Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
==Confident readers==
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michelle Paver
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|author=Rob Keeley
|title=Gods and Warriors (1)
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Oh, I'm so glad this series has finally arrived! Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness about Torak and Renn and Wolf is my absolute favourite middle grade sequence of recent years. Michelle has a such a way of writing. Her books are identifiably children's books - there's no diluting attempt at crossover fiction. Her research is impeccable but she uses it to flavour and colour her stories, never to be didactic. She writes from the point of view of animals but is never twee and anthropomorphic. Her characters - human and animal - are truly alive; vital and colourful and, as in all good children's books, called upon to show extraordinary courage. There's a little bit of magic but not enough to get in the way of the story or the characters, and it's all in keeping with prehistoric, superstitious societies.
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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>0141339268</amazonuk>
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The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
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|isbn= 1783064617
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Jean Ure
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Lemonade Sky
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Deborah Tindall has three children - Ruby, Tizz and Sam and she loves them to bitsIt's just that she's a little bit fragile mentally and not what you would call a responsible parent. The last time that she went off and left the three girls to fend for themselves they were taken into care and it was months before the authorities felt that it was safe to let the girls go homeSo when the girls wake up one morning and find that their mother isn't there they're determined that no one will realise.  The have to keep going as normal: their mother was away for ten days last time so how will they manage?
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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 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>0007431643</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=A Horrid Factbook: Food
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=For a horrid child our Henry has acquired a lot of facts, you know and the latest of his Horrid Fact Books is about food.  It follows the usual format of quick-fire facts liberally accompanied by brilliant illustrations from Tony RossThe book's divided into chapters which are just the right length to appeal to the emerging reader and to give a regular feel-good buzz when there's another chapter under the beltWith ninety-nine pages of text there's enough to give the sense of having read ''a book'' but without it being too much of a trialIt ticks all the boxes as an early reader.
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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 neededPossibly 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>1444006339</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Susie Day
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=Pea's Book of Best Friends
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Pea isn't too sure about moving from Tenby to London. Instead of starting secondary school with her friend Dot, she'll be by herself. But now that her mum is a best selling author, things are changing, and Pea and her sisters Clover and Tinkerbell will have to adjust. Can she find someone to fill the Dot-shaped hole in her life (and particularly at the desk next to her in lessons?)
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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>1849415226</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Eva Ibbotson
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=The Abominables
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Oh, this is a lovely, lovely book! It will tug at your heart-strings right till the very last page, and you will quickly grow as fond of these wonderful Tibetan creatures as Lady Agatha was. Agreed, they are very large and clumsy, and extremely hairy, but make no mistake: in this story it is the humans, not the yetis, who are abominable.  
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope.  He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407132970</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1805141872
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
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|author=Rob Keeley
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
  
{{newreview
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Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
|author=Dan Freedman
 
|title=Final Whistle
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Jamie Johnson has seen the good and the bad of a football career.  He has been to the World Cup finals, he has helped his team win the English premiership and thus taken them to Europe, and things are still on the rise - except he also has a bit of a crook knee from a car crash, and is still only 19.  But this being the modern age of football, he might not stay at that club - especially not when (a) Barcelona come calling for his services, and (b) his team need to sell him just to stay afloat.  What awaits this young star in the next stage of his life in the big time?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407111442</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|author=Oldman Brook
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|title=The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Greybeard is the wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain and when we first meet him he's expecting guests at his home.  The first to arrive are three dwarfs, Wattlespalf, Gendralf and Igralf and whilst they might not be the most becoming of creatures they have expertise with some unusual weaponry. Not long afterwards they're followed by Forrester and Stryker. The two young men arrive in human form but the reality, as we'll find out, is that they're shape-shiftersThe six thought that the gathering was complete but they're joined by two elves as a result of a dramatic rescue mission. That the two boys survived the snows which surround the wizard's house is surprising enough, but elves have been extinct for thousands of years and Finn and his younger brother Beezle arrive through an accident in time.
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|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagineBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848767617</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=Zero to Hero - Ghost Buddy
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=confident Readers
 
|summary=Billy Broccoli has moved to a new house and school and is anxious about fitting in and making new friends.  Things are made more difficult for him because his mum is the head teacher of his new school and Billy is also learning to cope with a new stepfather and stepsister. Just when Billy thinks things could not get any more difficult he discovers a ghost in his bedroom wardrobe.  Not just an ordinary ghost either. His own personal ghost is Hoover Porterhouse, a teenage ghost with attitude, who is going to help Billy learn not only how to be cool but also how to deal with the obnoxious school bully. This is the first in a new series by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver and on the basis of this first instalment it promises to be as successful as their popular Hank Zipzer series.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407132288</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Morris Gleitzman
 
|title=Pizza Cake
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=Once again the book reviewing gods appear to have it wrongNot allowing me time to read  [[:Category:Morris Gleitzman|Morris Gleitzman's]] too-good-for-mere-kids [[Once by Morris Gleitzman|Once, Then]] and [[Now by Morris Gleitzman|Now]] trilogy, instead comes a new collection of his short talesAnd once again with his invention, exuberance and humour, he - and they - have served me right.
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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 twoBut 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 whiffsThis 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>0141343710</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|author=Lily Blake
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|title=Snow White and the Huntsman
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|rating=4
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=They say it's always best to read the book before watching the film, but what if they don't come in the usual order?  This novelisation of the film ''Snow White and the Huntsman'' definitely comes after the screenplay, offering a second opportunity to look at the world and action of ''this'' Snow White, who, while experiencing the Dark Forest at the hands of a huntsman ridiculously called Eric, realises that to snatch the kingdom from her evil step-mum she has to get a bit feisty.
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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>1907411704</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Katie Davies
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=The Great Dog Disaster
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Suzanne's dad is shouting again, loud enough to be heard through the kitchen walls into the house next door, where Anna livesHe must think he sounds like a stuck record, saying for the umpteenth time they can't and won't have a dog as a petBut what if it's left Suzanne in a will?  Unfortunately, what gets delivered is nothing like the dreamt-of Cheetah or Bullet, but the most lumpen, lazy, poo-smelly attempt at a dog everAnd unfortunately, the attempts to train and exercise it involves Anna in lots of poo-smelly-bit shoving, and so much time and effort it could even break their friendship...
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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 out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385982</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Frank Cottrell Boyce
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The Tootings are in many ways a typical modern family. Dad has loads of great ideas, and Mum thinks through the practical side. Lucy loves dark, brooding tragedy (as long as it's not happening to her), brother Jem (please don't call him Jeremy) enjoys helping Dad mend things, and Little Harry—well, he just keeps wandering off. They think Dad's idea about setting off to see Paris and the pyramids (plus a dinosaur or two for Little Harry, if possible) is just plain ridiculous.
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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>0330544195</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Melody James
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Signs of Love: Stupid Cupid
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|rating=3
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Gemma is still stuck writing horoscopes for the school webzine instead of any real journalism – but that may be about to change, as she’s given the chance to work with an older student on an actual article. The only problem is, the older student is the seriously annoying Will – but putting up with him is a small price to pay for the chance to see her name in print. Of course, she’s already the star of the webzine in many ways – but her role as Jessica Jupiter is still top secret, so barely anyone else knows this. Can she use her column to sort out Savannah’s love dilemma in the same way she so successfully helped out Treacle in the last book?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857073249</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ian Fleming
 
|title=Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=You can't help envying Jeremy and Jemima Potts. Not only do their family own a magical car, but they have wonderful parents, too. Imagine the scene. Only this morning you found out that your car has features which definitely aren't standard on the average Range Rover or hatchback, and now you're in the middle of the English Channel, busy escaping a horrible death by drowning. Do your parents suddenly decide that seeing as you're halfway there, you might as well all go to France for a holiday, even though you don't have passports, clean socks or French money? Hmm. Thought not.
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|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days.  But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month.  And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on.  OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447213750</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Chris Higgins
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=The Secrets Club: Alice in the Spotlight
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is a cheerful, feel-good story which nonetheless manages to capture exactly that feeling of anxiety and self-doubt that people experience when going into a new situation. Moving to secondary school in particular is a huge change (which Alice's school does not seem to have managed as efficiently as many real-life schools do these days) and it's a time when even the most confident of children must wonder, in the depths of their hearts, if they will find new friends. Alice in particular is so used to being in the shadow of her loud, cheerful, pretty sister that she spends half the book fretting about whether the other three members of the Gang of Four really like her or not. After all, half the class seemed to fall asleep when she gave a talk about the environment, and even Lissa, Tash and Dani admit she did go on a bit.
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|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell.  So who is going to look after Caro?  Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried.  All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people.  Is the painting somehow linked to the gang?  And what has happened to Caro's mother?  Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014133522X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Victoria Eveleigh
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=A Stallion Called Midnight
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jenny lived on Lundy with her father who was a farmer on the south of the islandIt was an idyllic life: everyone knew and helped everyone else and it was rather like living in a big extended familyThis was important to Jenny as her mother had died in a cliff fall when she was just five.  Jenny had a secret though.  Wild ponies roamed freely on the island and the stallion, Midnight, was considered to be the wildest of them all, but he liked and trusted Jenny and allowed her to ride on his back. Midnight has a dreadful reputation and Jenny dreaded what would happen when she had to leave the island and go away to school.
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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 himselfHe is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his futureThat 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>1444005529</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|author=Caroline Lawrence
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=The P K Pinkerton Mysteries: The Case of the Good-looking Corpse
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|rating=3
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=PK is a skilled tracker with a keen eye and an excellent sense of smell. But he does suffer from a few disadvantages. Firstly, his Thorn: he has trouble understanding the expressions he sees on people's faces. Secondly, his Foible: he gets what his foster-mother used to call the Mulligrubs, going into a trance and rocking back and forth when things upset him. Thirdly, his Secret, which he is at great pains to conceal from everyone. And lastly, his Eccentricity: he loves to collect things. In this, the second book in the series, he begins to collect different kinds of tobacco.
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|summary=England, WW2.  Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook.  One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her.  The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001701</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Julia Jones and Claudia Myatt
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|title=Arkspire
|title=Strong Winds Trilogy: Ghosting Home
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We first met Donny Walker in [[Strong Winds Trilogy: The Salt-Stained Book by Julia Jones and Claudia Myatt|The Salt-Stained Book]] as he and his mother Skye left their home on the outskirts of Leeds and headed off to the Suffolk coast.  When his deaf-and-mute mother had a breakdown fourteen-year-old Donny was taken into care and the only good thing in his life was that he was introduced (almost accidentally) to sailingHe was a natural.  The worst parts of his life were that he wasn't allowed to see his mother and no matter what he did he seemed to keep running foul of Social Services and a certain police inspectorSomething was going on, but could Donny and his new friends work out what it was?  And would his great Aunt, known as Golden Dragon, be able to help him when she arrived in her boat ''Strong Winds''?
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|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese.  Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands.  Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warBeing trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole familyBut in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1899262067</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|author=Ellie Irving
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|title=Stolen History
|title=Billie Templar's War
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Billie Templar’s dad is abroad, fighting for Queen and country. She wants him home – partly because they need to defend their record of winning the three-legged race at the school carnival, but more importantly because his best friend has just been seriously hurt and she’s worried it could be him next. She hits on a foolproof idea to bring him back – she just needs to ask the Queen herself to give him permission to come back. But getting to see the Queen is harder than she thinks… so she hatches a plan to stage a military tattoo to get the Queen to her village during the Jubilee celebrations. With an allergy-prone boy, a girl who has no friends, a bunch of old age pensioners and a brass band who only know one song trying to help, it couldn’t possibly work – could it?
+
|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 placeLooking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politelyI wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370331990</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sarah Lean
 
|title=A Dog Called Homeless
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=It's a year since Cally's mum was killed in an accident, but the family is still barely coping with the loss. Her brother shuts himself in his room and plays on the computer for hours. Her father has packed away all her mother's belongings and cannot stand to hear her name mentioned, and Cally herself has become difficult and disruptive at school. It feels to her that when the others refuse to mention her mother, it makes her disappear even more. The whole family is getting more and more trapped in a spiral of misery and silence, isolated from each other and losing contact with their former friends and colleagues.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007455038</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Victoria Eveleigh
 
|title=Katy's Pony Surprise
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=We've been with Katy Squires for a few years now.  We first met her in [[Katy's Wild Foal by Victoria Eveleigh|Katy's Wild Foal]] when she discovered a new-born foal on snowy Exmoor.  Co-incidentally it was Katy's birthday and the foal would be TrifleIt's not difficult to guess how things went in [[Katy's Champion Pony by Victoria Eveleigh|Katy's Champion Pony]], but it was great to see Trifle ''and'' Katy growing and maturing togetherWe've now come to the final part of this lovely trilogy and it's another that's going to be loved by the pony-mad tween girl.  Even if you're not keen on horses and ponies it's still going to be a good read.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005537</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Ruth Eastham
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=The Messenger Bird
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Three days before Nathan's thirteenth birthday, his father, who works for the Ministry of Defence, is arrested for leaking top secret information to the enemy and causing the deaths of British soldiers. As he is dragged into a police car, he manages to mutter a few words to Nathan, asking him to follow a trail of clues and solve the mystery which will prove his father's innocence. But he urges Nathan to trust absolutely no one. He must not even confide in his mother and sister, because telling them will put them in danger too. Frightened, weary and confused, Nathan must use every ounce of his courage and ingenuity to save his father.
+
|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>1407124617</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Roddy Doyle
+
|title=Finding Bear
|title=A Greyhound of a Girl
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mary's life seems full of grief at the moment. Her grandmother, whom she loves dearly, is dying in hospital, and at the very moment when she needs the comfort of a good friend, her bestie Ava has had to move away. But unlike many young fictional heroines, Mary has a strong and loving family to support her, and it is with them that she shares this glorious adventure.
+
|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>1407129341</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|author=Karen McCombie
+
|title=Deadlock
|title=You, Me and Thing: The Legend of the Loch Ness Lilo
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ruby lives next door to Jackson and although he can be somewhat annoying, being a boy, they share a BIG secretAt the bottom of their garden lives a Thing. There's no other way to describe it really, but Thing can be cute, funny, adorable - and something of a liability when it decides to do a little magic.  You see, when Thing gets upset (which happens quite frequently - the world can get very confusing when you're only a little Thing) its magic spells are not completely reliable, which is why Ruby and Jackson went to a pool party and found themselves face-to-face with a giant inflatable monster.
+
|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 runThey 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>0571272614</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|author=Jenny Valentine
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|title=Iggy and Me and the New Baby
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Flo's little sister Iggy seems to have just one thing on her mind at the moment and that's babies.  She's desperate for Mummy to have another baby but Mummy says that two are quite enough - 'one under each arm in an emergency'.  Actually, Iggy has something else on her mind tooShe ''longs'' to growAt one point she was the smallest in her class - which meant that she was the smallest child in the schoolShe will do anything to grow - however odd it might seem to everyone else!
+
|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 eatWhen 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 personBut Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal thingsSmall things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much alreadyBut what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007463545</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Jeff Norton
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=MetaWars: The Fight for the Future
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Welcome to the world of Web 4.0 - a totally immersive world of virtual reality, jacked into your spine, and the perfect place to escape, live and work - as opposed to the near-Apocalyptic conditions on Earth, with global warming, over-population and anarchic ruin everywhere.  Jonah uses the Metasphere to go to school by day, and his rollerskates to try and win race prize purses by night.  But the world is about to turn upside down for him.  For the inventor of Web 4.0, who alone can control and profit from this other reality, is out of prison, and the 'terrorists' against him are stepping up their activities too.  Secrets in both worlds will conspire to drag Jonah in, but in an existence where you can be killed virtually or IRL and they both have the same result, the danger he faces is only going to mount up...
+
|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>1408314592</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|author=Garth Nix and Sean Williams
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|title=Troubletwisters: The Monster
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=This book really should be required reading for anyone charged with bringing up children with magical powers — especially if they've already saved the world a time or two. In a nutshell, it shows what happens when you answer all the said young people's questions with some vague promise to explain everything when the time is right. As if that's going to satisfy them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258632</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Michael Morpurgo
 
|title=Sparrow: The Story of Joan of Arc
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Joan of Arc knows she's special. She knows that she has been chosen to save France - the voices tell her so. But she also knows that she has a lot to do to convince the Dauphin and the noblemen who protect him that it's time to make a stand for their country. Can she become a heroine?
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world.  During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute.  But why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007465955</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=David Wiesner
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=The Three Pigs
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Everyone knows the story of the Three Little Pigs, but in this version, when the wolf comes along and huffs and puffs, he actually blows the little pigs right out of the story. In fact, they float across a number of pages before eventually ending up in the middle of ''Hey diddle diddle!'' However, they don't find this nursery rhyme to their liking so they move on to a story about a prince who kills a dragon. Having just escaped from their own dangerous enemy, the three pigs realise that they can't possibly leave the dragon to be slain, so they take him with them right the way back to their own story where, with the help of their new friend, they definitely don't allow the wolf in.
+
|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>1849394059</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=Julia Green
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=Tilly's Moonlight Fox
 
 
|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 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.
It's a difficult time for Tilly. She's just moved house, losing contact with her best friend as a result, and now her mother, who is expecting a baby, is too ill to leave her bed or even spend much time with her. Tilly is a sensitive, generous girl who tries hard not to get in the way or be a nuisance because she understands that her father needs to give all his time to his wife, and to sorting out their new home. Lonely, unhappy and frightened by all the bewildering things that are happening, she finds herself thrown back on her own company, unable to share her worries.  
+
|isbn=0571348785
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192757911</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=Melissa Wareham
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=Winston Windsor and the Diamond Jubilee
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The Queen has quite a few corgis (and one dorgi) but her best-loved dog is Winston WindsorWinston Windsor is devoted to the Queen, obviously, but his heart has been stolen by Wilma the poodle who is owned by the man who supplies fruit and vegetables to the PalaceWhen the Queen decides to change supplier (please step up the organic farmer based at Highgrove...) Winston realises that he will never see Wilma againAn unwise escape from the Palace in pursuit of his lady love leaves him in the dog pound with Flossy the Rottweiler (a difficult name for a boy, don't you think, particularly when you've been beaten up by a Chihuahua?) and HarryWhen the dogs unearth a plot to kidnap the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee day they know that they have to get back to the Palace and warn the Queen - but how?
+
|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, LondonBut 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 footageThe 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>B0081LEK9M</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=Goddess Girls: Athena the Brain
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Turns out Mount Olympus isn't so very different from our world after all. Lots of young gods and goddesses all together, making friends, discovering how to use their abilities properly, and having the occasional argument. It has eccentric teachers, handsome boys, and mean girls — in other words, it's middle school!
+
|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>141698271X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything...''
|author=Helen Moss
 
|title=Adventure Island: the Mystery of the Drowning Man
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The great thing about adventure stories, as opposed to fantasies, tales of superheroes and even the more dramatic end of the teen-spy spectrum is that young readers can easily imagine themselves joining in the action. Pulling a drowning man from the sea, saving a film star, finding a treasure map and discovering dinosaur bones are all ''possible'' — even if, to be honest, they're not very likely.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444005340</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 heAnd why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
|author=Carol Midgley
 
|title=My Family and Other Freaks
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Danielle has an embarrassing family, a dog who's in love with an Ugg boot, and a love rival who she can't possibly live up to – or can she? Determined not to be beaten in her efforts to secure Damien's affections, Danni hits on a plan – only for it to go horribly wrong, landing her with the nickname of 'Dench The Stench'. Surely things can only get better – can't they?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857388940</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rachel Renee Russell
 
|title=Skating Sensation (Dork Diaries)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=OMG!! Niki's gym class is doing ice-skating this term, and anyone who presents a display at a public charity event will get a straight A.  Also, if she can perform well she will keep an endangered animal charity working for some months.  It's just a shame then that Niki suits ice-skating as well as chocolate suits building barbecues.  What's worse, is that the shelter has a deep meaning for her hunky friend Brandon...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085707119X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Michael Lawrence
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=Murder and Chips (Jiggy McCue)
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary=Poor Jiggy. It seems everything he touches is doomed. In previous books he's been squeezed almost to death by a pair of demonic underpants, attacked by the ghost of a bad-tempered goose and pursued by a spiteful genie—though all of that, frankly, is nothing compared to what happened with that toilet (don't ask). And now, to cap it all, exams are looming—you know, the ones everyone tells your whole future depends on? Jiggy and his two friends Angie and Pete are stressed, and in dire need of bit of rest and relaxation.
+
|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!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408313960</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|author=Philip Caveney
 
|title=Spy Another Day
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=That Mr Lazarus is an odd man. He works at the local cinema, which is owned by Kip's dad, and unknown to anyone but Kip he's actually set up home in the projection room. He claims to be about 120 years old, and he makes money by selling film memorabilia. But he doesn't acquire his loot by hanging round movie plots, or rummaging around on stalls at car boot sales. No, he does it by persuading (well, that's a polite way of putting it: blackmail's such an ugly word) Kip and Beth to go into films and steal it. Yup. Into actual films, while they're playing. Downside? If they don't get out by the closing credits, they're stuck there. No pressure, then.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849394172</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...

Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving Full Review

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives? Full Review

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do… Full Review

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Review of

The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts by Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

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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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