Newest Confident Readers Reviews
Lockdown (Urban Outlaws) by Peter Jay Black
High-tech gadgets and gizmos, feats of daring that will have you chewing your nails down to the elbow, villains who just love to gloat, and then (because this isn't any old kids-beat-the-baddies saga) the well-established tradition of Random Acts of Kindness – New York style. This may be the third sortie for Jack and his rag-tag team, but somehow the author still manages to surprise and delight his readers by giving the characters even more complex back stories, and by ratcheting up the tension so high you'll need to nip outside and have a quick scream from time to time. Full review...
Lily and the Christmas Wish by Keris Stainton
I In the small town of Pinewood the people are busy preparing for Christmas. This year they are doing something special to celebrate. Each person will write down a secret wish and tie it to the Christmas tree in the town square. Although nine year old Lily likes this idea she is more than a little sceptical that wishes can come true, no matter how much you may want them to. Then a strange storm blows in and scatters all the wishes across the town. Lily wakes up the following morning to discover that Bug, her pug puppy, can talk! That was not what Lily had wished for but maybe it was someone else's wish? The Christmas magic has definitely gone wrong. Can Lily, her younger brother Jimmy and, of course, Bug put things right before Christmas Day? Full review...
My Dog Daisy by Jean Ure
Lily did not want a goldfish. Nor did she want a hamster or a cat. She wanted a DOG and whilst she understood what Mum said about not being able to have a dog in the 5th floor flat without a garden she still thought it was unfair. After all, when they lived at Gran's house there was a garden and she could have had a dog, but then Mum and Gran had a row and they moved out. She hadn't even seen Gran for three months and she missed her. And the dog which she couldn't have. Even Keri, her best friend, though that she was going on a bit about the whole thing. Full review...
Gulliver by Mary Webb, Daniel Swift and Lauren O'Neill
Be careful what you wish for. Gulliver wants adventure – and boy is he going to get it. His very first voyage ends in an almighty storm, which ends in him being washed onto a shore alone – but the shores of an island where he himself is almighty, compared to the inhabitants. After being shot at with the smallest of arrows, chained up, made a spectacle of – and sorted out a problem of etiquette most diplomatically – he tries again, only to be stranded on a second island, completely in contrast to the first… Whether or not you recognise the story from this summary, be relieved that this most perfectly conveys big ideas (and those of one big book in particular) for small people… Full review...
Vasilisa the Beautiful (Russian Folktales) by Anthea Bell and Anna Morgunova
When I say to you the first response I had on picking up this book was 'Ooh, someone knows their Klimt', and that I thought I had seen Kandinsky in the art inside, it tells you the aesthetic is definitely to the fore here. (That latter claim was a bit false – but there's definitely a touch of Picasso.) Of course there is a story, and a more-than decent story it is too, but with the intriguing, detailed and unusual artwork of Anna Morgunova, this picture book with many words really does come to life. Full review...
Tales from Schwartzgarten: Marius and the Band of Blood by Christopher William Hill
Frankly, it's a surprise to discover there are still people left alive in the gloomy town of Schwartzgarten. In this story, the fourth in the series, creepy bad guys in masks roam the town after dark. The local kiddie catcher is determined to rid the streets of orphans by any means he can (quite a challenge, considering how high the death rate among parents is) and for some reason the chocolatiers of the town are being murdered in inventive and frequently sticky ways. Full review...
Grandpa's Great Escape by David Walliams
Most people don't really get Grandpa. He's old and set in his ways (apart from the fact that recently he's taken to going down to the shops in his brown checked slippers, whatever the weather), and he's definitely getting more and confused by the day. In fact, a lot of the time he thinks he's back in World War Two, flying his Spitfire out across the Channel to defeat the bad guys. Only his grandson Jack understands that the way to get through to him is to play along. Full review...
The Book of Learning by E R Murray
An orphan with only her beloved grandpa for company, Ebony Smart's world is turned upside down when he dies. Sent to Dublin to live with an Aunt she didn't know existed, Ebony soon discovers that her new home, 23 Mercury Lane, is full of secrets. Discovering that she is part of an ancient order of people who have the power to reincarnate, Ebony is soon under threat from a terrible evil that threatens to destroy their existence. With just her pet rat Winston, and a mysterious book to help her, she must figure out why her people are disappearing and how to save their souls, and her own, before time runs out… Full review...
Dragon's Flight by Dr Kris J Sime
Simon and Alice have spent the school term living with their aunt, a kindly, if somewhat vague, person. Simon's father describes Aunt Maggie as bohemian and hippy. Simon is quite dismissive of the flowing clothes and collections of gemstones and discussions of auras that being bohemian and hippy entails, but both he and Alice can agree that Aunt Maggie is a nice person. Full review...
Hilda and the Troll by Luke Pearson
Hilda, a rather delightful small, blue-haired girl, is never far from an adventure. She is confident and excitable, brave and creative, and her stories are slightly mad, and very, very readable! Full review...
Old School (Diary of a Wimpy Kid book 10) by Jeff Kinney
Aah, for the modern life. Internet, baby wipes, ease, lemonade on tap. The only problem – well, one of them – is that Greg's mother is demanding the town switch off for a weekend, so good old-fashioned standards can be returned to. She's not the only person with ideas of old-fashioned standards – Greg's grandfather has moved in, so there're both his siblings, three adults – and a pig who thinks he's a family member. Mind you, with the usual ineptitude of a Wimpy Kid, probably nothing modern could prepare Greg for what's about to come, when a trip to a character-forming camp seems like the necessary easy way out… Full review...
Timeline by Peter Goes
Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock. Once, that is, we'd got over the Big Bang, which of course was silent. We flash forwards a few billion years to the creation of the earth, have a quick look at prehistory, then it's in with the world's happenings we can be sure of and date accurately. This book makes an attempt at conveying it all along one river of time – albeit with many tributaries – and with a strong visual style points us to all that is important about our past along the way. Flick through it backwards and you can recreate a different Guinness advert to the one I quoted – but it's probably worth a much longer look. Full review...
Tom Gates 9: Top of the Class (Nearly) by Liz Pichon
Tom Gates has been told not to worry. Which is not a good thing. He's been told not to worry, but to try his best at the school test – so he does neither. His best friend has told him not to worry about having just left an incriminating portrait of one of his teachers in a library reference book, even though he has to worry about getting it back before anyone else sees it. Especially, that is, when the biggest bully in the year above is also turning his hand to graffiti and has the power to get other people in trouble… Full review...
White Boots by Noel Streatfeild
Many moons ago, when I was a young girl obsessed with Torvill and Dean and wishing we lived much closer to a skating rink, I discovered Noel Streatfeild's wonderful Shoe stories including this one, White Boots. It soon became one of my favourite re-reads, so it was interesting to come back to the story as a grown up and find that it is still funny and engaging, all these years later, and that it still has the enduring power to make me wish for my own pair of white skating boots too! Full review...
Finding Winnie: The Story of the Real Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh by Lindsay Mattick and Sophie Blackall
A little boy called Cole wanted a story. He particularly wanted a true story and it had to be about a bear. It was getting late, but Mummy said that she would do her best. Her story began about a hundred years before Cole was born and it was about a man called Harry Colebourn who lived in Winnipeg. He was a vet and was on his way to Europe to look after the horses of the soldiers fighting in the Great War when he met a trapper with a baby bear: his head might have said that there was nothing he could do, but his heart told him to get hold of the bear and he gave the trapper $20. Winnipeg, as he named the bear, went on the train with Captain Coulbourn and his troop, across the ocean and finally arrived in England. Full review...
The ACB with Honora Lee by Kate de Goldi and Gregory O'Brien
Meet Perry. She's a hen-pecked sort of girl – forever having her grammar corrected by her parents, who love nothing more than packing her off to after-school classes, such as music lessons she has no aptitude for. Her father has one dutiful extra-curricular activity, too – visiting his own mother in her care home, and taking Perry with him. But when one of the classes she is involved with packs up, she decides to spend more time with the old dear – after all, she finds it hard to identify her own kith and kin, has memory problems, and reverts to being a teacher yet cannot even play I Spy correctly. Once in the routine, Perry finds the weird happenings and characters in the home would be ideal ingredients for an ABC book for a school project. Full review...
The Wild Swans by Jackie Morris
The most well known version of the wild swans is probably the one penned by Hans Andersen. This extended retelling by Jackie Morris adds depth, emotional resonance and a number of new twists to the tale. As in most versions, Eliza and her brothers live a happy and privileged life until their father's remarriage brings jealousy, mistrust and trouble in its wake. The brothers are magically changed into wild swans and it is up to brave Eliza to rescue them. Full review...
The Doldrums by Nicholas Gannon
If you are of an imaginative disposition, you go to school in an elegant building which used to be a button factory, and your house is full of giraffes, ostriches and badgers - stuffed, of course - then the odds are that you'll end up on some kind of adventure. And if your grandparents happen to be famous explorers who've managed to get themselves lost on an iceberg in Antarctica then your particular mission is pretty well handed to you, wrapped up neatly with a big bow and a label on top saying 'quest starts here'. All you have to do is work out the fine details and set off. Easy-peasy. Full review...
Crowns and Codebreakers by Elen Caldecott
Minnie's not too keen on sharing her already tiny room with her gran when she arrives from Nigeria. However, worries about floor space and how to open the wardrobe door are quickly replaced by more serious concerns. Gran is upset. She picked up the wrong suitcase at the airport and she's convinced it's a bad omen. And it almost seems like she's right when their flat is burgled and the only thing that is taken is the suitcase. The police aren't interested but Minnie and her friends know there must be a reason behind the burglary. There's a mystery and it's up to them to solve it. Full review...
Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back by Shel Silverstein
Meet the finest shooter in the world. No, not one of those hunters, who go to Africa and kill off all the wonderful wildlife there, but Lafcadio. He's a lion, and his real name might have been something more like Ruggrrg or Grummfgff, but one day when a hunter was about to shoot at him (with an unloaded rifle), he ate the hunter and picked the gun up to try out – then carried on shooting until he was the world's best, standing on his head or with paws tied behind his back. His new life gives him a new name, but is that really what he would have wanted as a young lion cub? Full review...
Once Upon a Place by Eoin Colfer (editor)
You know the bit of the blurb on every Artemis Fowl book, where Eoin Colfer had it said about how you pronounce his name? That wasn't the intention of an up-and-coming author to be recognisable; rather, it was pride. Pride in the difference of it, of the Irishness of it. Ireland, it seems to me, is more full than usual of people, things and ideas, and places that are different by dint of their singular nationality – and so many deserve to have pride attached to them. The places might not be the famous ones, but they can be the source of pride, and of stories, which is where this compilation of short works for the young comes in, with the authors invited to select their chosen place and write about it. Full review...
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...
