Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
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{{newreview
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|author= Ali Benjamin
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{{Frontpage
|title= The Thing About Jellyfish
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|author=Rob Keeley
|rating= 4.5
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|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|genre= Confident Readers
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|rating=4
|summary= Ali Benjamin describes her accomplished debut novel as a work where ''despair and wonder come together''. When we first meet Suzy she cannot speak after a traumatic incident. Her family is struggling to cope with her silence and she is averse to the therapy of 'Dr Legs'. It is only through her flashback sequences, written in italics, and her passion for a science report that the reader comes to know her and sympathise with her suffering. Suzy is experiencing a cauldron of emotions including grief, guilt, denial and a tumultuous desperation to discover what she perceives to be the truth. It is this zeal which makes her refuse to believe her mother's explanation that ''sometimes things just happen'' and fanatically pursue her own ''best educated guess.''
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|genre=Confident Readers
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447292995</amazonuk>
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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
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Sara Pennypacker
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|author=Max Boucherat
|title= Pax
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|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating= 5
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|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Young readers will be well aware of the horrors of war. It kills people, destroys families and homes, creates waves of desperate refugees and devastates the landscape. But there's one aspect of fighting which, apart from a few notable exceptions, isn't often touched upon – the fate of animals caught up in conflicts. We know a little about horses participating in cavalry charges, and homing pigeons carrying messages, but what about those animals which live in the wild? And worse still, what about all those well-loved pets which can no longer be fed or protected by owners close to starvation themselves?
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|summary=We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky.  For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008124094</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Harriet Whitehorn and Becka  Moor
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|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|title=Violet and the Smugglers
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|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating= 4
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|rating=4
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Violet's godfather has inherited a sailing boat and invites Violet and her family and friends to join him on a sailing adventure in the Mediterranean. How could Violet possibly say no? This turns out not to be quite as relaxing as you may imagine. It is not long before our heroine has suspicions about the captain of another boat and Violet's detective skills are needed again. With the help of her friends, Rose and Art, Violet is determined to solve the mystery. Will she be able to put a stop to a dangerous smuggling ring?  
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|summary=Meet Kit.  Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed.  Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471122638</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Julian Sedgwick
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|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title=Shadow of the Yangtze (Ghosts of Shanghai)
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|title=Planet Storyland
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=And so we're back with Ruby and Charlie, in war-torn China in the late 1920s. Without giving anything of [[Ghosts of Shanghai by Julian Sedgwick|the first book]] away, a rescue mission is needed, and the help Ruby has had in the spirit world may well not appear. Charlie knows who would help – the Communists, but for Ruby, even though she was born in China she's definitely an outsider, an alien.  With their quarry sailing off upstream amidst a storm of warfare, the friends have to take to the Yangtze waterways in pursuit – but just as in every corner of the mysterious city they're leaving, things quite strange to them will be appearing – shadow warriors, weaponised trains and ghost ships amongst them…
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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>1444924494</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Frank Cottrell Boyce
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|author=Tom Percival
|title=Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth
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|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=4.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sputnik Mellows set himself a mission – to discover whether Earth exists. Now he's found it, he needs to prove it ''should'' exist and, to do this, he enlists the help of schoolboy Prez Mellows. Together they need to find ten things that will justify Earth's existence. If they fail to do this by the end of the summer holidays, Earth will be shrunk by Planetary Clearance as part of the pan-galactic decluttering programme.
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|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident.  Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230771378</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Philip Caveney
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|isbn=1805141872
|title= The Calling
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|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|rating= 5
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|author=Rob Keeley
|genre= Confident Readers
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|rating=4.5
|summary= Well-informed young readers will always welcome a new book from the extremely gifted Philip Caveney. This time, he places his poor hero right in the middle of not one but two mysteries. Firstly, why has said hero (we'll call him Ed as he's forgotten his real name) woken up on a train to Edinburgh with barely any money, a bump on the head and no memory whatsoever? And secondly, why does the whole human world freeze for a day right in the middle of the Fringe? The answers, when they come, are as intensely thrilling as they are wildly imaginative.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905916086</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Robin Stevens
 
|title=Jolly Foul Play
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In the fourth adventure in the Murder Most Unladylike series, we return to the setting of the first book Deepdean School for Girls. But things have changed. For the first time a Head Girl has been elected and Elizabeth Hurst didn't get the position based on popularity. Instead, she manipulated and blackmailed her peers and, supported by her five prefects, she's now terrorising the school. Responsible for so much misery, its little wonder everyone wishes Elizabeth dead. But someone has gone one step further – committing a murder and presenting it as an accident. None of the adults even suspect 'foul play' so it's up to Daisy, Hazel and their Detective Society to uncover the truth.
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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>0141369698</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
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=S E Durrant
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|author=Christopher Edge
|title=Little Bits of Sky
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|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''I've put this story together from the diaries I kept when Zac and I were children. I wrote them in the hope that life would get better for the small unloved girl that was me, and my even smaller unloved brother. And if life didn't get better or at least more interesting I was going to make it up - to put witches and castles and rides in fast cars. But I didn't need to. Life got exciting all by itself...''
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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>0857633996</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Elizabeth Schaefer and Brian Rood
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|author=Adam Stower
|title=Star Wars The Force Awakens Illustrated Storybook
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|title=Murray and Bun
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…  Well, ours, last year, really…  A film came along that seriously impressed lots of mature audience members who had very valid reasons to doubt it, and that made goggle-eyed popcorn munchers of a lot of youngsters.  It had rollicking spacecraft dog-fights, it had emotional revisits for well-loved characters, and had a sting in its tail that lasted at least a couple of days before being leaked to the wider worldI know there is a DVD and Blu-Ray of it coming within days of me writing this, but I can only assume the reason the junior books about the film are being released now and not in time with its cinematic release is down to the chatter of the young and their rampant ability to say what they shouldn't – which includes what happens about eighteen pages before the end of the story here.
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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 twoBut he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs.  This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405284021</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michael Kogge
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|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|title=Star Wars The Force Awakens Novel
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|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Actually, it was any place on this planet you care to mentionAdults took their children along to see a proper time machine – one that would take the parents back to a future-seeming science fantasy action film, and would transport children to an ideal place where derring-do did, where spacecraft never bothered with taking fourteen parsecs to do the Kessel Run when they could do it in twelve, and where high-octane action was to be hadThe time machine was called The Force Awakens, the seventh film in the enduring series.  But when they got home there were no books suitable for the young readers to use to engage with what they'd just seen.  The Alan Dean Foster adaptation of the script was for adults it was a lot longer and more wordy than they were used to.  They had to wait months for a book telling the story their way.  But now it’s arrived.
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|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the 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>1405283939</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Tony Bradman and Tom Morgan-Jones
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|author=Helen Cooper
|title= The Boy and the Globe
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|title=The Taming of the Cat
|rating= 4
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|rating=3.5
|genre= Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= This lively and enjoyable story is set in early seventeenth century London where young orphan Toby Cuffe is living on the streets where life is hard. In order to survive, the resourceful Toby joins the gang of boys who work for Moll Cut-Purse as thieves. Moll sends Toby to the Globe Theatre to do some pickpocketing where Toby becomes so engrossed in the play being performed that he forgets about his own safety. Caught by the theatre's owners Toby meets the writer of the play he has just seen performed, the famous playwright William Shakespeare. Then our young hero is given an opportunity that he had not expected. Toby is full of enthusiasm for the theatre and rekindles the Bard's enthusiasm too so that together they team up to save the threatened theatre.
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|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with.  They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out.  It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781125031</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Paul Tobin
+
|author=Lauren St John
|title=The Genius Factor: How to Capture an Invisible Cat
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|title=Finding Wonder
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Delphine is quite a normal 6th grader, if with a few eccentric traits. She has dozens of friends, argues with her siblings, misbehaves in class but not too much, disobeys her parents but not too seriously, and earns extra pocket money by dog-walking. She spends this money on cake. Mostly. Nate is not like Delphine. He has no friends and mostly goes under the radar of 6th grade society. But Delphine has noticed him and for good reason: Nate is a genius. He's so clever that he's even been studied by foreign academics. Not that this gains him much currency with his peers.
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|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult.  Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames!  Poor Roo!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408869977</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kim Slater
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|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=A Seven-Letter Word
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|title=Oscar's Lion
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Finlay has got more than one PROBLEM.  He lives alone with his father, who chain-smokes in between trips out to do odd jobs for people, and seems to have reduced his worth to just one recipe since his wife, Finlay's mother, vanished two years agoThings are still bitter with him he says she might as well be dead – but the issue manifests itself badly with Finlay, and he has grown into suffering quite a severe STUTTER, which leads to no end of TEASING at schoolHis one way out, it seems, is for a change an eight-letter word, SCRABBLE – he can hide away from the mismanagement of words that his speaking implies he has over a set of tiles and can play a decent gameBut what happens when he is contacted online by a mysterious Alex – is this possibly a way to combine his love of the word game with his quest for the truth about his mother's ABSENCE?
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|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school.  But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two 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 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>150980112X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0008596751
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Luis Sepulveda, Satoshi Kitamura and Margaret Sayers Peden (translator)
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|author=Judith Eagle
|title=The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly
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|title=The Stolen Songbird
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In the world of this book, danger brings people together, but adversity brings them together even more firmlyOn the one hand we have Zorba, the big fat black cat, who was once swallowed by a pelican as a kitten, and now has been abandoned – well, temporarily, as his human child owner is away for a long timeBut we also have a seagull, busy fishing when the alarm rings out and therefore left alone to be swamped by an oil slickTrying to take her last flight, she crashlands on Zorba's balcony, and promptly delivers an egg – and with her dying breath procures the promise of the cat to look after the hatchling until Zorba can teach it to fly. But surely a lesson in flight from a cat is beyond even the binds of adversity?
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|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missingHer other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is 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 worriedAll her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there tooBut 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>1846884004</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0571363148
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=A A Milne and E H Shepard
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|author=Tania Unsworth
|title=Eeyore Loses a Tail (Winnie the Pooh Classics)
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|title=Nowhere Island
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Eeyore, the Old Grey Donkey stood in the thistly corner of the forest and thought about things.  He was quite a philosopher in his own way, but his most profound thought occured when Winnie-the-Pooh came along and enquired as to how he was.
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|summary=Meet Gil.  Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself.  He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future.  That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfullyOver a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…
 
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|isbn=1804540080
''Not very how'', he said''I don't seem to have felt at all how for a long time.''
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405281359</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Julia Lee
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|author=Helen Peters
|title= Nancy Parker's Diary of Detection
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|title=Friends and Traitors
|rating= 4
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|rating=3
|genre= Confident Readers
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|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Nancy is a bit of a dreamer. At fourteen years old she's happy to leave school (although she never quite mastered the fine art of spelling) and finds herself as a lowly housemaid to the very modern Mrs Bryce– a far cry from her plan to star in the movies, solve mysteries or even, if the worst comes to the worst, work in a shop that sells interesting things.
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|summary=England, WW2.  Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook.  One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her.  The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so.  But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un.  Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192739387</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Katrina Charman
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|author=Jamie Littler
|title=The Home-Made Cat Cafe (Poppy's Place)
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|title=Arkspire
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Eleven year old Isla is cat crazy. She longs for a pet cat but her mum works as a veterinary nurse and has no desire to bring her work home with her. Luck, however, is on Isla's side when they find the cat sanctuary is full and Mum reluctantly agrees that unwanted cat – Poppy – can stay with them on a ''temporary'' basis. Only it turns out to be a little less than temporary and Poppy is soon joined by Roo, Benny and a litter of kittens. Isla's thrilled but she's going to have to do some quick thinking if she's going to persuade mum to let the cats stay.
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|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands.  Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war.  Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184715672X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Ross Montgomery
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|isbn=024162343X
|title=Perijee & Me
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|title=Stolen History
 +
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers  
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|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary= Forced to live on Middle Island with just her parents for company, Caitlin is lonely. The closest she's got to a friend is the grumpy fisherman, Frank, who takes her to school each day in his boat. But everything changes when Catlin finds a wriggling prawn on the beach and decides to keep it as a pet. Only it's not a prawn. It's soon the size and shape of a frog. By the next day it's the size and shape of a person and it keeps growing. And growing. What is it? Caitlin doesn't care – he's the friend she's always wanted.
+
|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school.  I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'.  Where was the proof?  In history lessons, it was probably worse still.  Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place.  Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely.  I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571317952</amazonuk>
+
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Thiago de Moraes
 +
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Meet Trixie.  Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance.  But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake).  Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us.  And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
 +
|isbn=178845295X
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
 +
|title=Finding Bear
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=0008582017
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Simon Fox
 +
|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
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman
+
|author=Cath Howe
|title=Kensuke's Kingdom
+
|title=My Life on Fire
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was on September 10, 1987 that Michael's life changed greatlyIt had once before then, when his parents get a letter, and will definitely change at least once after thenBut it is the middle change that perhaps most takes Michael out of his comfort zone – the lad keen to play football, even on the boggiest of pitches, the lad with his loving parents and with his love for Stella Artois (worry not, that's the dog) is suddenly taken and turned on his head, becoming a different child in a much different life.
+
|summary=Ren's family home is destroyed in a fireShe, her parents, and her little brother lose everythingShe 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>1405281790</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author= Rob Keeley
 +
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings.
 +
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Tina Nolan
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|title=Animal Rescue: The Unwanted Puppy
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Animal Magic'' is one of those places which just shouldn't be needed.  It's an animal rescue centre and they take in abandoned, lost and neglected animals, nurse them back to health and then find good homes for themIt's run by Mark and Heidi Harrison (Heidi's a vet) along with their two children, Karl and Eva, who live at the rescue centre along with their parentsThe centre has two rules - they never put any animal to sleep who has a chance of regaining health - and Karl and Eva are ''not'' to get the idea that they can keep any of the animals on a permanent basis. If they did the house would be overrun!
+
|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 worldDuring 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>1847156797</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=The Secret Life of Daisy Fitzjohn
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|author=Tania Unsworth
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Daisy Fitzjohn lives with her mother in the crumbling but grand Brightwood Hall. The house is full of antiques and treasures and hoardings - because Daisy's mother does like to hoard - and Daisy is rarely at a loss for something to look at or investigate. Which is just as well, because Daisy has never gone outside the house and its grounds. We understand why Daisy's mother keeps her secluded - she's terrified of loss because of a family tragedy in her own childhood. Despite this, Daisy has a loving relationship with her mum and makes up for the isolation by developing friendships: with her pet rat, with the peacocks and rabbits in the gardens, and also with paintings and topiary and other creatures of her imagination, all in the knowledge that she's being kept safe from The Crazy that once ran in her family.
+
|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>1444010263</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839943769
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Dave Rudden
+
|author=Natasha Farrant
|title=Knights of the Borrowed Dark
+
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
 +
|rating=5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|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.
 +
|isbn=0571348785
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
 +
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers  
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Denizen Hardwick has spent the last eleven years – since he was two – at Crosscaper orphanage. He knows nothing about his family and is, therefore, surprised when he's suddenly summoned to visit an Aunt he didn't know he had. This is, however, only the first of many surprises. Before he even arrives at his Aunt's house, Denizen's world is abruptly turned upside down as he's introduced to a hidden world of shadows and an unseen enemy in the form of the Tenebrae. He soon discovers he has hidden powers but is he prepared for the cost of using them? Is he prepared to join the Knights of the Borrowed Dark? Does he really have a choice?
+
|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>014135660X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Amber Lee Dodd
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|title=We Are Giants
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
 +
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers  
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Nine year old Sydney Goodrow is small for her age and she wants to stay that way. Her mum is only 124cm tall and her dad, when he was alive, wasn't much taller. Despite the challenges it can cause, Sydney knows that being little is special and that's why she tries hard with her regular 'shrinking exercises'. However, despite her best efforts, she can't help growing taller and growing up.
+
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind.  It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather.  He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784294217</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
|title=Eliza Rose
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|author=Lucy Worsley
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary=Eliza's family isn't as wealthy as it once was. And she is well aware that her duty is to marry well in order to repair the Camperdowne fortunes. To this end, Eliza is sent from her family home at Stoneton Castle to Trumpton Hall, to be educated in the ways of noble ladies. Here, she meets the infamous Katherine Howard while she too is still a young girl. And from there, it's on to the Tudor court of Henry VIII, who is currently married to Anne of Cleves.
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricks.  His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper.  But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408869438</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1444960261
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


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Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

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

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

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

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Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

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

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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

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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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