Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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{{newreview
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|title=Of Lions and Unicorns: A Lifetime of Tales from the Master Storyteller
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michael Morpurgo
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|author=Rob Keeley
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Of Lions and Unicorns'' is a collection of short stories and extracts from Morpurgo’s most popular books. The book is split into five sections, which focus on recurring themes in his writing.
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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>0007395353</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{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 Children of Green Knowe and The River at Green Knowe
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|isbn= 1783064617
|author=Lucy M Boston
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=I vaguely remember the ‘''Green Knowe'' books from my childhood. They were an unusual mix of adventure and fantasy with some history thrown in, written in the middle of the last century. There are six books in the series, all based in a large house called 'Green Noah' or 'Green Knowe', based on the author’s own home.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571303471</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title=Hilda and the Bird Parade
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=Luke Pearson
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Hilda is a young girl who has just moved from the mountainous countryside to the town of Trolberg; a major upheaval in the life of a girl who likes nothing better than to go exploring the woods and mountains and discovering magical creatures. Since moving into town Hilda’s mother is not so keen to allow Hilda out exploring believing a town to be a potentially dangerous place for a child. Soon though Hilda and her new friends manage to convince her mother to allow her out and the new friends give her a guided tour of the area and all the best places in town. Hilda seems to prefer animals to other children though and early on becomes separated from her friends and instead goes exploring with an injured bird she has befriended.
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome.  What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world.  But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909263060</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=Time Trap
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|author=Richard Smith
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Who was Hector Lightfoot? And why did this 19th century soldier and engineer disappear in such mysterious circumstances? And who are the two ghosts inhabiting his house in 21st century London?
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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?
 
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|isbn=1839945184
Jamie and Todd are thrown into the mystery when they spend a weekend in London with Jamie's Uncle Simon who lives in the house that once belonged to Hector Lightfoot. Simon takes the two boys to see Hector's recently-discovered underground lab at the British Museum. When the building is struck by lightning, the two boys are sent back in time to the year 1862. They know that their only chance of returning home is to find Hector. But where is he? And can they avoid being sucked into a life of crime while they search for him?
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780353855</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
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|title=Planet Storyland
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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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.
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|isbn=1736128426
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=A Bear Called Paddington
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Michael Bond
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Being childless, I've never had reason to read books out loud to youngstersI've never faced the challenge of having to pace the story verbally, find the very easily understood stress of the sentence for the young mind, or more importantly find the voice for each and every main characterThere are a host of people who would have read this book and its sequels to their children however, and they never had to find the voice to read it out at all – for my generation, the TV version of Paddington is still firmly fixed in our minds after many a decade.  But I can also remember reading a copy of this opening collection of short stories at that age as well – and everything associated with Paddington Bear is only going to bring back the firmest of warm memories.  This lovely new volume will only create a host more too.
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of waysHe 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 directionAnd 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>0007528620</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|title=Ruby Redfort: Catch Your Death
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|author=Lauren Child
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|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's the life thousands of young girls dream of: kindly but improbably vague parents who rarely (if ever) ask what you're up to, a completely trustworthy best friend who would die rather than betray your secrets, and, of course, a place in the top-secret spy agency which just happens to be situated below your town. Oh, and a few super-cool spy devices to get you out of trouble, of course. What more could a girl ask for?
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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...''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007334109</amazonuk>
 
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{{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=Horrid Henry's Christmas Play ( Horrid Henry Early Reader)
 
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Horrid Henry is one of those characters that parents either love or hate. Some parents feel Henry sets a very bad example - and at times he does, but what child doesn't love a bad example? Other parents love Henry simply because their children love him. Horrid Henry Books not only help children learn to read, they encourage them to read for pleasure, and children who read for pleasure invariably become better readers.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444001108</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|title=The Dragonsitter's Castle
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|author=Josh Lacey and Garry Parsons
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Edward finds his Uncle Morton's dragons at the door, he is quite happy to take a shift at dragon sitting, along with his little sister Emily. His parents however are far less happy, and the fact that they are recently divorced only makes things more complicated. It seems that the dragons visit was completely unplanned, and the adults are completely unprepared for the event. The story is told in letters from Eddie to his Uncle, the former detailing the dragons' latest escapade, and the latter writing about one delay after the other. Eddie's mother is getting ready to go away on a yoga retreat and Dad's new girlfriend says absolutely no dragons. What are the children to do? Dad finally gives in, taking the dragons and children to the castle he is renovating in the hopes of striking it rich. Needless to say nothing goes to plan where dragons are involved and the grown ups are in for quite a few problems, but things work out quite well from the children's point of view.
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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>1849397694</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|title=Emil and the Detectives
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|title=Murray and Bun
|author=Erich Kastner
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=Emil Tischbein has been given a great responsibility - to deliver 140 marks to his grandmother, who he is going to stay with on holiday. Pleased at being trusted with so much money by his widowed mother, the young boy is determined to keep it safe. But when he falls asleep on the train, he wakes up to find both the money, and the only other passenger in his carriage, a man who introduced himself as Max Grundeis, gone! Unwilling to involve the police for fear of arrest himself, as he thinks that he's wanted for painting the nose of a local monument, Emil stumbles on a ragtag bunch of children who offer to help him track down Herr Grundeis and get the money back.
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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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099572842</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|title=Frost Hollow Hall
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|author=Emma Carroll
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The ten year old me would have absolutely adored this Victorian ghost mystery and I’m now considerably older than 10 and still devoured this lovely book in one sitting. Winter, 1881 and Tilly has sneaked into the grounds of Frost Hollow Hall. She is not supposed to be there. Ten years previously a young boy, Kit Barrington, drowned in the lake and as Tilly skates on the frozen surface she forgets the stories she has heard in the village and is no longer afraid. Then the ice breaks and she is underwater. Close to death, Tilly is saved by a beautiful boy. It is Kit’s ghost and he needs Tilly’s help.
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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>0571295444</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|title=The Unbelievable Top Secret Diary of Pig
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|author=Emer Stamp
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Hello.
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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 cheesesAnyway, 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 itAnd 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?
 
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|isbn=0571376010
You is looking for the funniest, most bizarre-looking but adventurous book for the under-tens, but you is also looking for a book you will have a great big beaming smile from reading as an adultYou is going to be most satisfied with this really, really fun and funny book designed as the diary of a farmyard pig, called Pig, who is best friends with a duck called Duck, but who is not friends with the Evil ChickensThe Evil Chickens are Evil and are also making a space rocket, which they prefer pigs to flyDuck is intelligent, and knows that when Farmer and Mrs Farmer are feeding Pig so many slops it is because they wants Pig for the pot – yes, Pig is expendable.  But he is a lucky Pig because he can avoid the pot by obeying the Evil Chickens and taking the space rocket to Pluto.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407136372</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|title=Richard Hammond's Great Mysteries of the World
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|title=Finding Wonder
|author=Richard Hammond
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Have you ever wondered whether or not the Loch Ness Monster actually exists? What about the Abominable Snowman? Do you think about what really goes on inside the Bermuda Triangle? Well, don't expect a definitive answer from Richard Hammond's ''Great Mysteries of the World''. You'll have to make up your own mind after being presented with the arguments. You'll need to marshal your brainpower. There are eighteen mysteries here, arranged within four topics - Weird Waters, Alien Encounters, Creepy Creatures and Ancient Treasures. All the biggies are here.
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|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult.  Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket.  When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames!  Poor Roo!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0370332377</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=Substitute Creature (Tales from Lovecraft Middle 4)
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|author=Charles Gilman
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've never been to an American middle school, so I didn't realise people held Valentine's balls at them in the middle of the morning, with classes to be had afterwards.  But Robert and Glenn didn't realise they would spend the duration of the Valentine's ball balanced on a thin ledge of stonework four floors above a concrete ground, outside their school.  They have had a head start, of course, with three books' adventures for them, as they discovered the truth of the singular world of Lovecraft Middle – and the demonic worlds it holds portals toOnce inside, however, things don't get any better a nightmarish snowstorm strands Robert at the school, along with the caretaker of dubious repute, his school nurse mother, the ghost of a girl thirty years gone – and the substitute librarian, fresh from said demonic worldsAnd all the while, the Old Ones are waiting underground for the time to be right…
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|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school.  But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days.  But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month.  And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problemAnd it's wonderful to have around the house not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so onOK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594746400</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|title=The Iron Man (Faber Classics)
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|author=Ted Hughes
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|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I'll start with a confession. I read a book recently, and got all the way through and still didn't realise I'd read the whole thing about eighteen months beforeI mention it only to say that such a thing is impossible with The Iron ManWith the opening scene, of the behemoth on top of the cliff he is about to fall over, I was thereI was immediately transported to a much younger me, sat in the primary school library or classroom, getting the willies from the vivid description of the Iron Giant's hand helping put the whole robotic monster back togetherI don't know of a better way to paraphrase the word 'classic' – but this book stayed with me for over thirty years, and it's just fine to revisit.
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|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingHer other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwellSo 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 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 peopleIs 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>0571302246</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|title=The Boy on the Porch
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|title=Nowhere Island
|author=Sharon Creech
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
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|summary=Meet Gil.  Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself. He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion.  Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully.  Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…
When Marta and John wake up one morning, there's a surprise in store. A little boy is asleep on their porch. He has an unsigned note asking the couple to care for him. And so they do. And they soon come to love him, even though he cannot talk. But they can't help but worry. Who is Jacob? Will his parents return for him? And if they do, how will Marta and John bear to give him up - this little boy who paints blue trees, rides cows and can make music from anything?
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|isbn=1804540080
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849397724</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|title=The Ransom of Dond
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|author=Siobhan Dowd
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
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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?
Siobhan Dowd wrote just four novels before she died from breast cancer in 2007. All four novels were wonderful and yet they weren't Siobhan's sole legacy to us. Patrick Ness took an idea of hers and, together with artist Jim Kay, turned it into [[A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness|A Monster Calls]], which won both the Carnegie and Greenaway prizes. And now we have ''The Ransom of Dond'', Siobhan's last story.
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|isbn=1788004647
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560905</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|title=Alan Turing (Real Lives)
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|title=Arkspire
|author=Jim Eldridge
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
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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…
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|isbn=0241586143
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=024162343X
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|title=Stolen History
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Alan Turing was one of Britain's greatest thinkers of the last century. He did pioneering work on computing and artificial intelligence. He was also a hero of World War II, working in the famous code-breaking community at Bletchley Park, cracking German naval codes used to lethal effect organising U-boat attacks. Turing was the man who beat the Enigma machine.  
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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>1472900103</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Walter Tull's Scrapbook
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|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|author=Michaela Morgan
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Walter TullThere's a picture early on in this book so you can do so – a young lad, with deeply inquisitive eyes, his father and four siblings arrayed around himWhen he was only nine, his father himself child to Barbadian slaves – died, leaving him an orphan, and forced to go to a Victorian children's home in London.  In his downtime there Walter became quite the handsome young sportsman, and managed to get so proficient he became the English league's first coloured outfield footballer, knocking up great appearances for Spurs and Northampton and going on intercontinental toursGlasgow Rangers beckoned just as WWI started, and instead he signed up for the Footballers BattalionHis time at the front was also going to leave him with another distinguished first, despite the official racism of the time.
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|summary=Meet TrixieForever 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 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>1847804918</amazonuk>
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|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=The Buccaneering Book of Pirates (Pop Up Books)
+
|title=Finding Bear
|author=Saviour Pirotta
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've said before now that it strikes me as odd that pirates have hung around so longYou can't blame it all on Johnny Depp either, yet people are still willing to revisit stories of old, pieces of eight, legs of wood and spots of blackSaviour Pirotta offers a four page truncation of [[Silver: Return to Treasure Island by Andrew Motion|Treasure Island]] in his book here, along with five other short tales from the genre. The others are more original, just as is the bonus element you get when you buy this title…
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|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called BearBack home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onFor a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded.  Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847804837</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|title=The Letter for the King
+
|title=Deadlock
|author=Tonke Dragt
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's midsummer night, and Tiuri is one of five young men locked up in a chapel with one more night of silent penance between them and the ceremony that makes them knights of the realm, when a stranger lures him outsideThe elderly man gives Tiuri the task of delivering a secret letter, and the chivalry and espionage is too much for the sixteen year old to ignore.  The bad news begins, however, when he finds the very experienced knight he was to deliver the letter to dying alone on a forest floor, meaning Tiuri must accept the mantle unofficially, and deliver the missive to its ultimate audience – the king of the neighbouring country.  The journey will bring the young man right to the cusp of danger, international intrigue and more.
+
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the runThey get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690107</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|title=Where's the Zombie?
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|author=Paul Moran and Jen Wainright
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Where's the Zombie'' is basically a hidden pictures game, but unlike most books of this type, there is some storyline to it as well albeit a very limited one. It all begins when scientist Joel Peters is accidentally exposed to a new virus he was helping to create ZX-5. He is then quarantined with his whole family, right down to the dog and cat. Naturally they are all infected, and isn't long before they escape. The future of mankind is in your hands as this family must be located to learn more about how this disease operates. Your job is to search every page, find each and every family member as well as the medical kit to treat the infected. Your task will get more difficult as the infection spreads and more and more of the bystanders have become zombies as well.
+
|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>1843179431</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author= Rob Keeley
 +
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
 +
|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
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|title=Demon Dentist
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|author=David Walliams
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=He ought to have realised she was evil from the start. After all, how many dentists do you know who love — yes, really love — rotten teeth? Brown, yellow, cracked, full of cavities, diseased, covered in plaque . . . you get the picture. And for Alfie, a boy who loathes dentists from the bottom of his heart and whose teeth are so rotten they ought to be a tourist attraction, danger definitely looms. You can practically hear the background music when the two meet at a school assembly: dum-dum-DUUUUMMMMMM!!!!
+
|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>0007453566</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Julia Jones
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|title=The Lion of Sole Bay
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Luke wasn't going away with his mother and brother at half-termHe was planning on spending it with his father restoring an old fishing boat on Fynn CreekHis mother dropped him off on her way to the airport and he sped away to the boat to wait for his father.  Angel ''needed'' excitement and that was how she ended up in the locked boatyard with some lads and it was their larking around which knocked the prop from under a boat which then toppled and trapped a workmanThe lads dashed away with Angel's screams to ring for an ambulance ringing in their ears. Angel stayed with the man until she heard the sirens.  The man was Luke's father.
+
|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 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 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>1899262180</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title=Young Knights: Pendragon
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|author=Julia Golding
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What's the best place to hide a bunch of unruly and somewhat excitable pixies on earth? How about the Notting Hill Carnival? Mischief and mayhem abound in a highly amusing scene as a group of changelings, stolen and taken to Avalon over centuries by the Fey, flee with their magical friends from the murderous clutches of Oberon and Morgan and make their way to twenty-first century Britain. In fact this second instalment of the gripping tale about the re-forming of the Round Table abounds with hilarious scenes (Fey royalty on an intercity train, anyone?) but it also has generous helpings of peril, exploits and thrills.  
+
|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>0192732234</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title=Blackberry Blue and Other Fairy Tales
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|author=Jamila Gavin
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We never tire of fairy tales, do we? We dream of being carried off into one. We read them over and over. We love the old ones but they do need renewing and retelling every now and again. That's what makes them timeless. And in
+
|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?
''Blackberry Blue and Other Fairy Tales'', the wonderful Jamila Gavin gives us her own take on wicked witches, enchanted forests, talking animals and heroes and heroines who triumph against adversity.
+
|isbn=0241573483
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848531060</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|title=The Secret Kingdom: Leopards' Gold
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|author=Jenny Nimmo
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Many years after the conclusion to Stones of Ravenglass, Timoken the Red King and his wife have settled down and live with their nine children in a castle which wizards Llyr and Eri turn invisible whenever danger approaches. When the castle bellman disappears and blood is found, though, the children realise that the danger could come from inside the majestic castle. Can brothers Petrello and Tolomeo solve the mystery of the disappearance and protect their family?
+
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep.  A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind.  It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather.  He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405257342</amazonuk>
+
 
}}
+
''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=Horrid Henry's Royal Riot (Horrid Henry Early Reader)
 
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Horrid Henry has always been popular in our house. Horrid Henry's Early's Readers will always hold a special place in my heart as the books that gave my son the confidence to break into chapter books. The Early Readers have thicker pages, less text per page, more illustrations and the illustrations are in colour. But in many cases they are the exact same stories found in the older children's chapter books. Once my son gained confidence with the early readers, he was able to move up the chapter books, and then the whole world of reading was opened up to him.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444008536</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|title=Amber
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|author=Julie Sykes
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary=Amber wakes upAnd in a way, there is a case for that being all the plot summary I give youSo I'll be careful when I elaborate, and say she wakes up in a hospital, the day after a car crash, in a state where she remembers nothing.  She can pick up emotions and so on, but she knows nothing about where the car was going, or who she is.  And to be honest, my opening sentence is a lie.  Because the girl has only two objects about her, and one is an amber necklace, she takes the word as her name – even that seems to be in the pastBut she's not in the hospital for long, and even as she faces the blank slate of a new life, some things that might be deeply buried in her start to surface…
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksHis father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy CooperBut sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be.  And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782020594</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

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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

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

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

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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

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

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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

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

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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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