the task to go back and sort things out on the side of a happier, human-friendly existenceCan they succeed, or will much of what we know of since the Viking era be re-moo-ved from our history books?
+
|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 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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849414017</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=Ellie Boswell
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=The Witch of Turlingham Academy
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Boarding school, midnight feasts, a crowd of best friends and cute boys to gaze at (though mostly from a safe distance): what more could you ask from a story for girls of twelve and under? Well, how about throwing a bit of magic into the mix? Perfect, huh?  
+
|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>1907410953</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=Barbara Mitchelhill
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=Road to London
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Elizabethan London, made all the more wonderful by the splendour of the court and the magic of Shakespeare's imagination, is a perfect place to set an adventure. Mysteries, plots and conspiracies abound, and the stark contrast between the lives of the rich and the poor makes for a colourful and thought-provoking story. Add to that the privileged position we find ourselves in as we follow our young hero Thomas and his good friend Alice from the stinking streets full of cutthroats and foot-pads right into the presence of the Good Queen herself, and young readers are in for a treat.
+
|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>1849394075</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time.  And time isn't good for anything...''
 +
 
 +
And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the 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?
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Nigel Baines
 +
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Emerging 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!
 +
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|author=Liz Pichon
 
|title=Tom Gates: Everything's Amazing (sort of)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Tom Gates, our chronicler of all that happens in Year 5, is back with more stories of all that's happening at school and at home.  He and his friend Derek decide to enter Derek's dog, Rooster, in the local dog show, but they might have been just a little over-enthusiastic with the shampooing and Rooster ends up looking rather more fluffy than usual.  Tom and his sister Delia are still at daggers drawn over, well, just about everything and she's not impressed by the noise that Tom and his band make when they're practicing.  Still, Tom has a birthday coming up and his only worries are that some of Granny Mavis' baking might be just a little too unusual and if his Dad does DJ then the whole thing might turn into a disaster.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407124412</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


1783064617.jpg

Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839945184.jpg

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

1736128426.jpg

Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

1805141872.jpg

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

1839942738.jpg

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

0008561249.jpg

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

0571382231.jpg

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

0571376010.jpg

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

0571376169.jpg

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

0008596751.jpg

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

0571363148.jpg

Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1804540080.jpg

Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1788004647.jpg

Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0241586143.jpg

Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

024162343X.jpg

Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

178845295X.jpg

Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008582017.jpg

Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839944420.jpg

Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839942835.jpg

Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

B0BVW69N1G.jpg

Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008579059.jpg

Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839943769.jpg

Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571348785.jpg

Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0241573483.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

B09XWSXSKY.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1444960261.jpg

Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

4.5star.jpg Emerging Readers

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

Move on to Newest Cookery Reviews