Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Rob Keeley
|author=Victoria Eveleigh
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|title=Joe and the Hidden Horseshoe
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Joe did not want to move.  Birmingham suited him just fine. It was where his friends were and his school - and he'd got life sorted quite nicely.  But his father had got his dream job as head of a group of village primary schools and the family - Mum, Dad, Joe and his younger sister Emily - moved to a farmhouse in Devon.  His Mum was determined that she and Emily would have ponies to ride and not being prone to thinking things through before acting it wasn't long before Lady and Lightning arrived in a horsebox.  Mum should have made checks on the ponies before deciding to buy them and she should have been even more wary when the ponies were delivered with little ceremony.  But she wasn't.
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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>144400591X</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
|author=Jeremy Strong and Scoular Anderson
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|isbn= 1783064617
|title=Chuckle Bob's Great Escape
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Chuckle Bob looks positively wicked in the first illustration of this book, but then who can blame him for feeling a bit cranky? He wants to swing in the trees and run in the grass, not sit in a cage all day. When he sees a chance to escape, he takes it, causing all sorts of mayhem in the process. Once out of his cage he turns the entire pet shop into a disaster zone. He lets the parrot loose, but it falls into the fish tank. Fish get knocked everywhere, including down the pet store assistant's top, and then he lets out the gerbils and rabbits as well. While Mr Rush, the pet store owner and his assistant Maya try to deal with all the mischief he has caused, an unsuspecting customer enters the door, and Chuckle Bob makes his escape, with just a bit more mayhem of course.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781122156</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|title=Horrid Henry's Nightmare
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Horrid Henry was the first chapter book my son ever read alone. It was quickly followed by a succession of books in the series and my son's confidence in reading grew by leaps and bounds with this engaging series that gets young children reading and keeps them reading. The simple fact is, with such a large number of books in the series, any child who reads through the whole lot will improve their reading skills. As he has grown older, his tastes in books have changed, but as I sat down to read 'Horrid Henry's Nightmare' to my four year old he was happy to listen in as well and we all enjoyed sharing this book as a family.
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome.  What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world.  But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444000160</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Darren Shan
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|title=Hagurosan
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The story begins with a young child, living in a small village at the foot of a holy mountain. When he is told to take a small cake as an offering to the spirits of the shrine, he is disappointed as he would rather play with his friends, but he does as he is told. It is a long walk though and he soon grows hungry. Surely the gods will not mind if he has just a tiny nibble at the cake? But one nibble leads to another and by the time Hagurosan arrives at the shrine, he has eaten the whole cake. All children make mistakes, but what Hagurosan has done is a terrible offense in the culture he lives in.
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|summary=Meet Kit.  Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way.  Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781122067</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|author=Soman Chainani
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|title=Planet Storyland
|title=The School for Good and Evil
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sophie has waited her whole life for this night - the night that two children will be taken from her village of Gavaldon to the School for Good and Evil. Sophie has been doing Good Deeds and practising her beauty regime especially. Unlike the other children in the village - who cut their hair and try to be rude if they're good, or hastily says some prayers and do kind things if they're bad in an effort to avoid being chosen - Sophie just knows she's going to be taken for Good, and she can't wait.
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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>0007492936</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|author=Sage Blackwood
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|title=Jinx, the Wizard's Apprentice
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Everybody knows you don't stray off the path when you're deep in the woods. And everybody knows, too, that stepparents usually want you out of the way — permanently. So poor Jinx has no difficulty in understanding, even at the tender age of six, that things are not going well for him. Rescued by a wizard, he spends much of the next few years quietly helping out round the house. It's not a bad life: Simon Magus is gruff to the point of rudeness, but the house is warm and the food is tasty and plentiful.
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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>178087247X</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=Anne Fine and Vicki Gausden
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|title=How Brave Is That?
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{{Frontpage
|rating=5
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|author=Christopher Edge
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=All Tom has ever wanted to do is join the army, but the odds seem stacked against him. Schoolwork doesn't come easily for Tom, and without a lot of work, he'll never pass his exams. Tom is determined and with enough determination we can overcome huge obstacles. It's a good thing too - because Tom is going to have major obstacles thrown in his path. Any child with younger siblings will be able to laugh at the disasters that befall Tom as he tries to prepare for the most important day of his life - the exam that will determine his future. If he passes he can join the army. If not - his dreams are over.
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|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'.  All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks!  However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on?  Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781122431</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|author=Susan Cooper
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|title=Murray and Bun
|title=The Dark is Rising Sequence
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Fantasy
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|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
|summary=As a child, I read The Grey King, book 4 in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I loved the book so much it topped my Christmas list for years, but sadly Santa never delivered. As an adult I finally bought the entire sequence for myself. This book is intended as a child's book, and it is brilliant as book for children, but it is also well loved by many adults, whether as a cherished memory of their own childhood or as a book discovered as an adult. I'll admit that as child, this can book can completely draw into other worlds in a manner not possible for an adult, but this is still an excellent read, whatever age you may be.
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|isbn=0008561249
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0140316884</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|author=Rachel Campbell-Johnston
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|title=The Child's Elephant
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Bat, a young herdsman living on the African savannah, witnesses the killing of an elephant by poachers and then takes her orphaned baby back to his village and cares for her. Gradually the two become inseparable and Meja, the baby elephant, becomes part of village life, loved by all the villagers but especially by Bat and his best friend, Mukah. As time passes Bat’s grandmother warns the two children that the elephant will have to return to the wild and the herd to which she belongs. Reluctantly the two friends learn to accept this truth but they have no idea that their bond with this animal will be strong enough to survive both distance and terrifying events.
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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>085756076X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Kimblerly Newton Fusco
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
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|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat.  In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with.  They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out.  It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted.  But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
This is the story of Beatrice (Bee) Hockenberry, the girl with a diamond on her cheek. Orphaned at a young age, Bee lives in the hauling truck of a travelling fair with Pauline who runs the hotdog stand. Daily, she suffers staring, ridicule and worse torments because of the prominent birthmark on her cheek. The story really starts when first Pauline and then Bobby the pig-man, the only people who have ever been kind to her, leave the fair. With no one left to protect her from the show owner who wants to put her in the freakshow booth, she takes her dog Peabody (as much of a stray as she) and Cordelia, the runt from the piglet race and runs away. Taken in by two mysterious old ladies, Bee starts school and embarks on a whole new life which has troubles of its own.
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|isbn=0571376010
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571297706</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Mark Goldblatt
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Twerp
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Julian Twerski did something bad. So bad, that it got him suspended from school. When he returns, his English teacher asks him to write a journal about it, in exchange for getting out of doing a report on Shakespeare. Julian reluctantly accepts - but would rather be writing about sending love letters for a friend, blowing up fireworks, or pretty much anything else except telling Mr Selkirk about what he wants to hear.
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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>0375971424</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Jean Ure
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Just Peachy
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's always been said that it's difficult being the middle child in a family and Peaches McBride regularly feels as though she doesn't belong.  Her elder brother, Coop and sister, Charlie are clever and outgoing - and after Peachy came the twins, Flora and Fergus who are full of each other and full of just being ''them''.  Add to this the fact that her father is a radio presenter, renowned for his abrasive personality and you might come to the conclusion that the best description of the McBride family is '''LOUD''' - well, except for PeachyShe's quiet, unassuming - and not entirely certain about who she is or what she wantsShe does make a stand though - she really doesn't want to go to Summerfield - the school her father went to and where Coop and Charlie are in the limelightShe wants to go to a school where no one knows who she is.
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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 daysBut there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other monthAnd it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problemAnd it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007515685</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Davide Cali and Gabrriella Giandelli
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|title=Monsters and Legends
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=My sons love stories of unsolved mysteries, monsters and mythical creaturesLike many boys, my oldest has a very strong leaning towards the non-fiction side of things. This book is for children who want to know how the legends were born, if any of the creatures could be real, and what the science behind the story is. I do feel this book is better suited to older children seeking a more rational explanation to the old stories, but my youngest did enjoy it as well. It might be useful for a child with a slight fear of monsters to get a more realistic view of them, but I would use caution with a child who is truly terrified of monsters as it might just give them more things to be afraid of.
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|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingHer other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro?  Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and 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>1909263036</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Sam Hepburn
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=Chasing the Dark
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sam Hepburn's book begins, intriguingly, by echoing several well-known tales. There is the orphan foisted on an unwilling aunt and uncle, for example, and then the boy who is forced by a frightening, filthy old convict into bringing him food — not to mention a whole slew of stories about young people who find themselves in dangerous situations because they trespass in private property while attempting to retrieve their less-than-obedient pets. But the plot soon gathers a momentum all its own and all the themes hinted at in the opening pages suddenly merge into a new story which is both exciting and scary.
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|summary=Meet Gil.  Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself.  He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future.  That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully.  Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908435682</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|author=Jon Mayhew
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=Monster Odyssey: The Eye Of Neptune
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Dakkar, son of an Indian rajah, is sent to study with Count Oginski after being expelled from several different schools. Initially unhappy, he starts to enjoy learning from the mysterious count, and when Oginski is kindnapped by masked men, he sets out tor rescue his mentor. Can he take on the kidnappers, giant sea monsters, and an evil maniac to save the day?
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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>1408826305</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|author=Pippa Goodhart
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|title=Arkspire
|title=Finding Fortune
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|rating=4
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After Ida's mother's death, Grandmama makes plans to separate her from her father and send her to boarding school. When Fa decides to travel to the Klondike to seek gold, though, Ida can't bear to be away from him and steals away to join him. How will the pair survive, and can they find their fortune together?
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|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese.  Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war.  Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family.  But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846471591</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|author=Lynne Thomas
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|title=Stolen History
|title=Jelly Cooper: Alien
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school.  I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'.  Where was the proof?  In history lessons, it was probably worse still.  Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place.  Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely.  I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Thiago de Moraes
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|title=Old Gods New Tricks
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jelly Cooper is just turning fourteen. But excitement about her birthday is taking second place to sheer exhaustion. For weeks, Jelly has been having recurring nightmares that leave her shaken and afraid. And it's all taking a toll on her - her friends Humphrey and Agatha are beginning to get worried. Add the night terrors to the figurative nightmare of school, a crush on a boy so cool and gorgeous that Jelly sees no world in which he'd fancy her back, and a cheerleader out to humiliate her at every turn, and you can see that Jelly's life could be better.
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|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake).  Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us.  And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00C4Y3TZS</amazonuk>
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|isbn=178845295X
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Cathy Cassidy
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|title=Finding Bear
|title=The Chocolate Box Girls: Coco Caramel
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Coco is the youngest of the Tanberry sisters but very much her own personFor her, life is about animals and she loves going to the stables for riding lessons even if she does overestimate her own abilitiesShe was hoping that she could pick up a job there a couple of evenings a week so that she could have extra lessons, but it went instead to form-mate Lawrie Marshall and they're not each other's biggest fans.  Well, they're not until the pony which Coco has set her heart on is sold to someone who doesn't seem to have the animal's best interest at the front of his mind.  Coco and Lawrie unite to save Caramel and another pony which is just about to foal - but how will they cope?
+
|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 BearBack home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onFor a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded.  Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141341572</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
 
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|author=Simon Fox
{{newreview
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|title=Deadlock
|author=Andy Mulligan
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|rating=4.5
|title=The Boy with Two Heads
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Richard is a nice kid. Dutiful, hardworking, rule-abiding, he makes both parents and teachers proud. But one day, everything changes. Richard wakes up with a painful lump on his neck. Rushed to hospital, his parents get some devastating news from the specialists. Richard is growing a second head. Yowzer. When the head - Rikki - emerges, Richard, his parents, his teachers and his friends, all do their best to cope. But Rikki isn't like Richard. He's spiteful. He's angry. He's rude. He says the most unsayable things and he causes a great deal of trouble.  
+
|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>0857560670</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Cath Howe
|author=Steve Cole
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|title=My Life on Fire
|title=Astrosaurs 22: The Castle of Frankensaur
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I bought my first Astrosaurs book as a read aloud book for my dinosaur-mad four year old. He loved it, but not quite as much as his eight year old brother and we've been collecting the books ever since. It's a large collection with a total of thirty books in print so far (including Astrosaurs Academy). Many parents have credited this series with massive improvements in their children's reading level, and I'd have to agree with this. It isn't that the book has some magical formula to develop literacy, but simply that these books are so good, the children can not get enough of them. By the time a child works their way through thirty books, their reading level is bound to improve.
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|summary=Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat.  When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things.  Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849414041</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Steve Cole
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|title=Magic Ink
+
|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Stew isn't having a good week. He has moved house, left his friends and school behind and as if things weren't bad enough, his bedroom has been invaded by a well-dressed pig. But at least he won't be bored in the new house. The house used to belong to Stew's grandfather, a famous comic-book artist. When Stew's father opens up the attic his grandfather had locked up 20 years ago, things are about to get really exciting for Stew as he finds himself drawn into a comic-book style adventure which will test his courage, his intelligence and his artistic abilities.
+
|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>0857078704</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Renee Russell
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|title=Dork Diaries: Holiday Heartbreak
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Emerging Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This being the sixth full-length novel to feature Nikki Maxwell and her crush on Brandon, there is little point in doing a summary or resume at great length.  They're still at school, and they're still finding being in any kind of friendship both socially awkward and hampered by the presence of the evil Mackenzie, Nikki's cute but catty rivalAll you really need to know is this volume covers an entire February, in order and manages to finish with the Valentine's night school danceYes, it has weird circumstances, Nikki getting embarrassed and jealous, and more. But I haven't told you about the greatest surprise yet…
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friends.  The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon.  But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside worldDuring a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his InstituteBut why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471117669</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Philip Caveney
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=Space Blasters
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's an intriguing concept: people can actually step into films as they are being shown at the local cinema. The only trouble is, while you're inside the film everything is completely real, including the danger. And if you don't get out before the final credits roll, well, too bad. You're stuck there forever, doomed to live through the same story over and over and over again. Unless you get killed, that is!
+
|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>1849395721</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Natasha Farrant
|author=Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|title=The Silver Dream
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We've had it established that there are many multiple dimensions, and it takes a particular power to move from one to the other – the power to WalkJoey Harker, who it seems could get lost between his garden gate and the front door, is one of the more powerful and talented Walkers, and has been employed by an agency that has to keep the balance in the multiverses, forever fighting between the powers of science and those of magic.  But two years on from [[Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves|the original book]] we find that the agency is still a very uneasy place to be – picking up further Walkers, but opening itself up to strange events, unusual characters and unaccountable problems.
+
|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives.  They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a family.  They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place.  But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain.  The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007523432</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|author=Holly Willoughby and Kelly Willoughby
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|title=School for Stars: First Term at L'Etoile
+
|rating=4
|rating=2.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Molly and Maria Fitzfoster are two twins who've just enrolled at L'Etoile, performing arts school for the stars of tomorrow! Their first term will see them try to achieve stardom but also make lots of new friends. Not everyone at the school, though, is as pleasant as they are - will true friendship and loyalty save the day and foil a cruel plot?  
+
|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>1444008110</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|author=Kate Pankhurst
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|title=Mariella Mystery investigates: The Ghostly Guinea Pig
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mariella Mystery has two friends, Poppy Holmes and Violet Maple. They are The Mystery Girls, a comfortably cosy detective agency dedicated to solving reassuringly homely mysteries. This time an eerily green, glowing guinea pig pops up. Poppy is preoccupied with rehearsals for the upcoming village talent show, but Mariella is not to be diverted from her investigations. Learning fast from The Young Super Sleuth’s Handbook, Mariella comes up with several logical explanations, none of which solves the mystery. Indeed, there are soon ghostly guinea pigs sightings all over the place. It takes observation and enquiring young detectives on the ground to uncover the truth.  
+
|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>1444008889</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=Paula Leyden
 
|title=The Sleeping Baobab Tree
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Sister Leonisa is always telling her students grim and gruesome stories. One day, she tells them all about Ng’ombe Ilede… the place of the sleeping cow; the place of death. As Bul-boo and Madillo arrive home filled with her horror stories, next-door neighbour Fred (himself always full of tales of woe) informs them he is to go to that very spot with his fearsome witch great-granny, Nokokulu. Also, that night they learn that patients from their mothers’ AIDS clinic are mysteriously vanishing; one of the vanished just happens to be Fred's wonderful Aunt Kiki. Is all of this a strange coincidence or fate? With Bul-boo and Madillo stowing away in the boot of the car, Nokokulu drives a doom-laden Fred out into the Zambian wilds for an encounter with mystery and magic the three will never forget. At the sleeping baobab tree, anything could happen.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140632793X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

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

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Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

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

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Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

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

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Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

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

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Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

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

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Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

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

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Review of

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

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

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Review of

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

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

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

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

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Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

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

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