Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
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{{newreview
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|author=Gareth P Jones
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{{Frontpage
|title=Clash of the Rival Robots (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates)
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|author=Rob Keeley
 +
|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
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|rating=4
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|genre=Confident Readers
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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.
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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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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Max Boucherat
 +
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome.  What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world.  But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
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|isbn=0008666482
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
 +
|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We learn a lot about the world of the Steampunk Pirates in this volume of their adventures.  While having had references to Britain fighting France before now, we find the location matters more than [[Attack of the Giant Sea Spiders (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates) by Gareth P Jones|last time]], as we head back to EnglandThe Pirates have been told of a way to get into the Tower of London to steal the Crown Jewels.  We also learn a lot about their upbringing, if you can call it that – certainly more than last time, as we see what made them piratical in the first place, which was a surprise to their inventor when it happenedBut you never know, they may be about to face a showdown against said scientist – and, worse, his next generation of robots.  If only they perhaps had been programmed to avoid temptation…
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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>1847156061</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
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}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Karen McCombie
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title= Catching Falling Stars
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|title=Planet Storyland
|rating= 4.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= It is 1940 and after a year of the ''phoney war'' London is suffering in the Blitz. Glory and her younger brother Rich have now been evacuated to a country village far from everything they know and love. When the arrangements made by their mother fall through the children are sent to live with Miss Saunders, a cold and unwelcoming woman who is not popular in the village and Glory wonders if they would have been better off remaining in London despite the danger of falling bombs. The local children appear unfriendly and even in the countryside they are not completely safe from the enemy. All Glory wants is to return home to her parents but she will soon discover that her life is to change in unexpected ways and she will learn that her first impressions should not always be trusted.
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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>1407138898</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
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}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alexander McCall Smith
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=Precious and the Zebra Necklace
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is a new girl at Precious Ramotswe's schoolHer name is Nancy, and Precious is asked to look after her and make sure she settles into schoolPrecious, already a budding detective at such a young age, soon sniffs out that there is a little bit of a mystery surrounding Nancy and on discovering that all Nancy has left of her parents is a fading photograph and a zebra necklace she decides that she must try to help Nancy discover the truth about what happened to them.
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of waysHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident.  Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every directionAnd yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope.  He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780273274</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Hilary McKay
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|isbn=1805141872
|title=Binny in Secret
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
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|author=Rob Keeley
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Reading Binny in Secret was rather like that moment when, as a child, I discovered that Noel Streatfield had written a LOT of other shoe books or, just a few years ago, when I suddenly discovered Jeanne Birdsall and her Penderwick stories, and I gorged on them, utterly delighting in their humour and kindness. I don't quite know how I haven't come across Hilary McKay before, but of course now a long list of her books have gone onto my 'to read' pile because I thoroughly enjoyed this story and I immediately wanted more!
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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>1444913409</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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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Kate Pankhurst
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|author=Christopher Edge
|title= The Disappearing Dinner Lady (Mariella Mystery)
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating= 4.5
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|rating=4
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mariella has to admit it: the school dinners have been much better lately. When Big G was in charge, vegetable mush was the order of the day, but since the 'Ladies Who Lunch' agency have been supplying the meals, they have been serving up heavenly dishes like 'Monday Munchie Madness', 'Princess Pie' and 'Pirate Pasta Bake'. The mystery girls love the new menu, but even more than that, they love the new dinner lady, Diana Dumpling. When Diana goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Mariella and her friends are on the case to discover what really happened to their favourite dinner lady.
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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>1444012347</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Tomiko Inui and Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator)
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|author=Adam Stower
|title=The Secret of the Blue Glass
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|title=Murray and Bun
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Confident Readers
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|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two.  But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs.  This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
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|isbn=0008561249
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
 +
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=One problem with being four inches or so tall, as any [[The Borrowers: The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton|Borrower]]-type creature I'm sure will tell you, is getting around.  There're the impracticalities of being so small, encounters with cats, and a whole lot moreBut with this modern world things can happen such as an English governess-type taking a married couple of Little People to Japan with herThere they have kids, and she leaves them with her favourite pupil – alongside the most necessary equipment, a small blue glass goblet, that helps the human bond with the Little People by using it to donate milk to them on a daily basisWe're now into the second generation of Japanese people looking after them, but something much more threatening, all-enveloping and worrying than a cat is around the corner World War Two.
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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 runsEli lives with his lovely gran, too for there is a generation missing in the familyA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beastThis has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end the only thing to possibly save his gran.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690344</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
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}}
{{newreviewplain
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{{Frontpage
|title=In Their Shoes: Fairy Tales and Folktales
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|author=Helen Cooper
|rating=4
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lots of books have, in their own way, shown fairy tales to have relied on certain tropesYou certainly don't have to read them all, or indeed many, to see the wily child outsmart the adult again and again, people tricked into changing ownership of magical things, the power of being a stepmother, or the power of doing things in threesStill, I think this must be one of a very rare few collections to look at footwear as a theme, with a tidy, small selection of fairy and folk-tales to entertain, all with that subject.
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|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against catIn this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheesesAnyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with.  They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on 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>1782691014</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
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}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ulrich Hub, Jorg Muhle and Helena Ragg-Kirkby (translator)
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|author=Lauren St John
|title=Meet at the Ark at Eight!
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|title=Finding Wonder
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=An educated penguin, an agnostic penguin and a violent, smaller, young penguin walk into a snowdrift…  You might not be able to make a full joke out of that opening line, but this book practically does continue on from thereThree penguins – each a little different from the other, even if they generally look and definitely smell the same, and God, a subject of their conversation when a butterfly comes along, of all thingsThe young, hot-headed one (well, in the pictures he wears a woolly hat, he's bound to be hot-headed) leaves in umbrage, leaving just two – which is perfectly timed if you're a dove, and come along telling all the animals to get into Noah's Ark in pairs, as an almighty flood is about to happen…
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|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult.  Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticketWhen asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of.  But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable auntThings continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames!  Poor Roo!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690875</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Steven Butler
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=The Diary of Dennis the Menace: Canine Carnage (book 5)
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|rating=4
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|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= I'm sure Dennis the Menace has a hate-hate relationship with school, but the nature of it is relevant when considering these booksThe fact he goes at all is the cause for them in the first place – he [[The Diary of Dennis the Menace by Steven Butler|originally]] was tasked with writing a journal as homework, and turned it into a menacing manual for us, his readers.  But if he paid attention there he might realise £1,000 is not quite enough to build his own, self-aggrandising theme park, even if he manages to employ the bummy, booky, wimpy types behind the scenesThe grand sum is what Dennis intends to win when The Fame Factor TV talent show hits townThat, as we can easily foretell, is going to be very menacingly interesting, but that's not the site of the titular carnage – for that we have to rely on an unusual sleep-over…
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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>0141355840</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Cheeky Charlie
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|author=Judith Eagle
|author=Mat Waugh
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
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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?
''My book is about all the naughty things that my brother Charlie has done. Some of it is funny, some of it is a bit sad, and lots of it is disgusting, because that's what Charlie can be. It might even make you be sick, so get ready.''
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|isbn=0571363148
 
 
You know what? That's about the size of it. After Harry has introduced herself - she's almost seven years old, she doesn't like her freckles, she's used to people thinking that someone called Harry ought to be a boy, and she has a younger brother, who is three and called Charlie. This is Harry's book about Charlie. Charlie is a cheeky chappie. He never shuts up. He likes to push his luck. And, having pushed his luck once, he likes to push it again. And again. And again. This is much to Harry's exasperation, as she explains by dint of a book full of anecdotes... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1508910510</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Rachel Renee Russell
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|title=Dork Diaries: Once Upon a Dork (Book 8)
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|title=Nowhere Island
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is wishing you had a fairytale relationship, and/or having the chance to change your life drastically – and then there is being able to see what would actually happen if either wish came trueNikki wakes up on a typical school day with a hellish start – no alarm clock, due to her younger sister, sandwich all over her jumper, again due to her younger sister, and so on, and so she can only wish for something to take her out of it and give her a dollop of fantasyThat something is dodgeball, which bangs her on the head so much she wakes up in a sheer fantasy world, where her BFFs are Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood, the world is peopled by other folk from school, but her hunky friend Brandon is still Prince Charming, and her enemy Mackenzie Hollister is still able to make her life hell…
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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 futureThat 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 seclusionThem, 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147114383X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1804540080
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lincoln Peirce
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|author=Helen Peters
|title=Big Nate Lives It Up (Big Nate, Book 7)
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|rating=4.5
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|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Life at school might actually be interesting for Big Nate, for onceEven if the building is so old it's falling down, an ancient student's journal much like his has been discovered, peppered with a girl's cartoons from a long, long time ago – proving even he can have a connection with something a century old(And I don't mean the connection made when bits of the place actually fall onto his head.) Unfortunately for Nate, another connection has been forced on him – he has had to buddy up with the new boy in class''He's new, dorky, and has a name that sounds like a British boarding school'', we're told.  But what exactly is it about Breckenridge Puffington III that gives Nate a strong sense of déjà vu…?
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|summary=England, WW2Two 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-pathsThe 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 soBut something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'unMidnight 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>0007581270</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Stref
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|author=Jamie Littler
|title=J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan: The Graphic Novel
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|title=Arkspire
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Here's a quiz question for you – despite the uniform seventy year copyright rule, which work has been the sole recipient of an endless extension of it, courtesy of an ex-Prime Minister?  The answer is obvious now at least, as this is one such volumeIt's a very readable and pleasant variant on J M Barrie's original stage version and novel regarding Peter Pan, which of course helps and always will now help the Great Ormond Street Children's HospitalAnd for a boy who never grows up, at 111 years old he's in spritely good health.
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|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese.  Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands.  Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warBeing trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole familyBut in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780272901</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Helen Moss
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|isbn=024162343X
|title= Secrets of the Tombs 2: The Dragon Path
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|title=Stolen History
|rating= 5
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|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|genre= Confident Readers
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|rating=5
|summary= They don't actually intend to have an adventure: quite the opposite, in fact. As far as fifteen-year-old Ryan and his friend Cleo are concerned, being chased by bad guys and falling down deep holes is seriously over-rated. But they're on their way to China with their parents anyway, so they can hardly refuse when Cleo's grandmother asks them to put a jade bracelet she's had for eighty years back where it belongs. Where's the harm?
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444010417</amazonuk>
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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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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kjartan Poskitt and Philip Reeve
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|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Borgon the Axeboy and the Whispering Temple (Borgon the Axeboy 3)
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|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''The middle's nice and crunchy but the squishy bits are horrible.''  No, that's not a predator in prehistoric times discussing the eating of us humansInstead, it's Borgon the Axeboy's mother, discussing peachesYes, even in a world where a lot of nasty animals are still around to potentially eat the likes of Borgon, there are still things for people to learnBorgon for one, in this third adventure in the series, has a lot to learn about religion he scoffs at the idea there's a god resident in a temple he and his friends have discovered, even if his friend Hunjah insists otherwiseThe lesson is forced and the truth comes out, however, when some thieves turn up, having pegged the site as a location of many earthly riches…
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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 nuisanceBut just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changesSuddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake)Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from usAnd so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057130737X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=178845295X
 
}}
 
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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Dead End Kids: Heroes of the Blitz
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|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|author=Bernard Ashley
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|title=Finding Bear
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's London in 1940. Most of the men have been conscripted and the East End is populated mainly by women and children. Josie and her friends are carrying on much as usual, though, grouping into little gangs and arguing over turf via mud fights along the Thames. But then comes a terrible night of bombing. It's the start of the Blitz and 57 consecutive nights of bombing for the East End. The fire service is stretched way beyond its capacity and the lucky ones make it out of the shelters in the morning, while the unlucky ones don't see another sunrise.
+
|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear.  Back home, things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408338955</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Emma Carroll
+
|author=Simon Fox
|title=In Darkling Wood
+
|title=Deadlock
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=1839944420
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Cath Howe
 +
|title=My Life on Fire
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In the early hours of the morning Alice’s mum receives the phone call they have been waiting for. The long awaited heart transplant that may save her sick brother, Theo’s, life is now possible. Alice finds herself sent to stay with a grandmother she doesn’t know, miles away from her friends and the life she knows. There is no TV, no phone signal and no internet but Alice feels drawn to the mysterious Darkling Wood surrounding the house despite her grandmother’s wish to have it chopped down. Meanwhile back in 1918 a young girl desperately waits for news of her brother’s safe return from the front. Her mother doesn’t like her playing in the nearby wood but it is there that she discovers secrets and magic that give her hope for the future.
+
|summary=Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things.  Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already.  But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057131757X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Potion Diaries
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|author=Amy Alward
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=
 
Samantha is a mixer of potions extraordinaire. Which is just as well, because someone has to save a princess who has fallen in love with herself. Yes, you heard right! You might not think this is the most enormous problem - princesses are so spoiled and pampered, is it any wonder they fall in love with themselves? But this isn't what's happened. Princess Evelyn has taken a love potion meant to make someone else fall in love with ''her''. And the resulting havoc caused by the wrong person taking the right potion leads to some very unstable magic that could threaten the very kingdom itself.
 
 
Hence the ''Wilde Hunt'', a national quest to find the ingredients for a cure.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471143562</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Thirteen Days of Midnight
 
|author=Leo Hunt
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Luke Manchett really isn't that upset when he gets the news that his father has died. You might think that's a tad harsh, but Luke has been estranged from his father for years. His primary concern is his mother, who is disabled by crushing cluster headaches. So, rather than worry her, Luke heads off to a lawyer's office to deal with the reading of his father's will by himself. And he gets a shock. Luke's inheritance adds up to six million dollars. SIX MILLION!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408337460</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Dougherty and David Tazzyman (illustrator)
 
|title=Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face and the Bees of Stupidity
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We've been here before.  The lovely children whose name is in the title of all these books – handy when they make time to try and check if they're in this one or not – are woken up in a ridiculous way by a blackbird making his usual cameo.  The Army of Great Kerfuffle is asleep – all single cat of it.  The King is wearing a badge that allows him to pretend to not be the King – this time he's thinking of keeping bees, although he has four animals that go 'quack' in a hive instead.  Oh yeah, and the evil badgers are in prison having been naughty. But they will never follow the pattern and be evil and naughty and break out in order to be eviller and more naughty, will they?
+
|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>0192742736</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Julian Sedgwick
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|title=Ghosts of Shanghai
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Shanghai, 1926.  The city is heavily divided between the natural, national areas, and the enclaves of the foreigners Russian, French, American, BritishSeveral of the younger international youths have formed the Ghost Society gang, after the principal character, Ruby, found another divide cleaving Shanghai in two – that between the living and the dead, the 'real world' and the OtherworldHer brother dead, she seemed to become the conduit for a poltergeist in her apartment, and recently the gang have even managed to lock a spirit into a bottle and cast it down a well.  But the gang is immediately falling apart – the lad she loves, Charlie, and his sister are diverting themselves from, or have been warned off, any further such activity. Rose knows she has to find the source of the problem – and cross any untold divides in her city to find the truth…
+
|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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444923900</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus and Sean Murray
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|title=Trollhunters
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=West Coast USA in the 1960s, and the city is wracked and wrecked by a slew of missing children reportsThe parents with their new anguishes, and new rules against playing out after dark, have no idea of the horrors in their vicinity – literally under their feet lies a city of trolls, guilty of snatching the children.  Last to go, Jack Sturgess.  Cue the modern era and Jack's younger, now grown-up brother Jim, and Jim Jr live a sheltered life in the most barricaded and secure home imaginable, and Jim Jr's life is as exciting as you'd expect. Unfortunately, however, the trolls are about to make a return to their nastiest of ways – and their intentions are a lot more surprising than Jim Jr could ever predict…
+
|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 itShe also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for 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>1471405192</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Caroline Lawrence
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title= The Case of the Bogus Detective
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|summary= Howdy folks! Welcome to Virginia City, bustling and busy home to prospectors, dancing girls, lawyers, gamblers and newspapermen. It's 1862, and our twelve-year-old pal Pinky is continuing the quest to become a successful detective and eventually join Uncle Allan in the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago. But for the moment there's so much crime right here in Nevada, thanks to the untold wealth being found daily in the nearby silver mines, that Pinky and financial partner Ping are soon busy day and night, chasing desperados, solving crimes and righting all manner of wrongs.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444010336</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ali Sparkes
 
|title=Car-Jacked
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers  
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A boy genius who speaks Mandarin and Latin and a criminal who’s just robbed a bank and stolen a car: it’s an unusual pairing but, it turns out, a perfect team. ‘‘Car-Jacked’’ leads us through the twists and turns of 12-year old Jack’s adventure when his parents’ car is hi-jacked with Jack still inside.
+
|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 placeBut 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 maintainThe 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>019273346X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Joan Aiken and Quentin Blake
 
|title=Arabel’s Raven
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=For Sharing
 
|summary=It’s been many, many years since I first met Arabel and her pet raven, Mortimer, whilst watching Jackanory on children’s televisionBernard Cribbins used to read the stories, and they became firm favourites of mineHere I am returning to the first book in the series, well, just a handful of years later, and the story has lost none of its charm.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806910</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Philip Caveney
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title= One For Sorrow
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|summary= You'd think, wouldn't you, that Tom Afflick would move heaven and earth to avoid leaving Manchester to go to Edinburgh: on his last two visits there he ended up tumbling into the past, where he met all manner of scary folk. But parents tend to be pretty determined to get their own way about such things, and no way are they going to swallow some mad tale about him being chased by plague doctors and other assorted murderers. So, off he has to go, and yes – he's barely set foot in ''Auld Reekie'' when he's time travelling again, in a wondrous mix of drama, real live people and deadly peril.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905916957</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dave Cousins
 
|title=Charlie Merrick's Misfits in I'm a Nobody, Get Me Out of Here!
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What is that saying, about the best laid plans of mice and misfits gang aft agley? Charlie and his fondly thought of friends in the soccer squad we met [[Charlie Merrick's Misfits in Fouls, Friends, and Football by Dave Cousins|last time]] are hoping for a simple trip to a summer camp for a week's educative training.  But no, their dopey manager has booked them in to a survival camp by mistakeInstead of hitting the back of the net they're building tarpaulin sheltersThey can't set any watching footie-heads ablaze, for they have to spark their own fires at nightThey can still score, however, as there's a points-based competition to hand, but now that Charlie has dropped his team in the proverbial, they're once more really up against it…
+
|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 existedFor many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footageThe crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join inDare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192738232</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=John McNally
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|title=The Forbidden City (Infinity Drake, Book 2)
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
 +
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=
+
|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.
Finn may be only 9mm tall and still a teenager, but he's already saved the world once. Accidentally shrunk by his mad scientist Uncle Al, he joined a crack military team and helped foil the threat of a lethal bio-weapon, the Scarlatti wasp. But there's no let-up for Finn. Before Al can restore him to normal size, a new threat emerges.
+
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007521650</amazonuk>
+
''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?
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Tom Palmer
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|title=Rugby Academy: Deadlocked
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary=It's the third story in the ''Rugby Academy'' series and so far we've heard from Woody in [[Rugby Academy: Combat Zone by Tom Palmer|Combat Zone]] and Rory in [[Rugby Academy: Surface to Air by Tom Palmer|Surface to Air]]In this, the final book in this brilliant series, we hear from OwenWe left the team at the end of ''Surface to Air'' when Borderlands had got through to the World Championship in New ZealandDespite the elation of doing so Owen isn't entirely comfortable with Jesse, the team captain.  He has no doubts that he was a brilliant player - the best on the team - but he can't respect him as a person.
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksHis father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy CooperBut sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to beAnd when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781123993</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1444960261
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=E L Konigsburg
 
|title=From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Eleven-year-old Claudia Kincaid is tired of being taken for granted. As the oldest of four children, she suffers many an injustice, and the interplay of school and home life is becoming monotonous. She decides to run away from her home in Greenwich, Connecticut to live in the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art. Middle brother Jamie, 9, is her chosen companion, not least because he can fund their venture. By cheating his friend Bruce at card games, Jamie has accumulated more than $24 – which, in 1967 when this classic children's novel first appeared, was not an insignificant amount.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690719</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

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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

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

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

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

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Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

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

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Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

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

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Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

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

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Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

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

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Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

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

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Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

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

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Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

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

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Review of

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

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

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Review of

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

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

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

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

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Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

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

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