Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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{{newreview
 
|title=The Runaways
 
|author=Elizabeth Goudge
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=The year is 1912. With their father overseas, Nan, Robert, Timothy and Betsy are staying with their grandmother. Locked in their rooms after they fail to make themselves presentable for a dinner party, they run away and find a horse and cart which takes them to their uncle's house. There, he gruffly accepts the responsibility of looking after them in exchange for being able to educate them, and they fall in love with their surroundings - while stumbling upon the tragic history of a neighbour. Can they help to put things right?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843915146</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost
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|author=Rob Keeley
|author=Kjartan Poskitt
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The clock is ticking… and that's not the only noise it makes when it's the one in the belltower of Odd Street School. When everyone in Agatha's gang of girlies is woken in the middle of the night by the clock bell chiming far too many times to make chronological sense, one of them dreams it is a ghost, hastening the passage of time and making them age.  That might not be too bad, as nasty Gwendoline lives too far away and wouldn't mature at the same rate, surely?  But then… would you really want to hurry up to become one of the geriatric, and very weird, schoolmistresses, or someone like Agatha's dad, whose sole intent seems to be to buy the cheapest, and very weird, breakfast cereal…?
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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>1405265752</amazonuk>
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The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
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|isbn= 1783064617
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title=Wild Boy
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=Rob Lloyd-Jones
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Raised as a monster and sent to a freak show because of the hair that covers his body, Wild Boy is loathed and feared by nearly everyone, but has an incredible power of observation. When he's accused of murder, he's forced to run from the freak show and team up with circus acrobat Clarissa to try and clear his name.
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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>140634138X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|title=City of Fate
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|author=Nicola Pierce
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Just as war can tear families apart, so it can create themOne family we meet in this book is teenaged Yuri, forced out of kindness and duty to look after an abandoned five year old boy, and the older teenaged Tanya and her motherYuri was left alone to fend for himself when his own mother and child-in-arms surrendered, young Peter's mourning his Mama, and Tanya's is just shellshocked and crabby from living in a basement room.  It's Hitler's invading soldiers that have done the killing – and, therefore, the forging of unlikely bondsElsewhere, four other youngsters, including Vlad and the militarily-minded Anton, are forced to leave their secondary school to sign up and face the consequences alone.  It's Stalin's ignorant tactics that have led to that order being sent downWe are in Stalingrad, in one of the prime killing fields of World War Two, and the actions of two fighting superpowers are having their shocking effect on those who can cope the least – the young.
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|summary=Meet KitLike most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the wayUnfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is neededPossibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a teamWhat chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847173373</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title=Geek Inc: The Impossible Boy
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|title=Planet Storyland
|author=Mark Griffiths
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Weird things happen in Blue Hills High School and the surrounding area. Not just the typical behaviour of teachers driven demented by their pupils, or the secret ingredient we all know is stirred into every school cafeteria pudding in the country, but the Doctor-Who-meets-the-Wimpy-Kid type of weird. For starters there's a boy who can do magic tricks, and we don't mean those lame ones which involve bits of elastic up your sleeve, either. This is walking across water and disappearing in broad daylight stuff. Then there's the statue hidden in the bushes at the park, and the elderly gentleman who likes to hide teaspoons in his shoes. And once again, Geek Inc is on the case!
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|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085707539X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Children of the King
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Sonya Hartnett
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In a prosperous area of London during World War II the two Lockwood children, twelve year old Cecily and her older brother Jeremy, are dispatched, together with their socialite mother, to stay with family in the north to keep them safe. On their arrival, at Cecily’s insistence, they take in a young evacuee, ten year old May. As they wander the countryside close to Cecily’s Uncle Peregrine’s country estate the two girls find two strange boys hiding in the ruins of Snow Castle and do not tell the rest of the family about their discovery. As the children attempt to cope with their changed circumstances and the fear of an approaching enemy, each evening Uncle Peregrine tells the children a dark and sinister story of intrigue in the Royal courts of long ago and so begins the story within a storyThis intriguing book then goes on to combine two periods of English history in an extraordinary adventure that is not only an historical novel but a moving coming of age story too.
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hopeHe 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>1407137514</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|title=Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|author=T S Eliot and Rebecca Ashdown (Illustrator)
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|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
 
|summary=It has always struck me to be the very definition of disappointment to think you're going to study Eliot's poetry at college or university, only to find it is some errant dross like 'The Four Quartets'.  His book of Cats poems is in the strictest of verse, it's bursting with levity, it's surely great fun to share – what's not to prefer here?  If I were you, I'd just ignore what kind of show these pages once inspired, and turn or return to them, Prufrock be damned.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571311865</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Executioner's Daughter
 
|author=Jane Hardstaff
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Moss, the daughter of the Tower of London's executioner, hates her life but has no way to leave it. She seems destined to catch heads in her basket forever - but then she finds a secret tunnel and a way out of the tower. Her long-awaited taste of freedom turns sour, though, when she finds out that her life is not what it seems and an otherworldly adversary is seeking her. Can she escape? And who can she trust to help her?
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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>140526828X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{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=Who Framed Klaris Cliff?
 
|author=Nikki Sheehan
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Joseph is a thoroughly ordinary kid. He and his dad get on pretty well, in a teasing, blokish sort of way, and they both admit openly how much they miss Joseph's mother. She'd been suffering from depression on and off for ages and went away for a much-needed holiday a couple of years previously. Her postcards said she was feeling much better and would definitely be home before the end of the summer, but she broke her promise: she never came back. Joseph imagines every day what it will be like when she eventually returns. Still, there's a big untidy, unruly family next door including Joseph's best friend Rocky, so he never needs to be lonely. So far so good: a contemporary, cheerful story about a likeable young teen. But there's one sinister element in this everyday world.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192735721</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|title=The Kissing Game
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|author=Jean Ure
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Salvatore d'Amato - sometimes nicknamed Sally Tomato - is twelve years old and has never been kissed. He's determined to change that before his next birthday. But will Lucy, the object of his affections, ever return them? He has a secret weapon - his poetry. Is it going to win her heart, or just disgust her? And will Harmony Hynde, the girl in his class who works as a library assistant, stop bothering him?
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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>0007519516</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|title=Jinx's Magic
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|title=Murray and Bun
|author=Sage Blackwood
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two.  But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs.  This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
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|isbn=0008561249
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
 +
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jinx's world seems, at first glance, to be highly traditional. He lives with a wizard in the middle of the Urwald forest, elves and werewolves wander by on a regular basis, and the rule, as everyone knows, is that you must never, ever step off the path.
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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>1848662734</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|author=Darren Shan
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|title=ZOM-B Gladiator
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat.  In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses.  Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with.  They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it.  And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted.  But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
|summary=WARNING: ''Gladiator'' is the sixth book in the ''ZOM-B'' series, so if you don't want to catch any spoilers, look away now.
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|isbn=0571376010
 
 
Don't say I didn't warn you.
 
 
 
You're gone, right?
 
 
 
Good.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857077724</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|author=Maudie Smith
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|title=Finding Wonder
|title=Opal Moonbaby Forever
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Opal Moonbaby has been on earth for nearly a year now and the time is fast approaching for her to return to Carnelia where there's a glittering future mapped out for herShe's approaching this logically - as she does everything - and, of course, Carnelians don't do emotionThat's an Earth thingIt's different for Martha though - she knows exactly how many days it will be before Opal has to leave and she's devastated at the thought of losing her best friend - and then Mum's new boyfriend (he has smelly sneakers) takes them all on holiday to Cornwall for a fortnight. That's most of the time which she and Opal had left.
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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 ticketWhen asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly ofBut she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable auntThings continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444004808</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=Old Dog, New Tricks
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|author=Bali Rai
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|rating=3
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
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|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days.  But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem.  And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on.  OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|summary=Nick is a miserable old sod by anyone's definition. His equally mangy dog, Nelson, is the only friend he has, as his nasty nature puts everyone off. But while he may be unpleasant to most people, he is downright horrible when the Singh family move in, bringing out the worst of his racist views - but can a man who likes Bob Marley really hate anyone of another colour? Is Nick just an ignorant and offensive old git, or is there something more beneath the surface? No one seems to have really bothered to find out before a common love of dogs draws young Harvey Singh to attempt to befriend not only the unkempt dog, but the lonely old man as well.
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|isbn=0008596751
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781123470</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|title=Red
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|author=Libby Gleeson
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Mud. In her mouth, her nose and her eyes. Mud in her hair and caked on her neck and her arms. Mud filling her shoes and seeping through her clothes. She lay sprawled on her side, a garbled, barely distinct sound coming from her: jaymartinjaymartin.''
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|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing.  Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro?  Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang?  And what has happened to Caro's mother?  Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?
 
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|isbn=0571363148
Who is ''jaymartin''? And who is this girl? Red doesn't know who she is or what has happened to her. She doesn't know what has caused the devastation all around her. Rescued from the mud by Peri, Red discovers that she's in Sydney in the aftermath of a terrible hurricane. Chaos is all around as the emergency response struggles to get to grips with the dead, injured and displaced. Through the noticeboard at the rescue centre, Red and Peri discover that she has a name. And a father. And a frightening secret.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444917307</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|title=Dunger
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|title=Nowhere Island
|author=Joy Cowley
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|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is nothing worse than two people who constantly argue, like brother and sister Will and LissyWell, actually there are two people who constantly argue and who need hearing aids but carefully ignore that fact, like their grandparents.  The siblings are expecting a regular trip away fancy clothes and fancying boys for her, swotty things for him, but no – the recession means their closest approximation to a summer break is to repair and put right the oldster's bach – summer home, if you likeWhat's more, they'll be paid for it.  But is any amount of money suitable payment for the primitive horrors to come?
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|summary=Meet GilJust twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself.  He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his 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 successfullyOver a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1877579467</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|title=The Forbidden Stone (The Copernicus Legacy)
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|author=Tony Abbott
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|rating=3
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you like your fiction full of heart-stopping adventures, mysterious cults and constant danger, then you'll love this book. Codes, puzzles and ancient secrets abound, and there is no doubt that the publisher's comparison with the novels for adults written by Dan Brown is justified. There's drama and deadly peril on pretty well every page.
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|summary=England, WW2.  Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook.  One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her.  The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths.  The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so.  But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked.  But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000754734X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|title=The Diary of Dennis the Menace
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|title=Arkspire
|author=Steven Butler
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Wimpy Kid-styled books, from those by [[:Category:Jeff Kinney|Jeff Kinney]] right down to those by [[:Category:Jim Smith|Jim Smith]] have always served as a bridge for the reluctant reader, taking him or her into a world halfway between a comic book and an actual novelWith careful design and a healthy picture-to-word ratio the child only used to reading speech bubbles and cartoon captions has managed a proper book before they've realised itSo it makes perfect sense for publishers to allow a franchise to cross over from one format to the other – and this example is the first one to come to my attentionEven if, when you think about it, it seems a very unlikely book in the first place…
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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 BadlandsElodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warBeing trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole familyBut in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141350822</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|author=Jane Elson
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|title=Stolen History
|title=A Room Full of Chocolate
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=''Sometimes family isn't the one you are born into but the people and pigs you collect along the way.''
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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''.
 
 
Grace doesn't want to leave her London home and go and live with misery guts Grandad while her mum goes into hospital to get a LUMP sorted out. Grace can't see why she couldn't look after her mum herself. After all, the LUMP was just caused by Mum dancing too much, wasn't it? WASN'T IT? But Mum won't hear of it and Grace must move away, start a new school, make new friends and miss her mum so much that even chocolate doesn't help. Things go from bad to worse when Grace upsets the resident school bully on her very first day.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444916750</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Thiago de Moraes
|author=Crystal Chan
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|title=Bird
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Grandpa stopped speaking the day he killed my brother, John.''
+
|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.
 
+
|isbn=178845295X
That was also the day Jewel was born. Birthdays for Jewel are miserable affairs during which her parents' grief for their son trump their joy in their daughter. In fact, Jewel doesn't see that her parents have ''any'' joy in their daughter at all. She's quite certain that nobody will ever love her as much as Mom, Dad and Grandpa loved John. Until, one day, she finds a mysterious boy sitting in one of her favourite trees. Grandpa doesn't like this new John, but Jewel does. She finally has someone that she can really talk to, who really understands the way her mind works. But John isn't everything he says he is. And his arrival is about to change Jewel's life forever...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848531230</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=My Brother's Shadow
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|title=Finding Bear
|author=Tom Avery
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Kaia feels frozen after the death of her beloved older brother. With her mum not talking about it and both struggling to cope, she withdraws into a shell and stops spending time with her friends. Then a mysterious boy joins her school and she starts to spend time with him. Even though he never speaks, she slowly starts to come out of her shell. Can she ever rediscover happiness?
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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 Bear.  Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded.  Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849397821</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|title=The Executioner's Daughter
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|title=Deadlock
|author=Jane Hardstaff
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Moss, the daughter of the Tower of London's executioner, hates her life but has no way to leave it. She seems destined to catch heads in her basket forever - but then she finds a secret tunnel and a way out of the tower. Her long-awaited taste of freedom turns sour, though, when she finds out that her life is not what it seems and an otherworldly adversary is seeking her. Can she escape? And who can she trust to help her?
+
|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>140526828X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Cath Howe
|title=My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish 3: Fins of Fury
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|title=My Life on Fire
|author=Mo O'Hara and Marek Jagucki
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When this book arrived in the post my sons both let out such cries of delight you would have thought the new Playstation 4 had arrived rather than a paperback book. I keep hearing that children don't like books as gifts, but even with the fortune I spent over Christmas, very few items got such a delighted reaction as this lovely unexpected surprise with the last of the Christmas post.
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|summary=Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything.  She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat.  When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person.  But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things.  Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447248724</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Rob Keeley
|title=The Queen of Dreams
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|author=Peter Hamilton
+
|rating=4
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Taggie and Jemima head off to spend a couple of weeks holidaying on their dad's farm. Much as the girls would like their parents to get back together, they know it's not going to happen. So they look forward to a fortnight of strawberry picking in the sunshine with their kindly, slightly eccentric father.
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|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.
 
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|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
But things don't go to plan.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857533819</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Laura Noakes
|title=Emily Climbs: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy)
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|author=L M Montgomery
+
|rating=4
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I had been a little unsettled during my re-reading of [[Emily of New Moon: A Virago Modern Classic (Emily Trilogy) by L M Montgomery|Emily of New Moon]] since I found as I read that I didn't particularly like EmilyWas I too grown up now to love Emily as I had when I was younger?  But coming back to ''Emily Climbs'' was like sitting down with an old, favourite friend and having a lovely catch-upI much prefer Emily in this book.  She starts to grow up a little, developing her sense of humour, learning more about herself and her writingEmily is sent away to high school in the local large town of Shrewsbury.  Unfortunately, whilst she is there, she must board with her Aunt Ruth who (much to my dismay since we share a first name) is a dreadful person to live with!  She is also cornered into promising that whilst she's away at school she will write no more storiesHer Aunt Elizabeth has never been happy about her story writing, fearing it is dangerously close to writing novels - a terrible thing, in her eyes! Emily has no choice but to make the promise, but she finds it very difficultStill, she is allowed to continue writing her diaries, and she can write as much poetry as she likes.
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|summary=Meet Number OneOr rather, Cosima UnfortunateOr rather, just Cos to her friendsThe practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly uponBut 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 InstituteBut why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844089894</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alice M Ross
|title=The Very Nearly Honourable League of Pirates: Magic Marks the Spot
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|author=Caroline Carlson
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5  
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Take one Victorian finishing school for delicate ladies, full of classes on how to waltz and swoon gracefully (not necessarily at the same time), perform a water ballet and use a bow and arrow without perspiring. If you're feeling very brave, you could even (shudder) stir in a smattering (just a tiny amount, for pity's sake!) of the fine art of embroidering Improving Sayings on a sampler. Add a bunch of unruly, unscrupulous and unwashed pirates (except, of course, for the dashingly handsome and gallant ones: they're generally quite hygienic). Chuck in a substantial dollop of magic and stand well back—the result is an action-packed and wondrously silly adventure on the high seas.
+
|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town.  Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder.  With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop?  Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857078275</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title=When Did You See Her Last?
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|author=Lemony Snicket
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=At first glance, it's difficult to separate ''All the Wrong Questions'' from Snicket's first and far more famous series, ''A Series of Unfortunate Events''. However, the further into it I read, the more I realised that I was actually reading a Film Noir. A classic detective story with all the right characters. A little less subtle than some, perhaps, more Bugsy Malone than Sunset Boulevard but that's fine given the intended audience and makes it no less enjoyable.
+
|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>1405256222</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title=You, Me and Thing: The Great Expanding Guinea Pig and Beware of the Snowblobs!
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|author=Karen McCombie
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary='You' is Jackson, a very dim-seeming boy next door'Me' is Ruby, our much more intelligent, thoughtful and active narratorThing is – well, the thing is, Thing is a mystery – a weird sort of winged mogwai-type critter, that only 'you' and 'me' know aboutAll three have a den at the bottom of the humans' respective gardens, close to the built-upon former home of ThingOh, and Thing is also capable of some very silly, quite inappropriate and very inappropriately timed magic, so a lot of time Jackson, and especially Ruby, have to worry about keeping their secret friend a secretAs you can see by the two full adventures in this book.
+
|summary=Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for exampleAisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out thereThe 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 existedFor many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footageThe crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join inDare 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>0571310559</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
 +
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
 +
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep.  A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind.  It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather.  He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
  
{{newreview
+
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time.  And time isn't good for anything...''
|title=Bugsy Malone - Graphic Novel
+
 
|author=Alan Parker
+
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?
|rating=3
+
}}
|genre=Confident Readers
+
{{Frontpage
|summary=One bunch of wise guys might think they have it all, but they don'tAnother bunch of wise guys want it all and have the splurge guns to help them get itInto the middle come a beautiful starlet-in-waiting, and our crafty innocent abroad, Bugsy MaloneCue, at some incredibly random time honouring no discernible anniversary whatsoever, this reprint of the long-lost graphic novel version of the story, told for 'all those kids who find it tough reading books with just words'.
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007514840</amazonuk>
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Emerging Readers
 +
|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 beAnd when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
 +
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|title=Asterix and the Picts
 
|author=Jean-Yves Ferri, Rene Goscinny, Albert Uderzo and Didier Conrad
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=I've never been entirely certain if Asterix was written for children or adults. I am quite certain children were the original target audience, but it is equally apparent that many of the jokes are thrown in for adults as well. It does seem as if more adults are buying Asterix than children now, and comics in general have been taken over by the adult consumer, but Asterix still has plenty to offer the younger reader as well. If it is perhaps a bit more sophisticated than the average children's book today, all the better. I'm all for children's books that are light and easy to read, but I think we are doing our children a disservice by filtering out any book with a more complex vocabulary or a fair number of unfamiliar words. My children did find a few words like ''solidarity'', ''fraternise'' and ''diaphanous'' challenging, but if we don't challenge them at all - how will they learn?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444011677</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

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

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

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

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Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

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

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Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

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

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Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

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

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Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

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

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Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

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

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Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

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

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Review of

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

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

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Review of

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

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

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

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

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Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

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

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