Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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{{newreview
 
|title=Sesame Seade Mysteries 1: Sleuth on Skates
 
|author=Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Eleven-year-old Sesame Seade has been waiting all her life to be a super sleuth, so when a student journalist disappears and no-one seems all that bothered, she decides to solve the case herself. Can she track down the vanished girl before her parents work out what's going on?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444912526</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=A Piggy Pickle (Pip Street)
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|author=Rob Keeley
|author=Jo Simmons
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Problems are mounting for the people of Pip Street. Every evening the power goes out, so the whole street is plunged into darkness – not good for Bobby who's still young enough to be scared of the dark. Nor is it good news for the mysteriously popular new electrical shop at the end of the road – could all the gadgets bought at Gizmo World be the cause?  Well, given the cover artwork and title of this adventure, I think the answer is a roundly firm NO, but there's really no harm in finding out what the action does involve.
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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>1407132830</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=Cowgirl
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=G R Gemin
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gemma has grown up on a housing estate in South Wales where muggings and burglaries are commonplace, her dad is in prison, her mum has given up hope for the future and Gemma argues with her younger brother. She has given up on finding happiness and escapes from her daily routine by riding her bike into the nearby countrysideOn one of these trips she bumps into the notorious Cowgirl and after their initial hostilities have thawed an unlikely friendship blossoms and together the girls, with the help of a dozen cows, discover that kindness, cooperation and perseverance can restore hope to a broken community.
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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 spookyFor the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857632817</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=Scavenger 1: Zoid
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|author=Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Somewhere out in the further reaches of the galaxy is a spherical construction, speeding the last few surviving Earth humans on their way to a different, new home, a giant biosphere acting as the one remaining Ark for what's left of humankind.  And its purpose is even more important as, somewhen, somewhere and somehow, during its flight, the robot inhabitants – the cleaners, butlers, farmers and mechanics – rebelledSince then they have evolved themselves, and ignored all their original programming, and are intent on wiping out humans insteadWe, of course, are fighting back, but when the tiny community of little more than a hundred that serves as the whole world for the young worker known as York gets wiped out, he gets the clearest picture yet of how difficult that battle will be…
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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 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 team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447231481</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title=Urban Outlaws
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|title=Planet Storyland
|author=Peter Jay Black
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What skills would you need to trick the rich and powerful out of their ill-gotten gains? A posse of brilliant lawyers and accountants with elastic consciences? A cache of guns and bombs? Well, maybe, although it is very possible that all that will do is to turn you into villains as dirty as your marks. And, if you'll forgive the sudden descent into street-speak, that's not the way these five young Urban Outlaws roll.
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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>1408851415</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=The Four Seasons of Lucy Mckenzie
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Kirsty Murray
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''For the first time in her life, Lucy dreaded Christmas.''
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident.  Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
 
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|isbn=1398527122
She has been sent to stay with her Great-Aunt Big, who lives in a homestead in the Australian wilderness. Her family, meanwhile, will be spending Christmas in Paris, tending to Lucy’s older sister who is in a coma following a tragic accident. Lucy is deeply worried about her big sister and understands why she has been left behind, but she is filled with trepidation at the idea of spending such a long time with her eccentric Aunt, miles away from civilization without even as much as a  mobile phone signal.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1743361246</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1805141872
|title=Dream On Amber
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|author=Emma Shevah
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|author=Rob Keeley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ambra Alessandra Leola Kimiko Miyamoto has a very long name. I have a very short name, so I can’t relate. But I’m with her on other issues. Like how hard it is to start secondary school and try to make new friends when you’re not quite like everyone else. Maybe you’re a bit smaller than the other girls. Maybe you’re of an interesting heritage (say, half Italian, half Japanese). Maybe one of your parents has gone AWOL. Maybe you don’t have all the right gear you need to blend in – sometimes a caveman mobile phone just won’t cut it. Ambra has all of these things working against her, AND a name that makes it sound like she’s identifying with an item of underwear, so it’s no wonder she’s changed it to Amber in a bid to fit in.
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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>190843564X</amazonuk>
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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
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Christopher Edge
|title=The Islands of Chaldea
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|author=Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones
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|rating=4
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Imagine a story – a good old-fashioned adventure with journeys and magic and villains and young people finding their strengths despite the odds, and coming at last to the place they belong. Then imagine another story, a heart-touching one this time, about the writing of that story, and you have the whole of this charming book.
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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>0007542232</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Stower
|title=Hero
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|title=Murray and Bun
|author=Sarah Lean
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=Leo is a boy with a big imagination. He is a bit of an outsider and feels overshadowed by the achievements of others, in particular by those of his older sister, but in his dreams he is a brave and all-conquering Roman gladiator. Desperate to be a hero in the real world and receive attention from those he wants to impress, one day Leo makes a bad decision and does something wrong. As the repercussions multiply and Leo feels that he has let everyone down, the disappearance of a small dog called Jack Pepper offers him the opportunity to put things right.
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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>0007512244</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|title=Ironheart
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|author=Allan Boroughs
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=India Bentley's father went missing looking for oil in Siberia. Except it wasn't just oil he was searching for - rather, he was trying to find the lost fortress of Ironheart, whose old world secrets could save humanity - or destroy the world. When she meets tech-hunter Verity Brown and her android bodyguard Calculus, India manages to become involved in a daring adventure with some seriously unsavoury characters. Can she save her father, and the world?
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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>1447235991</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Cooper
|title=Jane, The Fox and Me
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|author=Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Bullied at school and lonely because her former friends don't talk to her, Helene loses herself in the pages of ''Jane Eyre''. To a girl who thinks of herself as fat and plain, Jane's story gives her hope - but can she find happiness?  And how will a trip to a nature camp affect her? Can it give her the confidence and courage to change the way she sees herself?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406353043</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Dandelion Clocks
 
|author=Rebecca Westcott
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is a very difficult book to read. Make no mistake: that's not because of poor writing or a dull story — far from it — but because the story is so sad and yet uplifting, the situation so honestly and movingly portrayed that you'd need to be an automaton to read it without tears. Jacqueline Wilson is quoted as saying readers will need a large box of tissues, and she wasn't exaggerating.
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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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141348992</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Lauren St John
|title=Fleatectives: Case of the Stolen Nectar
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|title=Finding Wonder
|author=Jonny Zucker
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Someone has been stealing all the nectarThe bees are in a buzz!  One hive is blaming another hive and although the Sheriff is investigating, Buzz and Itch decide to take the case on themselves to try and figure out what exactly is going on.  How will they manage to figure out the truth of what's happened? And will they manage to do it without being crushed to death by the bees?
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|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficultHer 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 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>1407136941</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|author=Victoria Eveleigh
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|title=Joe and the Race to Rescue
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|rating=3
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Joe's come a long way from the Brummy boy who didn't want to know anything about horses and ponies whom we first met in [[Joe and the Hidden Horseshoe by Victoria Eveleigh|Joe and the Hidden Horseshoe]]His first pony, [[Joe and the Lightning Pony by Victoria Eveleigh|Lightning]] taught him a great deal, but Joe has grown and he's now been loaned Fortune, who's altogether different and Joe begins to realise that there's a lot more to being a great horseman than simply getting in the saddle and having the techniquesHe needs to bond with Fortune and Fortune needs to learn to trust him.  But Fortune isn't the only equine on Joe's mind.  He's discovered a lonely-looking pony in a field and met Sherman and Velvet, two massive shire horses.
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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 schoolBut 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 monthAnd it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problemAnd it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444007599</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Infinity Drake: The Sons of Scarlatti
 
|author=John McNally
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
Finn (real name Infinity) Drake is off for a week away in the Pyrenees with his Uncle Al. He's supposed to be at school but Grandma has gone off on a knitting cruise, so she will never know. But before they can be on their way, Al is summoned to a crisis meeting with secret government officials. A lethal bio-weapon - the Scarlatti wasp - has been stolen and released by an uber-villain (who else but an uber-villain) and the world's only chance is to use Al's top secret invention to shrink a combat team to destroy it.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007521588</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Judith Eagle
|title=The Legend of Frog
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
|author=Guy Bass
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Frog is about to journey to the End of the World to stake a claim for his rightful throne. Armed only with a stick called Basil Rathbone and a pair of catastrophe pants, he expects it to be easy - but hadn't bargained on an army of aliens appearing. What's a Frog to do?
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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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847153887</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|title=Rooftoppers
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|title=Nowhere Island
|author=Katherine Rundell
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|rating=4.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Teens
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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…
|summary=Sophie is shipwrecked in the English Channel on her 1st birthday, with her mother presumed dead, but she's lucky enough to be found by scholar Charles. He raises her as his ward and they have a happy, if seriously unconventional, existence until the authorities intervene on her 12th birthday. With the orphanage beckoning, Sophie and Charles run away to France in the hope that her mother may be alive after all.
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|isbn=1804540080
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571280595</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Helen Peters
|title=The Runaways
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|author=Elizabeth Goudge
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|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|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?
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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>1843915146</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Jamie Littler
|title=Agatha Parrot and the Odd Street Ghost
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|title=Arkspire
|author=Kjartan Poskitt
 
 
|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 SchoolWhen 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 ageThat 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=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 family.  But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405265752</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=024162343X
|title=Wild Boy
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|title=Stolen History
|author=Rob Lloyd-Jones
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
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|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school.  I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'.  Where was the proof?  In history lessons, it was probably worse still.  Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place.  Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely.  I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Thiago de Moraes
 +
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|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=Meet Trixie.  Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance.  But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes.  Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake).  Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us.  And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140634138X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=City of Fate
+
|title=Finding Bear
|author=Nicola Pierce
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Just as war can tear families apart, so it can create them.  One 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 aloneIt's Stalin's ignorant tactics that have led to that order being sent down.  We 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.
+
|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 woundedDesperate 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>1847173373</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Simon Fox
|title=Geek Inc: The Impossible Boy
+
|title=Deadlock
|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!
+
|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>085707539X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Cath Howe
|title=The Children of the King
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|title=My Life on Fire
|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.
+
|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 alreadyBut what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407137514</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
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|author=Laura Noakes
|title=Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|author=T S Eliot and Rebecca Ashdown (Illustrator)
+
|rating=4
|rating=4.5
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
+
|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 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 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?
|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.
+
|isbn=0008579059
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571311865</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|title=The Executioner's Daughter
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|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=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>140526828X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title=Who Framed Klaris Cliff?
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|author=Nikki Sheehan
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|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.
+
|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>0192735721</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title=The Kissing Game
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|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?
+
|summary=Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London.  But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed.  For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in.  Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007519516</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|title=Jinx's Magic
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|author=Sage Blackwood
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4.5
+
|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.
+
|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>1848662734</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time.  And time isn't good for anything...''
|author=Darren Shan
 
|title=ZOM-B Gladiator
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|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.
 
  
Don't say I didn't warn you.
+
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?
 
+
}}
You're gone, right?
+
{{Frontpage
 
+
|author=Nigel Baines
Good.
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857077724</amazonuk>
+
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Emerging Readers
 +
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricks.  His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper.  But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
 +
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|author=Maudie Smith
 
|title=Opal Moonbaby Forever
 
|rating=4
 
|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 her.  She's approaching this logically - as she does everything - and, of course, Carnelians don't do emotion.  That's an Earth thing.  It'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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444004808</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

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

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Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

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

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Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

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

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Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

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

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Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

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

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Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

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

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Review of

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

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

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Review of

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

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

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

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

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Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

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

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