Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]
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{{newreview
 
|title=Triassic Terrors
 
|author=Isaac Lenkiewicz and Nick Crumpton
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=With a  son who has insisted he will become a palaeontologist since the age of three, we have collected a vast assortment of books on dinosaurs and prehistoric animals. I have never found one yet which so clearly explains exactly what is and is not a dinosaur. The majority of the reptiles in this book are not dinosaurs. The Triassic saw the very first of the dinosaurs to walk the earth, and these were much smaller than their Jurassic and Cretaceous counterparts. There is no shortage of fascinating creatures here though. This book has a wide variety of reptilian life, made all the more fascinating by the fact that these are creatures we see very little of in other books. The text in this book is limited, as this is primarily an activity book, but what is there is surprisingly informative. Books focussing on the Triassic period for children are few and far between. This is a rare treasure for any child with more than a passing interest in dinosaurs, and an absolute must have for budding palaeontologists.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909263052</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=I Am So Over Being a Loser
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|author=Rob Keeley
|author=Jim Smith
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=3
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|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=There's not a lot in Barry Loser's life right now to recommend it.  Leaving aside his awkward surname, there's the fact that not many people like him at school, he can't remember show-and-tell, he can't think of a decent thing to start collecting when the whole class decides the geeky girl with the large stamp album is on to a winner, and most importantly his mother's now the star of a whole series of embarrassing adverts for the local supermarket.  But hey, at least he's not too put off by the haunted house down the street, he could always find an unlikely best friend, or pet, and he's going skiing with everyone else soon.  Or is he?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405260335</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
 
|title=Arthur Quinn and Hell's Keeper (The Father of Lies Chronicles)
 
|author=Alan Early
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It’s only been a week since Arthur Quinn returned to his home in Kerry. After defeating the World Serpent, after battling the Fenris Wolf and losing an eye in his efforts, you’d think he’d be glad of the peace, quiet and normality of his old home. But within the week that unsettled feeling is back. The pendant that protects Arthur from the Father of Lies is glowing bright green and the war hammer he found under the streets of Dublin is radiating an insistent warmth as if preparing, once again, for battle. The dreams have returned; dreams of an ancient past in Asgard, dreams warning of terrible events to come. And now, it’s not just Arthur having those dreams. It seems the entire world is seeing the same thing. Loki is on the move.
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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>1781171580</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
|title=The Dead Men Stood Together
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|isbn= 1783064617
|author=Chris Priestley
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=A young boy lives in a harbour town with his mother. It's a happy life, but the boy misses his father, a sailor who left for the sea a year ago and died far from home. He also dreams of the sea and of adventure. So when his uncle comes to visit, full of stories of faraway lands and treasure, he is entranced. He ignores the warning from the pilot's son. How could his uncle be the devil? And, despite his mother's tears, he follows his uncle to sea.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408841738</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title=The Warrior Sheep Go Jurassic
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=Christopher Russell and Christine Russell
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It all started so simply…  Tod and his nan, Ida, were only hopping across to the Isle of Wight to lead some people in creating the world's best carnival float, but they had to demand their five rare sheep went with them.  Crossing to the Isle, the motherly one, Sal, saw an advert for the Dinosaur Museum, and remembered a rare piece of sheep mythology, stating how the world needed saving from the hatching of the last dragon's eggStill, there wouldn't be any trouble for these experienced Warrior Sheep to track it down, would there?  Oh yes, what with not one but two groups of humans trying to get their hands on it at the same time…
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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 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>1405267186</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|title=Shine
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|author=Candy Gourlay
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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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?
|summary=''This is not a ghost story even though there are plenty of ghosts in it. And it's not a horror story though some people might be horrified. It's not a monster story either, even though there is a monster in it and that monster happens to be me.''
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|isbn=1839945184
 
 
Thirteen-year-old Rosa doesn't get out much. She lives with her father, a doctor, and their housekeeper-come-governess in the remote island community of Mirasol. It's always raining on Mirasol. And it's a superstitious place. People believe that if the rain stops, evil will come. And they also believe that monsters can stop the rain. Monsters like Rosa.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385619200</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title=Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door
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|title=Planet Storyland
|author=Ross Montgomery
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If there's a young reader in your life who loves mystery and adventure stories with a large dollop of the eccentric stirred into the mix, then you could do worse than point them in the direction of this silly (in a good way!) book. What happened to Alex's dad that makes him constantly run away, even when he's promised not to? Why does he think he's not human any more? Why does he keep shouting ''squiggles''? And what really lies at the centre of the mysterious forest on the edge of town?
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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>0571294618</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=Pea's Book Of Birthdays
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Susie Day
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It’s a busy month for Pea and her family, with four birthdays! Clover has an Alice in Wonderland-themed party to celebrate her upcoming starring role in a play, Tinkerbell has a magician booked for hers, but what kind of party could Pea have? What she wants most of all is to have her long-lost father appear… could her wish possibly come true?
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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>1849415242</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
|title=Atticus Claw Lends a Paw
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|author=Jennifer Gray
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Christopher Edge
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Things are quiet in Littleton-on-Sea, now that Atticus is no longer the world's greatest cat burglar.  All he has to contend with is a mischievous bunch of kittens that might cause trouble for the male in the human family he lives with, him being a policeman and all. But nothing breaks the quiet like an old noise, and when people learn that the previous owner of the local mansion discovered the remains of the ancient city of the Cat Pharaoh and left his secrets locally, many ears are pricked, both for good and bad.  But what does buried treasure protected by curses have to do with a spate of guerrilla knitting?
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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>0571284477</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|title=The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls
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|title=Murray and Bun
|author=F E Higgins
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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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…
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|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Once again, I’ve jumped right in here – going straight to the second book in a series. As it happens, A Game of Ghouls is not a bad one to do that with. You’re never left confused because you haven’t read the first one (A Tangle of Traitors) because they keep you up to date enough for it to be a fairly good stand alone. You want to find the first one though, because if it’s going to be anywhere near as good as this one it’s a book you want to read.
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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>0330507567</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|title=Scrum
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|author=Tom Palmer and Dylan Gibson
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|rating=3.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
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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?
|summary=Steven has a pretty good life. His parents are divorced, but they get on well. He sees his Dad every day and has a good relationship with his Mom and her partner, Martin. True, he would like his parents to get back together, as most kids would, but things aren't too bad as they are. He has good friends, a happy home and a real shot and breaking into the Rugby League teams. His whole world is turned upside though when Mom announces she is going to marry Martin. Soon Steven finds himself in a new home, with a new school and new friends, but he adjusts and makes the best of things. He even has a shot at playing Rugby at county level, but there is one problem and it is major one. The new town is in a Rugby Union area. Steven has always played Rugby League and to his father, switching sides will be a betrayal.
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|isbn=0571376010
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842999443</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|title=Fox Friend
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|title=Finding Wonder
|author=Michael Morpurgo and Joanna Carey
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|rating=4
|rating=3
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
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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 ofBut she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable auntThings 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!
|summary=Clare loves animals. Her best friend is her horse, and she loves all the lambs born on her family farm as well. This natural affection for animals easily extended to the fox she saw strolling through the farm as well. Her father however despises foxes saying ''the only good fox is dead fox''.  Clare's Father says the foxes had already killed ten lambs that year, and it was only March with the lambing season in full swing. (I did find these figures quite high - but then again, maybe they owned a lot of sheep). When Clare finds an injured and orphaned cub after a fox hunt, it is obvious she can not turn to her parents for help. But regardless of her father's feelings, Clare is determined to save this helpless little creature.
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|isbn=0571376169
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781120862</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=Space Pirates: Stowaway
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|author=Jim Ladd
 
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's a weird place where Sam lives.  The planet P-Sezov 8 is just a nothingness in the middle of nowhere, and is home only to his scientist parents and a whole spaceport full of bickering, nasty piratesBoth groups only use the place as a departure point for more interesting things elsewhere, his exploring parents leaving Sam with his computerised tutorBut when he gets word they are stranded on a fully gold world the pirates would be interested in, Sam must muscle in with the worst of them and try and help.
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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 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>0857631543</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|title=A Crumpet Calamity (Pip Street)
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|author=Jo Simmons
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is not Dip Street, nor Chip Street, this is Pip Street, and it's where Bobby and his best friend Imelda live – but how long Bobby stays depends on his father getting more income at his crumpet factory so they can afford living thereBobby's idea is to have an open improve-the-crumpet competition, which is immediately popular around townAlso immediately popular, especially with Imelda, is the new boy on Pip Street, who claims to have no interest in cooking crumpets.  But is he as perfect as he seems…?
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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 worriedAll 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 tooBut 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>1407132822</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|author=Chris Higgins
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|title=Nowhere Island
|title=My Funny Family Gets Bigger
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We've met Mattie Butterfield before in [[My Funny Family by Chris Higgins and Lee Wildish|My Funny Family]] and [[My Funny Family on Holiday by Chris Higgins and Lee Wildish|My Funny Family on Holiday]]Mattie is the worrier of the family although she is doing her best to get out of the habit and only makes her worry lists when she feels under pressureMattie worries ''about'' people - not because there's anything bad going on.  You see the Butterfield are a lovely family: they don't have a lot of money but they do their best to be happy and to look after their extended familyThey don't have a lot of expensive toys or go on foreign holidays - but they're the sort of people you'd like to live next door to - only you can't, because that's where Uncle Vesuvius lives.  He was Mum's foster dad when she was young.
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|summary=Meet GilJust twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself.  He 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 successfullyOver a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989866</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|title=The Wickedest Witch in the World
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|author=Kaye Umansky and Gerald Kelley
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|rating=3
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
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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?
|summary=Everyone knows the story of Hansel and Gretel. At least we thought we knew. But as the saying goes there are always two sides to every story and this one is told from the perspective of Old Maggit, The Wickedest Witch in the World. You see Maggit really wasn't so wicked after all. It was the children who were wicked. Well, maybe they were not exactly ''wicked'', but they were most certainly obnoxious, and old Maggit's no nonsense manner and just a bit of attention may be exactly what these children need to turn them aroundMaggit really has built a house of gingerbread to lure children into as a means of finally winning the Wickedest Witch in the World title. But once she has the children - she has no idea what to do them and ends up teaching them manners. As to the whole cannibalism story - that was all made up of course. The children decide the only way for Maggit to win is to lie - and they come up with a whopper. It was so good people have been repeating it for centuries with the original tale thought to have originated in the 14th century.
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|isbn=1788004647
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781122016</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|title=The Boy on the Wooden Box
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|title=Arkspire
|author=Leon Leyson
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|rating=4
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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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…
|summary=This is the memoir of one of the youngest people on Oskar Schindler's famous list of Jews saved from the Nazis during World War II. It opens between the wars, with Leon's family living in the small Polish town of Narewka. There wasn't much money but everyone was happy. Leon's father moved to Krakow in the hopes of making a better life and when Leon and his siblings eventually join him, you can feel the wonder of a little boy new to the big city.  
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|isbn=0241586143
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CWEHR2G</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|title=The Burning Shadow (Gods and Warriors Book 2)
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|title=Stolen History
|author=Michelle Paver
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=A year after the [[Gods and Warriors (1) by Michelle Paver|first book]] in this series finished, we rejoin Hylas who has been captured, enslaved, and forced to work in the copper mines on Thalakrea, a volcanic island. The Crows still have the dagger of prophecy, so this evil clan is still in control. Hylas is determined to escape and find his missing sister, but the mines are dangerous and run by ruthless slavers.  
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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''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141339284</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Gregor the Overlander
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|author=Suzanne Collins
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gregor is in the laundrette, daydreaming about his problems since his father vanished a couple of years ago, and not being too mindful of where his youngest sister is playingThe next thing he knows is that she has found the portal to an incredible underground world, and they are both entering itThe Underland is a home to gigantic, talking animals, and a parlous state of play between them and the human inhabitants who have a very important prophecy about a certain boy entering their domain and becoming an instant warriorIs Gregor up to it, so far down as he is?
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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 nuisanceBut just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changesSuddenly, 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 usAnd 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>1407137034</amazonuk>
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|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=The Curse of the Chocolate Phoenix
+
|title=Finding Bear
|author=Kate Saunders
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=So I’ve jumped right into the world of Skittle Lane, going straight to the sequel, The Curse of the Chocolate Phoenix. One of the great things about this book is that while going straight to number two makes you want to find and read the first one because you know it’ll be a good book, you’re not lost. It stands easily by itself as a fairly awesome magical 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>1407129872</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|title=Phoenix
+
|title=Deadlock
|author=SF Said
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lucky thinks he is a normal Human boy. But one night, he dreams that the stars are singing to him and he can feel a mysterious power rising within him. When he wakes, his bedclothes are scorched. And when his mother finds out, Lucky's world is turned upside down and he finds himself on an alien spaceship, on the run, and in the middle of a warzone. Everything Lucky has been brought up to believe is being tested. The war between Human and Axxa is raging, so why does Lucky's mother trust alien renegades more than she does humans? Where is his father? What are the secrets his mother has kept from him all his life?
+
|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>038561814X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Cath Howe
|title=Sweetness and Lies
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|author=Karen McCombie and Jessica Secheret
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Starting a new school is always tough, and when Tilly is the only girl from her primary to win a place at the more exclusive Beech Cliff School, her old friends abandon her as being too posh. She quickly makes friends with Mia, but when a new girl Amber Sweet tries to join the group Mia definitely feels that two is company and three is a crowd. Amber is torn between loyalty to Mia and her own conscience as Tia is openly cruel to Amber. Tilly soon begins to question Mia's jokes and put downs. There doesn't seem to be any way Tilly can be friends with both girls, Mia won't allow it. Can she find the courage to stand up to Mia and risk having no friends? And would Amber even want to be her friend any more if she did?
+
|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>1781121990</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Rob Keeley
|title=The Black Dragon (Mysterium)
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|author=Julian Sedgwick
+
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Laura Noakes
 +
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Danny is a fish out of water at his public schoolHalf Chinese, he's still a newcomer after over a year, having grown up in a circus called The MysteriumThose days behind him, he delights at the chance to go to Hong Kong with his guardian aunt Laura, even while she's there working as an undercover journalist, investigating nightmarish Triad gangsOnce in that exotic world it's a quandary to know just what side who is on, what with corrupt crops, people who are not as they appear and more but what on earth is the connection between all this and the dark, disastrous ending the circus suffered?
+
|summary=Meet Number OneOr rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friendsThe practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon.  But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside worldDuring a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute.  But why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444913700</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|title=Ways To See a Ghost
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|author=Emily Diamand
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Isis has spent half her life effectively being the adult in the family. After a dreadful car accident which killed her little sister Angel five years previously, her mother Cally falls apart, and her father walks out on them. Isis is left to cope as best she can, though the early days are hard: there's often no food in the house, her uniform is grubby and too small, and she has to take responsibility for getting herself to and from school.
+
|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>1848775547</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title=My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish 2: The Sea-quel
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|author=Mo O'Hara and Marek Jagucki
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mo O'Hara's [[ My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish by Mo O'Hara|first book]] made quite a splash in our house, with both of my sons declaring it  ''the best book ever''. Considering the number of books in our house, that is really saying something. [[My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish by Mo O'Hara|My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish]] had everything a boy could want - a mad scientist - a computer hacker and a zombie ( or more accurately a zombie goldfish) along with action, adventure and a huge helping of humour. My sons have been counting the days until the release of the sequel (or should we say Sea-quel?)My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish  was always going to be a difficult act to follow. When your first book is absolutely perfect, children do expect you to carry on the same vein. Thankfully, Mo has pulled it off again with a sequel just as good as the original.
+
|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their livesThey are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the placeBut now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to 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>1447228197</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title=The Mysterious Misadventures of Clemency Wrigglesworth
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|author=Julia Lee
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Clemency Wrigglesworth is orphaned and penniless when she starts her long journey back to England from India. On board ship she is put in the care of a charming and kindly nanny, Mrs Potchard, who resolves to trace Clemency’s long lost relations on their arrival at Southampton. Whilst Mrs Potchard’s investigations continue Clemency is taken in by the Marvel family, an unusual and entertaining bunch, but very different from what Clemency has been used to. However, they are kind and Clemency gradually relaxes despite the worry that someone is following her. But then the sinister Miss Clawe arrives at the Marvels’ home and Clemency is taken away with only the clothes she is wearing leaving all her belongings behind. Concerned about their young charge Gully Potchard and Whitby Marvel set out to find and help her and with the help of a travelling theatre group of knife throwing Red Indians they set off. However, Clemency's problems are worse than they realise; can they find her in time?
+
|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>0192733672</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
 +
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
 +
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep.  A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind.  It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather.  He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
 +
 +
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time.  And time isn't good for anything...''
  
{{newreview
+
And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed.  It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times.  There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he?  And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
|title=Cherry Green Story Queen
+
}}
|author=Annie Dalton and Charlie Adler
+
{{Frontpage
|rating=5
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|summary=At first glance, I expected this to be a fairly typical girl's story for tweens. I certainly was not expecting a story of such beauty or depth. This is a very enjoyable read, but is it much more than light fiction. I enjoyed it so much, I wanted to share the book with my sons, but I had to be very careful to hide the cover. Being typical boys, they are not going to want to hear a story that looks so much like a girl's story. This book has something in common with 'The Arabian Nights, Tales of 1,001 Nights'. In fact it shares a direct link with the ancient book. But this story will only give us three nights of magic. Still three nights might just be enough to change the lives of six children in foster care. This also shares the basic message of 'The Allegory of the Long Spoons' a well known parable by  the Rabbi Haim which has passed into the folk lore of many cultures. The basic message is that the difference between heaven and hell is not so much a difference in physical circumstances, but rather is the result of how we treat one another.
+
|rating=4.5
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781122008</amazonuk>
+
|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]]
|title=Knight Quest (Time Hunters, Book 2)
 
|author=Chris Blake
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The second instalment of Blake’s 'Time Hunters' series sees our heroes Tom and Isis transported to medieval times in the hope of retrieving a second lost amulet, which is hidden in a golden sword. 'Knight Quest' is an action packed story with plenty of thrills and action, but is crammed with enough historical facts to keep fussy parents happy.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000751400X</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

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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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