Newest Confident Readers Reviews
Confident readers
The Rainbow Orchid: Adventures of Julius Chancer 2 by Garen Ewing
Oh to be popular - and the rainbow orchid certainly is. If, in fact, it exists at all. A collecting challenge for rare plants might hinge on its recovery, imperial British explorers would like to know the truth about it - and its presence on some mysterious ancient carved tablets hints at some mystical part it may once have played in a superweapon. Hence, where this book starts, everyone - from a film starlet, to a dashing explorer's assistant, to a plucky aviator, to an evil henchwoman of an overweight industrialist - is after it. Full review...
Zelah Green: One More Little Problem by Vanessa Curtis
We first met Zelah when her OCD got so bad she was sent off to a live-in centre for treatment. She's at home now, with the OCD still around but not totally debilitating. She's still jumping on the stairs - but not so many jumps and not so often. She's still scrubbing her face, but it isn't quite red raw. You'd call her overly fastidious rather than ill. And her therapist is pleased with her progress. But then... Full review...
Laura Marlin Mysteries: Dead Man's Cove by Lauren St John
Laura has been in foster care since she was born, but Social Services have recently discovered that she has an uncle. So, at the beginning of this adventure mystery she finds herself moving to a house by the beach in Cornwall to live with Calvin Redfern, a man she has never met before. Laura's experiences have taught her to question everything, to be independent and to stand on her own two feet, so having an uncle who trusts her to be sensible, rather than lay down a list of rules, seems ideal. But Uncle Calvin and his house are shrouded in secrets. Why does he work such strange hours? Where does he go late at night? And why are there no signs of his past in the house? Full review...
Penguin Peril (The Secret Mermaid) by Sue Mongredien
Molly originally moved to the seaside so that her parents could live with her Gran who was getting old and needing help. There's a secret between Molly and her Gran though: Gran used to be a secret mermaid and now Molly is too. During the day Molly is an ordinary schoolgirl, but at night with the help of her magical shell necklace she becomes a mermaid and returns to the deeps to help the other mermaids when there's a problem. This tim it's the penguins who have mysteriously disappeared from the icy seas and the mermaids are concerned that the Dark Queen might be behind the troubles. Full review...
How Ali Ferguson Saved Houdini by Elen Caldecott
Elen Caldecott has done it again! Hard to believe she's managed another book as amusing and insightful as How Kirsty Jenkins Stole the Elephant, but here it is! Ali Ferguson has just moved into a new flat with his mum. He loves her very much, but he also misses his dad, who left them two years before. He desperately hopes his dad will come back to them one day from his travels in Asia: his mum is sure that will never happen. But Ali is a cheerful boy with a positive outlook on life, and he sees moving to their new home as an adventure. And it isn't long before he finds himself in a real-life mystery, every bit as engrossing and dangerous as the ones he loves to imagine. Full review...
Follyfoot by Monica Dickens
Follyfoot Farm is the home of the Colonel, his wife and her daughter Callie – along with the stable hands and rather a lot of unwanted, neglected or elderly horses. Some people paid for their horses to retire there but that was unusual and everyone lead a hand-to-mouth existence to give the horses the best life possible. Not everyone feels the same way about the horses though – or about the people who live and work at the farm – and along with looking after the horses the stable hands have to find out what's going on and why. Full review...
Magic Parcel: The Awakening by Frank English
Jimmy Scoggins is an ordinary boy of nine, who lives with his mother and his brother. He loves to visit his uncle Reuben, believing the old man must have special powers because he always knows exactly what type of ice cream Jimmy would like to eat that day. Reuben tells Jimmy thrilling tales, and at the beginning of this book actually sends his nephew into another world, called Omnia, for an adventure. Jimmy is not the first boy to go to there: his brother Tommy used to go too, but now he is thirteen he has stopped, feeling it is all rather babyish. But something has gone wrong this time: Jimmy does not return, and Tommy has to cross the barrier between worlds to find him. Full review...
Forest Born by Shannon Hale
Rinna is the youngest of seven children, and the only girl. As a child she lives an idyllic existence in the forest with her beloved Ma and a huge, loving family. But Rinna has gifts which she does not understand, and which frighten her because she senses in herself a terrible potential for evil. She loves her home deeply, but when the trees which once made her feel so peaceful appear to reject her, she is confused and unhappy to such a degree that she decides to leave the forest and join her favourite brother Razo at court in the city. This leads her into a cracking adventure full of magic, betrayal and terrifying peril. Full review...
The Cabinet of Curiosities by Paul Dowswell
When Lukas Declercq begins work as an apprentice to his uncle, a court physician to the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague, it's only after an absolutely hair-raising journey. Robbed at knifepoint and left naked and penniless, he fell in with a much more streetwise child, Etienne, who helped him blag his way across the country. Full review...
Bitter Chocolate by Sally Grindley
Pascal and Kojo are best friends in a place where friendship is scarce. The boys work on a cocoa plantation in West Africa, far from their families. It's brutal work overseen by brutal men and the boys labour from dawn 'til dusk, rewarded by beatings, a wooden pallet to sleep on, and a bowl of corn paste. They're always hungry and tired. Kojo tries to keep up his spirits, looking forward to the day he can take his wages home and make a difference to his family. But Pascal isn't so optimistic. He knows they'll never be paid, and he suspects they'll never be allowed to leave. He's probably right. Full review...
The Space Crime Conspiracy by Gareth P Jones
Thirteen-year-old Stanley Bound is an ordinary boy from south London who lives above a pub with his bad-tempered half-brother Doug. He is bullied at school, and the situation only gets worse when he discovers that the popular new boy Lance has been both lying and stealing. Lance gets his revenge by framing Stanley, and now no one trusts him, even his grumpy brother. Little wonder, then, that our sad and lonely hero dreams of travelling to distant places to escape his miserable life. But as we all know, that is a dangerous desire: Stanley should have remembered that people who get what they wish for often regret it. By the end of the book he has travelled the universe, been accused of murder, and met more bizarre characters than even his wildest dreams could have created. Full review...
The Hoozles: My Magical Teddy by Jessie Little
Willow and her brother Freddie have gone to stay in Summertown with their Aunt Suzy whilst their parents are away for the summer. Aunt Suzy owns a toy shop in town, and she makes her own special Hoozle soft toys. Willow and Freddie each have a Hoozle of their own that their Aunt made for them - Willow has Toby the teddy bear and Freddie has Wobbly the Lion. Willow loves Toby dearly, but it isn't until she is staying with her aunt that she discovers that Toby can come to life and talk to her and she can talk to him! And so begins a summer full of magical adventures for Willow and the Hoozles. Full review...
The Incredible Luck of Alfie Pluck by Jamie Rix
Poor Alfie Pluck. He lives with his two aunts who are grotesquely disgusting, and who call him their Household Drudge. They reminded me of some of Roald Dahl's most appalling creations. Compared to Alfie's aunts, Harry Potter's Dursley relatives are warm and friendly. Alfie is decidedly down on luck. Full review...
Magical Mischief by Anna Dale
Mr Hardbattle runs a dusty old bookshop where magic has moved in. Its smell puts customers off and it regularly causes chaos such as the books rearranging themselves of their own accord. But this bookseller is a nice man who doesn’t want to disturb the magic too much by getting out the vacuum cleaner, and on the whole they get used to each other. Now though, he is facing a huge rent increase. Enter two customers, young Arthur and Miss Quint, who agree to help him find a nice new home for the magic, and to help look after the shop while Mr Hardbattle travels to visit some people who have answered an advert offering the magic a new home. Full review...
Mistress of the Storm by Melanie Welsh
Verity Gallant is the oldest child in her family. She's rather plain and awkward, feels a bit like a social outcast at school, and stumbles along at home too where her beautiful, blonde, sweet little sister Poppy is obviously the favourite. One day Verity discovers a mysterious stranger in the library reading a strange book. He runs away when he sees her, taking the book with him, but Verity chases after him, following him down to the shore where he gets into a boat ready to row away. He gives the book to her when she challenges him, along with a mysterious round object. This seemingly innocuous event brings about huge changes in Verity's life. Having been ignorant about her family's history she begins to research about the gentry, with the help of her friends, and discovers skills and strengths that she never knew she had. Just in time too, for as the mysterious stranger tells her, the storm is coming... Full review...
Philippa Fisher and the Stone Fairy's Promise by Liz Kessler
In the third book of this enchanting series Liz Kessler manages to show both the delights and the sorrows of friendship: a topic which is eternally popular with young (and not so young) readers. Philippa has travelled with her father and mother to Ravenleigh to spend New Year with her new friend Robyn. But she has only just arrived when disaster strikes. Daisy, her other best friend and fairy godsister (like a fairy godmother but the same age as you), realises Philippa's mother is in danger, and tries to help. But in order to do so she has to break a lot of rules, and a series of catastrophes means Philippa ends up with Daisy in ATC (Above The Clouds), a sector of the fairy world. And the other fairies don't realise who she is ... Full review...
Nobody's Horse by Jane Smiley
Abby lives on her family's farm in California. They specialise in taking horses and ponies which are not at their peak and bringing them on so that they can be sold at a profit. Abby's father is determined that she won't get attached to any of the horses, because that only increases the pain when they inevitably go, but two are going to make an impact on her that she could not have expected. The first is a foal whose dam dies when he's a matter of weeks old and he takes Abby's heart. The second has the opposite effect because every time that Abby rides him he's determined to buck her off. She's frightened of him and it's a tribute to Abby that the worst she calls him is Grumpy George. Full review...
Instructions by Neil Gaiman
Go through the mysterious door, mind the imp, trust the wolves and answer the ferryman's question carefully. Neil Gaiman takes us on a tour of a fantasy land with a series of instructions for surviving the adventure. You'll discover wonders beyond your wildest dreams, and return home safely, a little older and a little wiser. Full review...
Damian Drooth, Supersleuth: Football Forgery by Barbara Mitchelhill
Getting to the end of a story, even one which really grips you, can be hard work if you have only just learned to read independently or are at the younger end of the confident readers range. But Damian Drooth, Supersleuth: Football Forgery is a slim book (60 pages), with lots of pictures, and a decent-sized font. And it is a proper book, too, with an engaging main character, lots of action and a fascinating mystery, so satisfaction is guaranteed. Full review...
Dewey: The True Story of a World-famous Library Cat by Vicki Myron and Brett Witter
This heart-warming book tells the wonderful true story of a cat called Dewey. His beginnings were very humble and his life could quite probably have been quite short if it had not been for a fortuitous event that occurred one cold winter morning. Vicki Myron, the chief librarian at Spencer Library in Iowa, heard some very strange noises coming from the book drop box that borrowers used in order to return their books when the library was closed. On opening the box she discovered a small, dirty, shivering kitten and her heart melted. As a consequence, the kitten, which was soon to be named Dewey, was adopted and became the official library cat. Full review...
Sudden Death (Striker) by Nick Hale
Jake Bastin, son of famous former footballer Steve, thought his life was difficult enough even before his father enters negotiations to join St Petersburg’s newest football team as manager. But when the agent his dad’s discussing the move with collapses of a suspected heart attack, things get far more complicated – because Jake is convinced he was actually poisoned, and can’t understand why his dad seems happy to go along with a cover up. As the pair move to St Petersburg, the bodies start piling up, and Jake goes from having to fight to control his temper, to fight to save his life. With no way of knowing if he can trust anyone, even his own father, can the youngster stand up to criminals who are happy to kill to get what they want? Full review...
Adam and the Arkonauts by Dominic Barker
Adam is on a mission. Both he and his father have spent the decade since his mother was kidnapped by an Evil Scientist looking for her, and perfecting their own skills. They might have got the best clue of all so far - one that has led them to the mysterious, hidden, and downright alarming city of Buenos Suenos. Those skills? Being able to communicate with animals. Since learning to gibber like a spider monkey they can both bark, purr perfectly, and more. It will take the extraordinary menagerie to survive the unusual city, and try and discover what happened to Adam's mum - and what the Evil Scientist might want by holding her hostage for the same skills in return. Full review...
Charlie Bone and the Red Knight by Jenny Nimmo
Since the loss of his father, Charlie Bone has had to live in the house of horrible Grandmother Bone. But when he discovers he can hear people in pictures talking, a whole new world opens to him. His grandmother and her even more unpleasant sisters insist he should now attend Bloor Academy, a school where he meets other children endowed with magical abilities because they are descendants of the Red King. This King, an African magician, came to the North nine hundred years ago, and left a part of his powers to each his ten children. But several of those children turned to evil, as have their descendants, and Charlie and his friends have to stop them from doing terrible harm to the town. In each of the books in the Charlie Bone series, he encounters new allies and new enemies, until the whole story culminates in one immense final battle in 'Charlie Bone and the Red Knight'. This book is based on the search for a will, a quest which gradually draws together many of the themes of the series, and ends with the kind of solution which will leave the reader sighing with satisfaction. Full review...
Have You Started Yet?: You and your period: getting the facts straight by Ruth Thomson and Chloe Thomson
Every young girl will face her periods starting but it’s the preparation which goes on beforehand which will determine whether or not this is seen as the body developing naturally or a problem. Both are attitudes which are likely to stay through life and it’s obviously better that it’s the firmer rather than the latter. ‘’Have You Started Yet’’ gives factual information in an informative and reassuring manner and in a form which is easily readable to girls of about nine years old and above. Full review...
The Vampire Blog by Pete Johnson
The night of his thirteenth birthday, Marcus's parents sit him down for a chat. He fears there'll be some fingernails-on-a-blackboard stuff about the facts of life, he'll fend them off with a wry remark or two, and it'll all be over. After all, how bad could it be? Very bad, is the answer. Very, very, very, very bad. Because this chat isn't about sex at all. It's about fangs and blood cravings, and shape-shifting. Because Marcus is a half-vampire. Full review...
Legends: Battles and Quests by Anthony Horowitz
Bringing things that are this old to an audience this young cannot be an easy feat. Anthony Horowitz must be more than able. An old volume of retold legends and fables from his typewriter in the 1980s has become a series of six books, rejigged on his computer, and presented very nicely by Macmillan. The first to hit the shelves (Legends: Beasts and Monsters) was a successful gift to us of five stories of olden beasties and baddies. Here we get a full half-dozen, and the quality is just as compelling. Full review...
Wishful Thinking by Ali Sparkes
We first meet Kevin covered in sick. He doesn't travel well, and his day out with his gran in the car isn't going as well as he might wish for. He doesn't really seriously wish for anything, but a diverting list of things he'd like – a better complexion, a better chance with the school hottie, a Wii, etc – gets dropped into a stream. And lo and behold, the god of that river, someone called Abandinus, comes to life, thinking he's got a worshipper at last, and might just be prepared to grant some wishes. Full review...
Legends: Beasts and Monsters by Anthony Horowitz
When they say there is nothing new under the sun, they might use this book as evidence - but they'd only be half-right. The legends of the sphinx's riddle, and the capture of the gorgon's head, are as old as the Parthenon hill, but they have never been presented as they have here. They were published in a similar fashion in the 1980s, with a younger Anthony Horowitz offering a large compendium of folk stories, legends and tales of classical derring-do. With the attention span of the current under-twelve, however, to be considered, his publishers have allowed a sprucing up, and a reformatting - one book has been turned into six, with a brace each year from now til conclusion. Full review...
Dreadful Fates by Tracey Turner
Imagine the delight you get, as a book reviewer, when you chance upon a title that stands out, by filling a nice handy gap in the market you'd never even noticed, and doing it so well you want to alert as many people as possible. This is such a time, Dreadful Fates is such a book, and as for the gap… This book hits upon the darker corners of all those copious 'highlights of history for the kids' books, touches upon The Darwin Awards compilations of stupid people dying in stupid ways, and merges with those collections of famous last words and epitaphs some of us like flicking through now and again – and does it all for the under-thirteen audience. Full review...
The Funfair of Fear! - A Measle Stubbs Adventure by Ian Ogilvy and Chris Mould
There is one thing Measle could really be called afraid of. Not the usual teenage things, like having a bath, no. He's lived through being inches high and stuck in a nightmarish train-set diorama with an evil cockroach and worse for company, and as a result, he's going to be afraid of a wrathmonk – a warlock turned bad – such as the one who put him there. So you'll pity him when it becomes obvious a gathering of wrathmonks are forming, to get their revenge on Measle's newly-found family. But what are wrathmonks in turn afraid of, I hear you ask? That's right – a garden gnome. Full review...
The Werewolf and the Ibis (Something Wickedly Weird) by Chris Mould
The 'Something Wickedly Weird' series is a splendid mix of Gothic horror and cartoon-style fun. The scrawny young hero, young Stanley Buggles, who lives in a 'darkened industrial town', as the first page tells us, is plunged into an adventure from the moment he arrives (all alone, as tradition dictates) at Crampton Rock. He has inherited his great-uncle's mansion, a vast old pile on an island linked to the mainland by a long winding footbridge. The right atmosphere of isolation and claustrophobic unease is created immediately, especially when we learn that letters are only collected from the island once a fortnight. Whatever is on this island, Stanley will have to deal with it alone. Full review...
The Train Set of Terror: A Measle Stubbs Adventure by Ian Ogilvy and Chris Mould
You will feel sympathy for Measle from the very start of this book. Not only is he an orphan, and stuck friendless in a horridly dingy house on the wrong side of the train tracks, but he shares his life with its main torment - his guardian, Basil Tramplebone. Basil makes no effort to improve Measle or his lot - he does not educate him, keeps Measle and his inheritance a great distance apart, and feeds him slop. Measle would even like to have a bath now and again - but not in the putrid brown and green gunk coming from the taps. The only thing that redeems Basil at all is that he owns the world's best train set, one Measle would love to get to know a lot better. Unfortunately for Measle, he's about to get that wish granted... Full review...
Love, Peace and Chocolate (Pocket Money Puffins) by Cathy Cassidy
Jess and Kady have been best friends since they were three years old and now they're in year eight at Parkway Community School. They're on the edge of puberty but things have been a bit slow on the boyfriend front – not that either of them is looking to rush things, particularly as there isn't a single Y8 boy who can make their eyes light up. They've a good, solid friendship which means a lot to both of them and they both think that nothing can come between the girls. Unfortunately they hadn't taken the arrival of Jack Somers into account. Full review...
The Maharajah's Monkey: A Kit Salter Adventure by Natasha Narayan
Kit Salter has a nose for adventure. Somehow she always finds trouble, or it finds her, and this latest episode is no exception as she finds herself travelling from the home comforts of Oxford all the way to India, then on to the freezing mountains of Tibet. What has happened to Monsieur Champlon? Has he abandoned poor Aunt Hilda? Why is the mysterious monkey leaving threatening messages for Kit? And what does it all have to do with the Maharajah? Kit and her friends set off on a fantastic journey to investigate. Full review...
The Last Seal by Richard Denning
In 1380 the warlock Stephen Blake released the demon Dantalion from the Abyss, only for his nemesis Cornelius Silver to banish him straight away. Dantalion has nursed his wounds for nearly 300 years – and in 1666, descendants of the original pair clash as he aims to return to the world, and burn down London by starting the Great Fire. While the fire rages around London, and Dantalion’s followers try to break the seals which hold him in the Abyss, four unlikely heroes join forces to stop them from being destroyed – and to save the world. Full review...
Would You Believe...in Mexico people picnic at granny's grave?! by Richard Platt
Well if there’s one important aspect of families, it is that books are included. It is evident from the details, trivia and facts here that you don’t need a father, a mother, or siblings. You might even have several spreads of half- and step-siblings, and copious parents here, there and everywhere. You might get to have a nanny, a cohort of family helpers, but one thing I would thrust on anybody would be a collection of books at home – and yes, books such as these tidy 48 pages would be among them. Full review...
Would You Believe...bed testers get paid to sleep?! by Richard Platt
It is quite certain the reader of this book will not be a bed tester, however broad the smile it carries as it suggests anyone can get the employment they dream after. Neither will she or he be a vital scribe for some ancient civilisation, a slave, a drudge, or a worker in a Communist collective farm. But it is definitely an eye-opener how all that and so much more can be considered by just 48 tidy pages. Full review...
Would You Believe...Vatican City is a country?! by Richard Platt
Cities don’t just spring up around us. They have taken thousands of years of civilisation to form, however surprising that might appear at times. Conversely, there are some who are just a few hundreds of years old that have been empty for centuries, and others that have been planned over a drawing board and become a capital city in a decade-long instant. All are within these tidy 48 pages. Full review...
Would You Believe...two cyclists invented the aeroplane?! by Richard Platt
Where can you find a welter of trivia and facts about transport from the ages, from the first use of Shanks’s pony, to the latest holidays to the edge of space? What has so much detail it can fit in the reasons for Mark Twain’s pen-name? Where can the adult browsing their child’s non-fiction library find a 'Glamorous Glennis' going 'kinda screwy' and see how it refers to the breaking of the sound barrier? In these tidy 48 pages, for one. Full review...
Now by Morris Gleitzman
We first met Felix in Once. He thought he was the luckiest child in the orphanage, since he was the only one whose parents weren't dead. Sadly, he was wrong about that. We followed his story in Then, in which he and his dear friend Zelda are on the run from the Nazis at the height of the Holocaust and its terrifying Final Solution. In Now, we catch up with Felix many years later. He's built a good life as a surgeon in Australia, and is now frustratingly retired, unable to operate because of his shaky hands. He's looking after his granddaughter, Zelda's namesake, whose parents are doctors volunteering in Darfur. Full review...
The Funniest Football Joke Book Ever by Carl McInerney
Who scored the most goals in the Greek Mythology League? The centaur forward. Badoom boom tshhhh. It's a football joke book, packed to the gills with all sorts of cheesiness and silliness. Funniest ever? Perhaps not, but it's not too bad. Full review...
