Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
 
Line 1: Line 1:
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
+
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
+
 
|title=Scarlet Ibis
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Gill Lewis
+
|author=Rob Keeley
 +
|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Scarlet and her half-brother Red have a dream - to watch flocks of Scarlet Ibises fly above Caroni swamp in Trinidad where her father comes from. They have a special bond. He is autistic and loves collecting birds’ feathers, feeling a sense of calm when he recites their names.  She has caramel coloured skin while Red has white.  They live with their mother in a flat but she has suffered from mood swings of late. Scarlet saves up to take Red on regular trips to the zoo where he feels safe. Red is fostering a baby Pigeon and waiting for it learn how to fly.
+
|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>0192793551</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
+
The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
|title=The Dark Horse
+
|isbn= 1783064617
|author=Rumer Godden
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Dark Invader was a well-bred racehorse and had the looks to go with it but he was disappointing in his first season in England and his owner had better uses for the money his sale could bring. He was shipped out to India, which might sound rather extreme, but was not uncommon in the nineteen thirties and there were some benefits.  The main one was that he was going to a good owner who cared for his welfare and a trainer who realised that he would get most out of his horses if they were contented. His new owner, Mr Leventine, even arranged for his lad to travel out to India with him and this was probably Dark Invader's greatest piece of luck.  Ted Mullins not only loved the horse - he understood him.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1844088529</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Max Boucherat
|title=Blamehounds (Little Gems)
+
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|author=Ross Collins
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The idea began with Mr Lime’s bodily explosions (didn’t I put that nicely?) After three of them it was Norman the dog (who was entirely blameless in this matter so long as you’re willing to overlook the fact that he was having a lovely dream about dropping cats off bridges) who got the kick to speed him from the roomThere were a couple more occasions when something similar happened but instead of getting a complex about what was happening, Norman saw an opportunity.  A business opportunityIf dogs were going to get the blame then there should be something in it for them and he went into partnership with his best mate, Ringo (who does seem to be obsessed with sausages) and Blamehounds was born.
+
|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 wrongSnuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's worldBut first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyFor the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781123926</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Ice Bear
+
|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|author=Jackie Morris
+
|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Long, long ago in the mists of time in an icy and barren landscape a bear gives birth to two cubs. While curled up close together the raven tricks the bear and steals one of the cubs away. The mother bear grieves and never forgets her loss. However the raven drops the bundle in the path of a hunter and he and his wife discover a longed for child. Seven years pass and the child wanders from his home and finds himself back in the land of the bears. He loves both families and both families love him so they must find a way to resolve this dilemma and learn to live together in harmony.
+
|summary=Meet Kit.  Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed.  Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team.  What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847804578</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title=The Forbidden Library
+
|title=Planet Storyland
|author=Django Wexler
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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.
 
+
|isbn=1736128426
Alice is a little girls whose feet are planted firmly in the here and now. She's sensible. And studious. And practical. So when, one night, she overhears a conversation between her father and a vicious little fairy, she's more than a little shaken. But before she has had time to process this worrying event, Alice's father has rushed away on a business trip. Within days, the news comes that his ship has foundered and there are no survivors.
 
 
 
Alice finds herself packed off to stay with a mysterious uncle her father never told her about. Geryon is a strange man and his house is even stranger. Never-seen servants prepare food and clear it away. And the servants you can see are strange - Mr Black sinister, Emma an automaton. There's only one rule: Alice must not enter the Library...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857532871</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=Princess DisGrace: First Term at Tall Towers
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|author=Lou Kuenzler
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We all know how princesses are supposed to be, don’t we? Pretty, dainty, delicate and feminine, with perfect manners and charm, of course. Unfortunately, it seems that nobody pointed this out to Princess Grace of Cragland; a scruffy, grubby, ungainly girl with spindly legs and huge feet. Her clumsiness earns her the nickname 'Princess Dis-Grace' from her fellow classmates, including her obnoxious cousin, Princess Precious. Can Grace rise to the challenge and become the well-groomed, elegant princess that she is expected to be in her first term at Tall Towers?
+
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways.  He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope.  He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407136283</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1805141872
 +
|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
 +
|author=Rob Keeley
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
  
{{newreview
+
Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
|title=Stories of World War One
 
|author=Tony Bradman
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=World War One, or the Great War as it was known at the time, was a cataclysmic war. Millions died and life was changed forever for the survivors - for the women of Britain, and for the working classes and ruling classes alike. 2014 is the centenary of its outbreak and the redoubtable Tony Bradman has gathered together a dozen of our best writers for young people to create an anthology of short stories to commemorate the anniversary.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408330350</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=ZOM-B Mission
+
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|author=Darren Shan
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ok. Have an obligatory warning about possible spoilers for the series so far. If you don't want any, then run along and read our review of the [[Zom-B by Darren Shan|first book]]. Otherwise, read this review at your own risk.
+
|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>0857077767</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Adam Stower
|title=Girl With A White Dog
+
|title=Murray and Bun
|author=Anne Booth
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Confident Readers  
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the 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…
|summary=Once upon a time Jessie had three wishes. One of these wishes is for a dog of her own. When her Grandma unexpectedly gets a small white dog, Snowy, it would seem that one of her wishes has come true. But the dog prompts a worrying change in Jessie’s Grandma’s behaviour and she appears troubled by memories from her childhood, fearing that something dreadful will happen to Snowy. As past and present mingle Jessie learns that, just like Fairy Tales, goodies and baddies may not always be as they appear.
+
|isbn=0008561249
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846471818</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|title=The Eagle Trail
+
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|author=Robert Rigby
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=The Nazis have occupied Antwerp, where Paul lives with his English father and French mother. But Paul doesn't think things are too bad. Life is going on pretty much as normal if you are a teenaged boy, Paul feels. But Paul is wrong.
 
 
In the space of an afternoon, Paul's world is turned upside down. His father is shot in front of him, having been discovered as an early resistance organiser. His mother is arrested. And Paul finds himself fleeing for his life, hunted by the Nazis for what his father knew. The journey is a long and dangerous one - through Belgium and France for the Pyrenees and Spain and then, hopefully, for England. Every stage is dangerous but the final one - the Eagle Trail across the mountains - is the most perilous.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406346667</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Sesame Seade Mysteries 3: Scam on the Cam
 
|author=Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Something strange is happening on or near the river. Finding a pirates' chest is surely likely to be the weirdest thing that happens to most people in an average week, but not Sesame, Toby and Gemma. As well as the possibility of pirates, there's a chance that nefarious goings-on are responsible for the university rowing team dropping like flies. Can Sesame save the day again?
+
|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>1444912542</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Helen Cooper
|title=Sesame Seade Mysteries 2: Gargoyles Gone AWOL
+
|title=The Taming of the Cat
|author=Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne
+
|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sesame Seade is in trouble. So much trouble that our intrepid heroine has already started planning her epitaph. ''Sesame Seade, sensational supersleuth. Sufficiently scolded, seldom scared.'' Even with danger around every corner, her stunning voice can't be silenced. But what is the danger lurking in the university? Is it to do with the disappearing gargoyles, or is there something even more worrying going on?
+
|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>1444912534</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Lauren St John
|title=Daughters of Time
+
|title=Finding Wonder
|author=Mary Hoffman (editor)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is an anthology aimed at tweens and younger teens on the subject of ''some of history's most remarkable women''. It's an interesting idea, particularly as the usual suspects are perhaps avoidedNo Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Victoria, or Florence Nightingale. Instead we get Boudica, Mary Seacole, Aphra Behn and Julian of Norwich, amongst others. It doesn't altogether work for me but there are enough strong stories to make it well worth a look.
+
|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 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>184877169X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=The Dark Wild
+
|title=Oscar's Lion
|author=Piers Torday
+
|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Be careful when reading this book: it presents humanity and its tendency to destroy everything in its path so convincingly that you may end up siding with the bad guys! Kester's world is a dystopian mess, and the fact that this time the threat comes from a quite unexpected quarter only makes things harder for him.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782064850</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Paddington's Adventures
 
|author=Michael Bond
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Paddington might be mistaken for a suitable wedding usher, a doctor, and an illegal busker, but he is really just the original bear from Darkest Peru, with the charming ability to get into as many scrapes as one could wishPaddington might cause confusion at the dentist's, the gymkhana or at the posh restaurant, but he will always land on his feetPaddington might be able to completely befuddle a host of school teachers, a judge or anyone, but he is still the most loved occupant of the Brown's household, 32 Windsor Gardens, LondonAnd this trilogy shows how he should be pretty much loved in many other households too.
+
|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 daysBut there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other 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 onOK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007560966</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Judith Eagle
|title=Big Nate in the Zone
+
|title=The Stolen Songbird
|author=Lincoln Peirce
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Life just can't get any worse for Big Nate.  A friend ruins his homework for him, he ruins a beanbag in the school library, and the whole place is turning into a healthy-eating zone run by fun hoovers intent on force-feeding the kids wholesomeness, exercise and rabbit foodHow could his luck possibly changeWell, with a broken-off action figure foot, that's how.
+
|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 unwellSo who is going to look after CaroSent 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>0007562098</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Tania Unsworth
|title=Circus of Thieves and the Raffle of Doom
+
|title=Nowhere Island
|author=William Sutcliffe
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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…
Here is the warning for reviewers who have received a copy of ''Circus of Thieves'':
+
|isbn=1804540080
 
 
'If you are chronologically vulnerable, easily confused, or allergic to hiccups in the space-time continuum, do not attempt to read unless you are wearing thick sunglasses or a snorkel with mask - flippers optional.'
 
 
 
Ahem. I'm guilty on all counts. I don't own thick sunglasses or a snorkel with a mask. I read it anyway. So sue me!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471120236</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Helen Peters
|title=Sesame Seade Mysteries 1: Sleuth on Skates
+
|title=Friends and Traitors
|author=Clementine Beauvais and Sarah Horne
+
|rating=3
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|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?
+
|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>1444912526</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Jamie Littler
|title=A Piggy Pickle (Pip Street)
+
|title=Arkspire
|author=Jo Simmons
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Problems are mounting for the people of Pip StreetEvery 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 darkNor 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 causeWell, 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.
+
|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>1407132830</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241586143
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=024162343X
 +
|title=Stolen History
 +
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 +
|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 proofIn 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''.
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Cowgirl
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|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.
+
|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 usAnd so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857632817</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=Scavenger 1: Zoid
+
|title=Finding Bear
|author=Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
+
|rating=4.5
|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 humankindAnd 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…
+
|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>1447231481</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Simon Fox
|title=Urban Outlaws
+
|title=Deadlock
|author=Peter Jay Black
+
|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.
+
|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>1408851415</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Cath Howe
|title=The Four Seasons of Lucy Mckenzie
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|author=Kirsty Murray
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''For the first time in her life, Lucy dreaded Christmas.''
+
|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?
 
+
|isbn=1839942835
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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|title=Dream On Amber
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|author=Emma Shevah
+
|rating=4
|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.
+
|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>190843564X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|title=The Islands of Chaldea
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|author=Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones
+
|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.
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, just Cos to her friends.  The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon.  But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute.  But why, and what does that body entail?  And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007542232</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|title=Hero
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
|author=Sarah Lean
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|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.
+
|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>0007512244</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title=Ironheart
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|author=Allan Boroughs
+
|rating=5
|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?
+
|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>1447235991</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title=Jane, The Fox and Me
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|author=Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault
+
|rating=4
|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.
+
|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>0141348992</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|title=Fleatectives: Case of the Stolen Nectar
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|author=Jonny Zucker
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|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 onHow will they manage to figure out the truth of what's happenedAnd will they manage to do it without being crushed to death by the bees?
+
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleepA 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 grandfatherHe 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>1407136941</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
''Who needs old clocks anywayAll 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?
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Victoria Eveleigh
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|title=Joe and the Race to Rescue
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricks.  His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper.  But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to beAnd when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|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.
+
|isbn=1444960261
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444007599</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
|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>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


1783064617.jpg

Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839945184.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1736128426.jpg

Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1805141872.jpg

Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

1839942738.jpg

Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008561249.jpg

Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571382231.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571376010.jpg

Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571376169.jpg

Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008596751.jpg

Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571363148.jpg

Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1804540080.jpg

Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1788004647.jpg

Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0241586143.jpg

Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

024162343X.jpg

Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

178845295X.jpg

Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008582017.jpg

Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839944420.jpg

Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839942835.jpg

Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

B0BVW69N1G.jpg

Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0008579059.jpg

Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

1839943769.jpg

Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0571348785.jpg

Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

0241573483.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

B09XWSXSKY.jpg

Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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

1444960261.jpg

Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

4.5star.jpg Emerging Readers

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

Move on to Newest Cookery Reviews