Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
 
Line 1: Line 1:
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]
+
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
+
 
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Adventures of Shola
+
|author=Rob Keeley
|author=Bernardo Atxaga
+
|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
 +
 
 +
The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
 +
|isbn= 1783064617
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Max Boucherat
 +
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=You can approach Bernardo Atxaga, one of the most renowned Basque-language writers currently working, from two waysEither start at the [[The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga|literate end]], finding out if his voice is unique, his content exotic or universal enough for your tastes, and see if his Basque roots make him special in any wayOr you can just approach him as a wordsmith, and enjoy him enjoying himself, such as with these small children's stories put into this most handsome anthologyFrom the original, where the title character is spelled Xola, Atxaga has himself translated them into Spanish even if the fourth is yet to appear there – and this is a fine English language version of all four tales.
+
|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldBut first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyFor 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>1782690093</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|title=How to Betray a Dragon's Hero (How To Train Your Dragon)
+
|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|author=Cressida Cowell
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third is on an impossible quest: He needs to be crowned King of the Wilderwest before the Doomsday of Yule, but has a plethora of obstacles to overcome before his mission is complete. He needs to collect together the Ten Lost Things, which have unfortunately fallen into the hands of the evil Alvin and his mother, the witch Excellinor. To do that, he will have to find out the location of their secret lair and overcome thousands of Alvinsmen guards. The Alvinsmen are not Hiccup’s only enemies, however. The dragons of the rebellion, headed by the formidable Dragon Furious are also seeking Viking blood. Hiccup’s obnoxious cousin Snotlout has also appeared on the scene, claiming to be a friend, but can he really be trusted?
+
|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>1444913980</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title=A Slightly Jones Mystery: The Case of the Hidden City
+
|title=Planet Storyland
|author=Joan Lennon
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Miss Slightly Jones is a thoroughly likeable young person. She is courageous and determined (although her Granny Tonic, who adopted her when her parents died, might use other, less charitable words like foolhardy, impulsive and stubborn) and her quick wit enables her to get out of many a difficult situation. Her hero, needless to say, is the celebrated Sherlock Holmes, and she often seeks inspiration from his cases when she is unable to decide what to do next.
+
|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>1846471702</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=100 People
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Masayuki Sebe
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If I told you this was a book in which every double page spread features exactly 100 people, and there’s no real story to go with it, you might be underwhelmed. You might wonder what the point would be. But I can tell you in one word: fun.
+
|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>1877579866</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1805141872
 +
|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
 +
|author=Rob Keeley
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
  
{{newreview
+
Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
|title=The Lost Journals of Benjamin Tooth
+
}}
|author=Mackenzie Crook
+
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Christopher Edge
 +
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's the 1760s, and young Benjamin is starting his diaries to record his path from a smart eleven year old to a noted scientistIt would, he thinks, be a very relevant document. And so it proves, in the light of what it eventually yields us.  But before then there is his domestic matters to get over – the great-granddad who seems to have run out of words to say in this life, and his horrid mother and her frequently odd menus, and frequent, odder diseasesAnd the small matter of a harassing old/young man, Farley Cupstart, and his desperate search for something within Benjamin's household – something that looks a bit like a dragonfly, but just a bit more human…
+
|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>0571295584</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942738
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Adam Stower
 +
|title=Murray and Bun
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the twoBut he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs.  This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
 +
|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|title=Stick Dog Wants a Hot Dog
+
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|author=Tom Watson
+
|rating=4
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Time'' magazine were very perceptive when they put [[:Category:Jeff Kinney|Jeff Kinney]] on their most influential people listsMany have been the people to take his snappy, over-illustrated young readers format and sense of humour to produce a franchise of witty, short novels about endearingly self-dismissive Average JoesBut with the signs that the whole thing has branched away from endearing Joes to hopefully endearing dogs, the message is getting clearer and clearer just too many mimics are now on the shelf.
+
|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 runsEli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family.  A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beastThis has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007511493</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Helen Cooper
|title=Penguin Pandemonium - Christmas Crackers (Awesome Animals)
+
|title=The Taming of the Cat
|author=Jeanne Willis
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Penguins do not celebrate Christmas'' we learn from this book, so when Santa's Grotto turns up next door to the Zoo's penguin enclosure one particularly snowy Christmas, all that can occur is jealousy.  Some of the many penguins are just too determined to enter into the spirit of, er, receiving things.  And you can guess just how well that will go down in the moral universe of a primary school book…
+
|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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007521944</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Lauren St John
|title=Where's The Penguin?
+
|title=Finding Wonder
|author=Sophie Schrey
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Where’s The Penguin?'' is a find-the-character book with a difference. The penguin family are fed up with living in the zoo so have plotted their escape and are now en route back to Antarctica. There are ten members of the gang, but they’re not entirely identical. Muffy has a wool hat, Brian has specs, Snowflake has a bow that wouldn’t be out of place on a Cheer floor, and Amelia is channeling her namesake, the Earhart, and has on flight goggles. It’s a good thing they have their own style, because in this book you’re not searching for one person, you’re searching for 10 across each double page spread.
+
|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>1780551223</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Michael Roll
+
|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Granddad Bracey and the Flight to Seven Seas
 
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sally and her brother Peter are staying at their grandfather's house because their father has died in a car accident. Granddad Bracey (named after the accessories for trousers) is the perfect person for the grieving children at such an awful time. He's kindly and loving but also funny and entertaining - as a retired merchant navy captain, he has plenty of stories to tell. But then a second catastrophe occurs: their mother, Mary, decides to remarry. Sally distrusts her new stepfather, Ned, and his daughter, Mona, immediately. But even Sally doesn't realise the extent of their villainous intentions. Until, that is, Mary is rushed into hospital with a mysterious illness.  
+
|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school.  But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month.  And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem.  And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on.  OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1300791624</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008596751
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Judith Eagle
 +
|title=The Stolen Songbird
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro?  Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried.  All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people.  Is the painting somehow linked to the gang?  And what has happened to Caro's mother?  Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?
 +
|isbn=0571363148
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Tania Unsworth
 +
|title=Nowhere Island
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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…
 +
|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Helen Peters
|author=Michael Roll
+
|title=Friends and Traitors
|title=Happenings at Hookwood
 
 
|rating=3
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It all begins when a pair of newlyweds move into their first home, observed by the local wildlife with varying grades of alarm. But Startup the rabbit isn't alarmed. While his mother scarpers at her first glance of the ginger cat the couple have brought along and his father watches worriedly from deep cover, Startup finds it all very interesting and exciting. Startup has a lot to learn...  
+
|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>1291425411</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jamie Littler
|title=The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns
+
|title=Arkspire
|author=Chris Colfer
+
|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This sequel to [[The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer|The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell]] sees twins Alex and Conner Bailey once again magically transported to the fairy-tale realm, this time with the hope of rescuing their mother. She has been kidnapped by the evil Enchantress, the powerful and wicked entity who cursed Sleeping Beauty. The Enchantress is spreading a dark curse over all of the kingdoms and the fairies seem powerless to stop it. Will Alex and Conner find a way to stop her and save their mother before time runs out?
+
|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>1907411771</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=024162343X
|title=Ninja: First Mission (Ninja Trilogy)
+
|title=Stolen History
|author=Chris Bradford and Sonia Leong
+
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=If you are looking for adventure, '' Ninja First Mission'' will certain come up trumps. This book never has a slow moment. But even as the story races along at breakneck speed, there is plenty to think about as well. This book has as much to offer the deep thinker as the adrenaline junky. Tata, a young Ninja in training, is desperate to prove himself. He has failed the test for his black belt three times, but this was just a simple test. The sacred scrolls of his clan have been stolen, and all of the fully fledged Ninja but one are away on another mission. Tata faces another test, but this time the stakes are life and death, not only for himself, but for his clan. In order to succeed Tata must learn to find victory in failure. Most of all he must learn to believe in himself.
+
|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>1842999397</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Football Crazy
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|author=Tony Bradman and Michael Broad
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|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.
|summary=''Football Crazy'' is about a group of friends who play on the worst team in the league. It can be difficult when your team loses every time you go on the pitch, but Danny, Jamil and Lewis love the sport and they stick with it - win or lose. They keep hoping the next game will be the game in which they finally win, or at least get on the scoreboard, but it never happens - not as long as Mr Perkins is coaching. When the coach finally packs it in - it looks like curtains for Rovers FC. But, luck seems to be on the children's side when a new coach, Jock Ramsay, with some history in the pro leagues is found. The new coach is tough, but he quickly gets the team into shape and the Rovers start climbing the league tables. Parents are delighted, the stands are full, but the children find they no longer love the sport. Everything is about winning. Things come to crisis point when Coach Ramsay orders Danny to take a dive.
+
|isbn=178845295X
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781122121</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=Secret FC
+
|title=Finding Bear
|author=Tom Palmer
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|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.
|summary=Unlike many children, Lily, Zack and Khan can't wait for the school year to begin. They live in an overcrowded part of London with no room for outdoor sports and the school ground is the only place they can enjoy a friendly game of football. But their hopes for the new term are dashed when a new Head Teacher decides ball sports are too dangerous for children. Surprisingly, with an overly safety-conscious Head, while football is prohibited there is a wooded waste ground inside the school grounds - which just happens to be the perfect spot for the children to clear and create their own football pitch. But will they be able to keep the secret? Or will Mr Edwards blow the final whistle on all of their sports?
+
|isbn=0008582017
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781122415</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|title=Diary Of Dorkius Maximus In Egypt
+
|title=Deadlock
|author=Tim Collins
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Having enjoyed the [[Diary Of Dorkius Maximus by Tim Collins|first book in this series]] we were quite keen to try the sequel. Although this is part of what I hope will be a very long series, it is not necessary to have read the first book to enjoy this one. This book sees Dorkius Maximus rewarded for his activities by being asked to accompany Caesar on an important visit to Egypt. Ceasar hopes young Dorkius may be able to help negotiate a deal with the odious King Ptolemy, who happens to be about the same age as our hero.
+
|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>1780550286</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|title=Looking for Bear
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|author=Holly Webb
+
|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young siblings Ben and Cassie have just moved into a new house with their dad. Their new world is exciting to explore, but they wish that dad wasn’t so busy all of the time. They have lots of things that they want to tell him, like how Ben is being excluded by his friends at school, how they discovered that the new builders are actually pirates, how Ben designed his own football comic strip and best of all, how they both discovered a bear living at the bottom of the garden...
+
|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>1407131788</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|title=Goth Girl: and the Ghost of a Mouse
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|author=Chris Riddell
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It all starts with 'sigh, soft and sad and ending in a little squeak'.  But while some mice can end up roaring, so this book soon escalates from just meeting the ghost of a dead mouse to something much bigger.  Through exploring the country pile Goth Girl Ada lives in with her father, alongside the ghost mouse, she finds an albatross, a Polar Explorer who might be a monster, and then a compact club of young people her age she had no idea existed.  There's even more to be found after that, as Ada discovers how malevolent the party season's plans are going to get, with a nasty indoor hunt having some remarkable prey…
+
|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>0230759807</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|title=The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|author=Chris Colfer
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Twins Alex and Connor Bailey have had it tough recently. Their father was killed in a tragic accident and their mother has to work all hours to make ends meet. They even lost their house, as the family could not afford to live there anymore. Things are not completely hopeless though. They have a wonderful grandmother who always seems to be there when they need her most and a special birthday gift from her is about to send them on an adventure that they will never forget: a trip to the enchanting Land of Stories.
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon.  But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world.  During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute.  But why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907411755</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|title=Oliver and the Seawigs
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|author=Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Children the age of Oliver are supposed to be adventurous, but he just wants to stay at homeHe's been dragged across the globe by his explorer parents, but he only wants to settleMoving into a new home at last, when they retire, he soon finds them vanished, along with lots of small islands that had peppered the bay their house overlookedOliver, then, has to turn pioneer, and try and find out what has happened to the rest of his family.
+
|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside townElsbeth knows this because she has stolen itShe also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunderWith eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop?  Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192734555</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title=The Lost Gods
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|author=Francesca Simon
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Imagine that Christianity didn't end up a world religion. In its stead you have the Norse gods, a bunch of war-mongering, bling-loving, mead-slurping divinities with the appetite and impatience of a toddler in a sweet shop. Mad berserks battle to the death every day in their halls — for fun, that is — and their idea of meaningful communication is a thunderbolt. Only . . . they can't quite manage all that any more.
+
|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>1846685656</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title=Silent Mountain
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|author=Michelle Briscombe
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Silent Mountain introduces us to the world of Jack Jupiter and his adventures. An ordinary boy with an interest in wildlife, Jack is bullied in school and still grieving the death of his father when, ignoring his Grandmother’s warning, he heads to the frozen lake and gets drawn into a life changing adventure in another world.
+
|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>095715481X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|title=The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett: An Origami Yoda Book
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|author=Tom Angleberger
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What is out there that can make a wimpy kid less, er, wimpy? Why, a paper finger puppet of the ''Star Wars'' universe's Yoda character, that's whatOne kid in school has taken the Origami Yoda persona on through several other books and adventures, and he's going to be useful here, as he, our chief narrator Tommy and all their friends despair at changes in the schoolIn a rash move, the principal has banned all the semi-educational but fun classes, like music, drama and, er, Lego Robot Club, and replaced them with horrendously boring and patronising, shrill TV programmes and rote filling-in of worksheets, just so collectively the school's exam marks bounce back from a one-year dipBut how can one little paper Yoda inspire such a large scale retraction, and get the changes reversed?
+
|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 mindIt 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>1419710451</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the timeAnd 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 timesThere 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
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|title=Star Wars Jedi Academy
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|author=Jeffrey Brown
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricks.  His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be.  And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|summary=Roan has dreamed of going to pilot school his whole life, so it comes as a bit of a shock when he doesn’t quite make the grade. The next best alternative, unfortunately, is Tatooine Agriculture Academy, and a life as a farmer on his dusty, desert homeworld. Luckily, fate steps in and Roan receives a letter from Master Yoda, inviting him to train at the Jedi Academy on Coruscant. It may not be pilot school, but Roan realises that it may be his ticket to a better life. He just needs to get to grips with the Force, lightsabers and of course...girls...
+
|isbn=1444960261
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407138707</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|title=The Ghost Prison
 
|author=Joseph Delaney
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Meet Billy Calder.  The young orphan has got a job, which is lucky as he's nearly too old for the Home for Unfortunate Boys.  Unluckily it's a job at the local spooky castle, which is the town prison.  It's sat looming above everyone and has generated a whole host of legends and ghost stories among the people below.  More unluckily, the truth behind those ghost stories is even worse than the public imagination.  Even more unluckily, Billy has been singled out for the night shift.  And we find out just how Billy's luck runs out completely when we learn who requested him to work nights…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849397775</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


1783064617.jpg

Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839945184.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1736128426.jpg

Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1805141872.jpg

Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

1839942738.jpg

Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008561249.jpg

Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571382231.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571376010.jpg

Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571376169.jpg

Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008596751.jpg

Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571363148.jpg

Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1804540080.jpg

Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1788004647.jpg

Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0241586143.jpg

Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

024162343X.jpg

Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

178845295X.jpg

Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008582017.jpg

Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839944420.jpg

Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839942835.jpg

Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

B0BVW69N1G.jpg

Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008579059.jpg

Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839943769.jpg

Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571348785.jpg

Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0241573483.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

B09XWSXSKY.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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

1444960261.jpg

Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

4.5star.jpg Emerging Readers

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

Move on to Newest Cookery Reviews