Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"
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| + | {{newreview | ||
| + | |author=Chris O'Dowd and Nick Vincent Murphy | ||
| + | |title=Moone Boy 2: The Fish Detective | ||
| + | |rating=4 | ||
| + | |genre=Confident Readers | ||
| + | |summary=Christmas is coming, and Martin Moone's family are on a strict budget. Placed in charge of finding the family a Christmas tree Martin, actually, is more worried about how he'll ever manage to get a Game Boy. He decides to get himself a job but of course, being Martin, he can't get himself the usual paper round. No, Martin Moone becomes a butcher's boy! | ||
| + | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447270975</amazonuk> | ||
| + | }} | ||
{{newreview | {{newreview | ||
|author=Eoin Colfer and Victor Ambrus | |author=Eoin Colfer and Victor Ambrus | ||
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|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 there. Three 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 things. The 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… | |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 there. Three 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 things. The 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… | ||
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690875</amazonuk> | |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690875</amazonuk> | ||
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Revision as of 13:36, 27 October 2015
Moone Boy 2: The Fish Detective by Chris O'Dowd and Nick Vincent Murphy
Christmas is coming, and Martin Moone's family are on a strict budget. Placed in charge of finding the family a Christmas tree Martin, actually, is more worried about how he'll ever manage to get a Game Boy. He decides to get himself a job but of course, being Martin, he can't get himself the usual paper round. No, Martin Moone becomes a butcher's boy! Full review...
The Seal's Fate (Colour Conker) by Eoin Colfer and Victor Ambrus
Bobby Parrish was reluctant to admit that the seal was cute, even to himself. That sort of thing was for girls and he was here to club the seal. Seals were affecting his father's livelihood as a fisherman and there was a bounty of a £1 for a seal's flipper: in those days that was good money and even one of the girls had collected the cash. Still, somehow he couldn't quite bring himself to attack the defenceless cub, all big, black, round eyes and obviously unworried by his presence. What would the other lads say though? More to the point, what would his father say? Full review...
Clare and Her Captain (Colour Conker) by Michael Morpurgo and Catherine Rayner
Clare didn't enjoy the journey down to Devon. Her parents always argued and it was usually because Mum had lost her way or got caught in a traffic jam and this time she'd done both. It was a little better when they got to Aunt Dora's house, but Aunt Dora wasn't exactly a peacemaker and tended to stick up for Dad against everybody else. The holiday improved when Clare got out for a walk on her own and discovered a stray lamb on the road. She took it to the nearest house and Mr Jones was delighted: Clare had just saved half his flock. Clare got on with the old man - and with his horse, Captain. Full review...
Doctor Who: The Dangerous Book of Monsters by Justin Richards and Dan Green
It's imperative you keep up with The Doctor, in both senses – meaning in case the first thing he tells you to do is Run! and in the sense of following all his various adventures and maintaining knowledge of what's what and who he's faced, enemy-wise. One great way to be enemy wise is to peruse this book, which really is a great present for the young fan – and of course a life-saving manual for when you yourself find sharks in the fog, gas-mask wearing boys sans their mothers or indeed gigantic Cyberking dreadnought spacecraft. Honestly, why this is classed as a fiction title I have no idea… Full review...
Puppy Love (Dork Diaries) by Rachel Renee Russell
Things have changed drastically in the world of Nikki Maxwell. Her arch nemesis has suddenly upped sticks and moved school – well, the posher place will only suit her well. Nikki now has a sort of empty feeling, though – nobody is there to make her feel pestered, let down, het up and stressed. Although something is about to do just that and more – the discovery, outside the sanctuary her crush volunteers at, of an abandoned mother dog with her seven puppies. Looking after them until the place even has space for the new arrivals is going to fill her world for the next few days – and the adventure is going to be just as readable as all the other books in this series. Full review...
A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig
Have you ever wondered what Father Christmas was like as boy? How he came to live in the Far North surrounded by elves? Where the idea for giving presents came from? Why he wears a red hat? If you're interested in any of these questions, then 'A Boy Called Christmas' is the perfect book for you. Full review...
The Winter Place by Alexander Yates
Axel and Tess live in rural New York state with a father obsessed with mediaeval reconstructions. They have a knight for a father! This eccentricity is both entertaining and a good thing - because Sam is the only parental figure in their lives. Axel and Tess's mother died when Axel was born. Tess is just moving into oppositional adolescence. She and Sam enjoy sparring over the care of Axel, who has inherited a rare form of muscular dystrophy from his late mother. Axel is, well, an individual child, currently haunted by a mischievous wheelchair only he can see. The pesky thing follows him everywhere. Full review...
The Iron Man by Ted Hughes and Andrew Davidson
Where had he come from? Nobody knows. But's it obvious when the Iron Man came from – it really does smack of the beginnings of the environmental movement in the two decades after WWII. There's the nuclear element to the story, which is certainly there, even if I can never be sure whether that is the title character or the other one that turns up for the second half. But at the same time, there is also the idea that such a book doesn't really need to be analysed, explained away and diminished thusly, when it provides some of the most enjoyable, clear and simple yet highly emotive writing for the young audience, that has made it a classic since its inception. Full review...
Catlantis by Anna Starobinets, Andrzej Klimowski and Jane Bugaeva (translator)
Meet Baguette. Despite the name, he's a cat living in central Moscow, with a human family, on the twelfth floor of a high-rise. His place to perch is somehow between the two panes that make up a high window, half in and half out of the room, watching the world and its birds go by. But there's a part to that world he knows nothing about – the whole mythology of cats and catlife. Cats had possession of their own land, Catlantis, a place suitable for such sacred creatures to exist. Flowers gave them extra lives, up to a maximum of nine, just by you sniffing them. But all that is in the past – and that's where Baguette must go, for the whole future of catdom hangs in the balance of him going back to right wrongs, and find what was long forgotten about both his and everyone else's destiny. And all he wants is the paw of his sweetheart in marriage. You might think you know the lengths to which a cat will go for love, but you won't have read the likes of this… Full review...
Stampy's Lovely Book by Joseph Garrett
If you still think of Stampy as the elephant in The Simpsons, you need to get with it. For one thing, TV is so last century – now it's all about Minecraft and other computer game worlds, and often second-screening between different new media at the same time. So why does this book from a Youtube star of Minecraft tasks, pranks and other activities, remind me of a certain TV programme that used to invite us to turn off and do something more active instead? Full review...
Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
The book opens with a prologue about an eight year old Bridget Barsamian, who woke up in hospital following a horrific and life threatening traffic accident involving roller skates and New York traffic. Bridget is told by a nurse that she is lucky to be alive and that she must have survived the accident for a reason. Bridget, who has no real memory of the accident, has to miss a year of school and on her return, tells everyone she now wants to be known as Bridge, as, I don't feel like Bridget anymore. Full review...
The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, Lucie Arnoux and Misha Hoekstra (translator)
Listen closely! We're about to begin. Once upon a time, the devil created a hellish mirror, which only showed evil, ill intent and ugliness, and which was en route to Heaven to cast a new light on it when it shattered. One of the people affected by the numerous shards was Kai, who abandoned his childhood friend Gerda, and went off with the Snow Queen. Gerda was forlorn and fearing for his life, but soon found her way to start a miraculous journey to find the truth behind his disappearance and behaviour… Full review...
Lockwood and Co: The Hollow Boy by Jonathan Stroud
The adults are baffled (as usual) and only Lockwood, George and Lucy can save London from the murderous ghosts. But it won't be easy: as the smallest agency of licenced psychic investigators in the capital no one is willing to listen to them, and besides, they have their own problems. A new member of the team, secrets that threaten to destroy friendships, and the sheer exhaustion that comes from trying to deal with too many hauntings – it surely can't be long before something has to give? Full review...
The Tapper Twins Tear up New York by Geoff Rodkey
If you didn't last time, meet the Tapper Twins, Claudia and Reese. They're in sixth grade at a posh New York City school, and are just trying to get on with things – while making no attempt whatsoever at getting on with each other. This time round, Claudia was instantly sniffy at her brother's idea declared to her on a school bus, just because it was his, but soon realised how great it could be – to host a school charity treasure hunt for gangs of four fellow pupils. With a great prize on offer she bows down from organising it and takes part, against her brother and everyone else – and that's when the problems start. It's not as frightening as the tabloids make out, she assures us – but let's face it, there's high drama, celebrity, greed, urgency – and those pesky adults, all making the smooth running of things most unlikely… Full review...
The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne
Meet Pierrot. As a very young child in 1930s Paris he is going to have a very awkward journey through his young life. His father is a violent drunk, reacting badly to what he saw in WWI, and although married to a French woman, is still staunchly German. That woman, Emilie, is going to die, and leave Pierrot an orphan, which will leave him in a home where he is bullied. But from the reaches of Europe and from the black corners of his family comes an aunt, Beatrix, who will give him a home, of a kind, at a most unusual mountaintop building. It's not her home – she just works there and had to ask special permission from someone special. The place? The Berghof. Full review...
The Spirit of London by Rob Keeley
Ellie, Charlie and Mum have left Inchwood Manor and are headed home to London, where Mum's latest Journeyback project is renovating an old 18th century house, 47 Foster Square. But it's not quite home to London. They're not returning to their old house but to another tiny, cramped flat. When asked why, all Mum will say is, "Ask your father." Full review...
The World of Norm: 9: May Still Be Charged by Jonathan Meres
If you ever wondered what Harry Enfield's Kevin going UUH, that's SO unFAIR!! but stretched to the length of a book sounds like then wonder no longer. Norm is only twelve but he already knows life is completely unfair. He has a horrid girl next door who annoyingly wants to spend time talking with him, he has two awful younger brothers, he has school, and he has a world of parents and adults around him all wittering on in the most weird, antique phrasing. They don't help him understand the world at all, just lay all the world's problems on his shoulders and move on. This morning in concern, for instance, Norm has hardly moved at all – he's still in bed when he's been grounded. His parents have looked up his phone bill online, and it's rather long. As long as Norm's entire list of woes, perhaps – and therefore is just one more thing that's a burden. And as life is so unfair, the only way out is to wait for his parents to decide between him paying them back or grounding him for a month – until something even worse, more unwelcome and more unfair gets mentioned… Full review...
Goth Girl and the Wuthering Fright by Chris Riddell
Goth Girl and the rest of the Attic Club are not having the best of times. Ada's best friend is at school, while that girl's father Charles Cabbage tries to build a computer – with the weird help of three monkeys to fetch and carry his research volumes. Ruby is so anxious it's left to Ada to care for and cater for her and not the other way round, so frightened is she by the hauntings in the gothic pile they call home. And others are being bullied. So even though there are newcomers of the same age to the place, things need perking up. So what better time for Ada's father to hold a literary dog show – bringing the country's finest authors and their pooches to parade in contest for a respected audience? Full review...
Diary of a Time Traveller by David Long and Nicholas Stevenson
With the usual complaint that 'History is Boring!', Augustus slumps over his school desk – until his teacher, a certain Professor Tempo, comes to his aid. She gives him a notebook and yellow pencil and says he should imagine himself in a place in the past to see how interesting it actually could be. And lo and behold he's there, seeing the world of the past's effect on the world of the present for his very own eyes. He ends up doing this more than a couple dozen times, filling the notebook with amazing sights he's seen and people he's stood alongside, from Mozart to Einstein, from Chaucer to Lincoln, and what we read is what he comes up with in this brisk and colourful volume. Full review...
Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie by Jeff Norton
Adam is twelve. He has a crush on Corina who's in his class at school, he likes collecting things, and he has early onset Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which means he would rather wear purple spandex and dance the Macarena right down Main Street than go within five miles of a germ. He frets about a lot of things, actually: if worrying was an Olympic event, he'd get the gold, every time. Other than that, things are pretty okay. He has normal, loving parents (apart from the fact they still insist on going to SMOOCH concerts), a small group of friends who share his interest in comics and video games, and a standard-issue irritating sister. Nothing weird there, then. Nothing but the fact that he's been dead for three months. Full review...
Meet at the Ark at Eight! by Ulrich Hub, Jorg Muhle and Helena Ragg-Kirkby (translator)
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 there. Three 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 things. The 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… Full review...
