Newest Confident Readers Reviews
Confident readers
Pegasus and The Origins of Olympus by Kate O'Hearn
As Emily watches her beloved Pegasus fade away due to a mysterious deadly plague she knows that she must do everything she can to save her old friend. This decision sends her on a thrilling and dangerous journey back in time to Ancient Greece and the origins of mythology. She discovers new allies from both ancient times and the modern day but also terrifying enemies who test her powers and courage. In addition Emily also has to struggle with her long running conflict with the secret government agency, the sinister C.R.U. Together with her friend Joel, Emily finds herself facing a colossal battle that she must win in order to save the Olympians in this fantasy adventure. Full review...
Crow Boy by Philip Caveney
Life is tough for Tom Afflick. He's the new boy at school — never a happy situation — and some of his classmates take every opportunity to bully him. They laugh at his accent, and once they find out his mum ran away from her English husband and is now living with the unlovely Hamish, then things go from bad to worse. He misses his friends back in Manchester, and his dad seems to be making barely any effort whatsoever to contact him. Then he makes a huge mistake: on the school trip to Mary King's Close (a real place, by the way, which you can visit next time you're in Edinburgh) he reveals that he already knows a lot about the beginnings of the plague because his class had already studied it, back in his old school. His fate is sealed, and number-one bully Gillies promises to thump him as soon as the teacher is out of sight. Full review...
The Oxford Treasury of Fairy Tales by Geraldine McCaughrean and Sophy Williams
In this lovely collection of twenty fairy tales there's a brilliant range of stories. There are familiar favourites, such as 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Hansel and Gretel', but then there are others which were new to me such as 'The Three Oranges' and 'The Thirteenth Child'. There's something for everyone really, with princess stories, witches and frogs, magical items and mysterious happenings! Full review...
The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech
Naomi lives with her foster parents, Nula and Joe. She is afraid of dogs - one of her arms is useless after the dog attack that killed her father when she was just a baby. Nula and Joe aren't demonstrative, but Nula knows deep in her soul that she is loved and wanted. Best friend Lizzie is a perfect foil for Naomi. She's garrulous while Naomi is introspective. Outgoing while Naomi is reserved. She's openhearted while Naomi is cautious. Their friendship is the whole made by two very disparate halves. And then, one day, a boy falls out of a tree. Finn is nothing like anyone either girl has met before. And before she knows it, Naomi is beginning to question her friendship with Lizzie. Full review...
Where's the Meerkat? Journey Through Time by Paul Moran
It seems that one way for creators to keep kids poring over the pages of their books is to do what the people behind this have done – take most of the words out. There are a few hundred, giving us some brief story about a bunch of meerkats using a time machine, partly by accident, and therefore visiting several different major historical points in time, but one can ignore them, for it is the artwork that one has to scour for ten meerkats, a squirrel and a hawk. And that search is what is going to keep the young of all ages engaged in for quite some time… Full review...
Really Weird Removals.Com by Daniela Sacerdoti
Twelve-year-old Luca and his younger sister Valentina don't know their Uncle Alistair, who had a row with their father about a decade ago. When Alistair returns to the Scottish island of Eilean to try to put things right, their dad doesn't want to have anything to do with him - but when Luca and Valentina meet him and the ghost he's brought with him, they're desperate to help their uncle with his Really Weird Removals Company. While their parents think they're helping to exterminate ants and cockroaches, they're actually relocating mermaids, sea serpents and trolls - but not everything out there is friendly. Can Alistair keep them safe? And what exactly did cause his row with their father? Full review...
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, Geoffrey Brock, Umberto Eco and Fulvio Testa
Of all the benefits of being at the hands of the book reviewing gods, the fact that now and again you get to visit a true classic, one of those books you think you know but have never read, stands out as being a major advantage. Consider Pinocchio – I've reviewed a very adult graphic novel version that's definitely not for the faint-hearted, I've even performed in a stage version – but never read the original. I might never even have seen the Disney film but I have an inkling of what it's about, how it pans out, and what the thrust of the story is. And of course, a lot of my impressions are wrong. This volume is one of the best ways to get a crisp, accurate and clear insight into the reality. Full review...
Professor Gargoyle: Tales from Lovecraft Middle School by Charles Gilman
Let's be honest – starting a new series with a boy alone in a new school, apart from his bullying nemesis, does not particularly strike one as original, or even interesting. But behind all the fabulous LCD message boards and technology, the brand new Lovecraft Middle actually holds some very interesting and ancient secrets. A host of children find a white rat waiting for them in their lockers when they're opened for the first time. The library seems to have a very unusual labyrinth of secret passages in, appropriately enough, the paranormal fiction section. And no-one, from the pupils to the staff, seem to be acting quite as they should… Full review...
Monster Mountains: Raven Boy and Elf Girl 2 by Marcus Sedgwick
Meet, if you didn't last time, Raven Boy and Elf Girl. He's got a rat in his pocket, and can communicate with animals and birds, while she has a magical bow, but doesn't know how to use it properly. They don't have a home forest any more, as the Goblin King sent an ogre to demolish it. This is the first sequel amongst the series of six volumes, as they encounter different landscapes in turn on their way to confront him and put him to rights – somehow. Here they face the freezing cold, a giant yeti, the three evil trolls chasing them since book one for their supper – and Jeremy. Full review...
The Feathered Man by Jeremy de Quidt
Klaus is a street kid who has been taken in by Kusselman, the tooth-puller. Kusselman is a hard taskmaster, fond of using a belt to discipline and control his young apprentice, and he isn't fussy where he finds teeth to sell to the rich of the town. So there's nothing unusual in a trip to Frau Drecht's miserable boarding house, home to those with no money and no other place to go. When her residents die off, as they tend to do with depressing regularity, Frau Drecht sells their teeth to Kusselman and their poor, wasted bodies to the School of Anatomy for dissection. Frau Drecht has also taken a street child for a servant. But to keep Liesel in line, Frau Drecht uses a hot iron, not a belt. Full review...
The Dead are Rising (MetaWars) by Jeff Norton
Jonah's father died in the battle for control of the Metasphere. He was a Guardian - a terrorist or freedom fighter, depending how you see things - and he had infiltrated himself into a position of trust with the Millenials, the group supporting the billionaire inventor who created and controlled an online world in which people living in a post peak-oil and devasted Earth spend most of their time. But before he died, Jason Delacroix's memories had been uploaded to the Metasphere as an avatar. Full review...
Short Christmas Stories by Maggie Pearson
The latest offering in the successful Short Series from Oxford University Press, this book contains a selection of very short stories, none more than two pages long, on a Christmas theme. There are over forty tales in this collection, some are derived from traditional tales from different countries, some are more current and the wide variety of funny, thought-provoking, spooky and occasionally scary stories provides something to suit all tastes. Full review...
A Palace Full of Princesses by Sally Gardner
Early readers are the stepping stones between picture books and 'real' books. They've still got plenty of pictures (very useful if you need the odd clue about a big word) but they've got more structure about them. Chapters give the emerging reader a sense of achievement and the end of a chapter is a useful point to aim for when you're just starting out. Above all they're stories which appeal to the reader so that it's not 'something you have to do at school' but an activity you really look forward to. If children get that idea in the early years at school then they have a pleasure which will stay with them all their lives. Full review...
Horrid Henry's Fearsome Four by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
Recently I was talking to the teacher of a class of seven-year-olds about books. It was, she said, very easy to find books for girls, but much more of a challenge to find something suitable for the boys. And by 'something suitable' she meant the sort of books which boys like to read, something 'edgy' which appealed to their inner racal. The early reading stage is important for all children, but it's the boys who are most likely to be 'lost' at this stage if the books they see don't feel relevant to their lives. So what does appeal? Well, Tom Gates always goes down well and so does Horrid Henry. Full review...
Monkeyfarts: Wacky Jokes Every Kid Should Know by David Borgenicht
Do your children like telling jokes? My daughter loves jokes. The trouble is, she makes hers up and, sadly, they're not very funny! She's five years old and she understands the construction of jokes, especially knock knock jokes, but when it comes to finding the funny punch line...well, it's not her forte! So, when this book arrived she was keen to take a look. Full review...
The Sultan's Tigers by Josh Lacey
Tom's dad is the black sheep of the family – the only one who isn't a thieving adventurer and dishonest chancer. Tom's granddad was like that, but has just died. Tom's uncle tends that way – and even Tom himself learnt the benefits of such a life in the first book in the series. With the passing of the granddad, Tom is alone in the empty house when a desperate burglar implies a family secret is worth a lot of money – which leads to Tom and Uncle Harvey disappearing tout suite to India on the trail of treasure. Out of eight gem-encrusted tiger statuettes, seven have been bought by the same oligarch – but the eighth was hidden by one of Tom's ancestors, and might be there still, and they might be first to the priceless object – but they are not the only people on the treasure hunt… Full review...
Alienography 2: Tips for Tiny Tyrants by Chris Riddell
As we found out at quite painful length and horrid detail, even Darth Vader was young once. Alright, he didn't start out that evil, but other space supremoes and galactic governors do – and chances are you know a child that would like nothing more than to romp around destroying planets and completely and utterly having their way, with no-one daring to call 'bedtime!' for fear of being grabbed by the unmentionables. With ten(-ish) tips for that child, and several asides, diversions and added frivolity, is this large book, all with the intention of filling the black hole of ignorance in the wannabe ruler of worlds. Full review...
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time by Frank Cottrell Boyce
There's nothing like a good villain to spice up a tale, and they come in all shapes and sizes in this, Frank Cottrell Boyce's second book about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The previous story ended with them trying to flee Tiny Jack, a nasty piece of work with a seriously horrid Nanny and a fondness for feeding people to his pet piranhas, and as this book opens they find themselves nose-to-nose with a dinosaur. A real, live one, with her mind firmly fixed on lunch. Full review...
A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo
Michael never knew his father and so is content to live alone with his mother. In fact, he rather enjoys feeling different and special, partly because unlike most children at school he only has one parent, but also because Maman is French and looks, to Michael at least, like Joan of Arc. Full review...
Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke
Jon arrives at boarding school in a haze of angst, not looking forward to staying in an old-fashioned town, worried about dealing with new teachers and classmates, and furious at his mum's boyfriend, known only as The Beard, for his role in the banishment. Events take an unexpected turn for the worse when Jon finds himself being stalked by a pack of sinister ghosts with a vendetta against his family, borne out of a deadly conflict with his ancestor. With the help of Ella, whose grandmother specialises in ghost tours for tourists, Jon is successful in summoning the knight Longespee to protect him. However, the ghosts prove to be more resilient than he first thought, and when Jon discovers the terrible fate of the last boy who called Longespee for help, he realises that he is in more trouble than ever before. Full review...
Monstrous Maud: Spooky Sports Day by A B Saddlewick
Quite how do you make a sports day spooky? Well, in this topsy-turvy world, you don't have to do much. It's nasty enough for vampires to be competing in the daylight, it's not fair on monsters with tails or for mummies with bandages to trip over – and it's just a bit too girly, prim and proper – and a bit too pink, for monsters. Monstrous Maud, of course, isn't a monster, but does go to a special school dedicated to them. How can she hope to train her best friend, who is quite hopeless at any sporting activity, and also manage to keep her monstrous disguise up when the starting gun is fired? Full review...
Operation Bunny - Wings & Co by Sally Gardner
Emily Vole very nearly enters this world with a bang; abandoned at Stanstead Airport in a hatbox that is mistaken for an explosive device she only just escapes being blown up by the bomb disposal squad. After this inauspicious beginning things briefly improve for Emily when she is adopted by a wealthy couple, Daisy and Ronald Dashwood, who have no children of their own. However, the couple soon tire of their little girl and following the birth of Daisy Dashwood’s triplet daughters poor Emily is relegated to the role of a servant who is banished to the laundry room and forced to sleep on the ironing board. Life is miserable for Emily until one day she meets her kindly next door neighbour Miss String and her talking cat, Fidget. Through her new friends Emily discovers that there really is such a thing as magic and she soon find herself thrust into an exciting adventure she could never have anticipated. Full review...
Atticus Claw Breaks the Law by Jennifer Gray
Meet the new criminal gang in town – three evil, thieving magpies, led by the vicious Jimmy, and Atticus Claw, the greatest cat burglar. Together they are on a mission to rob the entire town of all its jewellery, watches and other shiny valuables. To help him rest up between missions Atticus has decided to live right at the centre of the action – the parents of the children who adopt him are in turns the local police officer, and the woman charged with running a luxurious Antiques Roadshow-styled affair at the local manor house. There will be bling, there will be sardines as a reward for Atticus – and with the animals' inside information on the roadshow, nothing can go wrong – can it? Full review...
Winterling by Sarah Prineas
Thirteen-year old Fer doesn't feel like she belongs with everyone else. She keeps getting into fights at school, she's teased for her unruly appearance, and her grandmother won't let her go anywhere except school. Then she rescues a mysterious boy called Rook from some wolves, and is taken to a wondrous, but cruel, world where it's always winter and a dangerous queen rules the land. Can Fer save the day? Full review...
Ratburger by David Walliams
There are lots of similarities between the style and plot of this book and those of Roald Dahl. First of all you have a child who is living in a situation so outrageously terrible that it becomes funny, and for whatever reason, all the other adults around don't seem capable of helping. The villain, while being fairly two-dimensional, has enough disgusting and frightening qualities to make readers shiver in delicious anticipation whenever they appear. And the miseries just keep piling up until it doesn't seem there's any way out. Full review...
Dork Diaries: Dear Dork by Rachel Renee Russell
You can see how easy it would be for a series of children's books to settle into a stale formula, repeating the same idea time over time until the last drop of originality had dried in the sun and the coordinated covers were bleached into off-white. The characters got boring, their interactions meaningless, and the author covered old ground for the hell of it for one last buck. Now look at this series, and in particular this fifth full, proper title in it, and you'll see just how that hasn't happened. Full review...
The (Fairly) Magic Show and Other Stories by Rob Keeley
Hooray! Rob Keeley has written a second book of short stories. We really enjoyed the first one here at Bookbag Towers, so we were really looking forward to reading the second. Full review...
A Reckless Magick by Stephanie Burgis
Kat's sister Angeline is about to be married, and the twelve-year-old witch is off to the wedding. But where Kat goes, chaos quite often follows, and this is no exception - can she fight off smugglers, make sure the wedding goes off smoothly despite Angeline's fiance's mother's objections, deal with the person following her, prepare for her Guardian initiation ceremony and find out the truth about her mother? I genuinely wasn't sure when reading this - as wonderful as Kat is, there are rather a lot of challenges there! It was a tense read which had me desperately hoping Kat would make it through. Full review...
Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead
Georges is named after Seurat, who created his paintings by using thousands and thousands of tiny dots of colour, and in this delightful book his style becomes a leit-motif for Georges' movement from fear to bravery. His mum always tells him not to fret about the little niggles and miseries of life: they're just tiny coloured dots which help to make up the big picture. His dad sees things differently, though. To him, you mustn't turn your back on bad things. They may not seem important when looked at from the future, but they matter right now and shouldn't be ignored. Georges will need a little wisdom from each of his parents to navigate the many challenges he experiences. Full review...
Fire Spell by Laura Amy Schlitz
There is a lot of magic in this wonderful book, but for the most part it is not the children who wield it. They are, at least to begin with, mere pawns in a deadly struggle between the puppeteer Grisini and a dying witch, quite unaware of the battles being raged between the two immensely powerful magicians. But as they come to understand the full horror of their situation, they find themselves having to work together to survive. Full review...
Lousy Thinking: Hitching a Ride on a Schoolboy's Mind by Mike Davies
Jake is a nice boy, navigating the later years of primary school with varied success. He has a secure home, a nice mum and dad, and plenty of friends with whom he enjoys energetic playtimes. But Jake isn't realising his full potential in lessons. He tries to listen, really he does, but his attention keeps wandering. And his performance in tests is more than a little disappointing. With SATs looming, Jake really should buckle down to some work. But, try as he might, buckling down isn't Jake's strong point. Full review...
Tales from Schwartzgarten: Osbert the Avenger by Christopher William Hill
Schwartzgarten is an odd place. Oh, it has all the usual stuff, like banks and libraries and palaces and glue factories, but it also has a somewhat excessive fascination with the gruesome and gory. This is due in large part to the fact that the city was embroiled in civil unrest, assassinations and battles for over two hundred years, and in consequence the cemetery where Nanny takes Osbert for his daily walk is a quarter the size of Schwartzgarten itself. Roads have names like Bone-Orchard Street, and the Old Town is rife with cut-throats. Full review...
Monstrous Maud:Big Fright by A B Saddlewick
Meet Monstrous Maud. Fed up with her pink and perfect sister, and the boring, do-goody types she suffers at school, she is not too disappointed when she – and her pet rat – are expelled, and forced to attend a very different institution. Rotwood School is a veritable hell-hole for anyone else, with maggoty food, and all the stereotypes of horror fiction as the pupils. Maud – being so monstrous – fits in perfectly – or at least she would if she is allowed to stay… Full review...
The Factory Made Boy by Christine Nostlinger
Mrs Bartolotti has a rather bad habit of ordering things...things that she usually doesn't need. One day a large parcel arrives in the post. Mrs Bartolotti can't think what it can be. What has she ordered recently? She thought she'd been very good! When she opens it she finds, inside, a perfect factory-made little boy - she definitely never ordered a little boy! Conrad and Mrs Bartolotti soon grow to love each other, but what will they do when the factory realises the mistake they've made and attempt to reclaim their goods? Full review...
My Happy Life by Rose Lagercrantz and Eva Eriksson
When Dani can't sleep she doesn't count sheep, she counts all the times that she's been happy! And Dani has been happy a lot of times. She's happy because she's about to start school, though she's nervous about making new friends. But then she meets Ella, and Ella becomes the very best friend she could ever have wished for. They have so much fun together, but then one day Ella tells Dani that she is moving house, and suddenly Dani isn't happy any more. Full review...
George and the Big Bang by Lucy Hawking and Stephen Hawking
John Lloyd's First Rule of the Universe is that it must contain three things – entropy, trouble, and mis-sold PPI claim adverts. However this book only contains one of those – trouble. Eric is using the Large Hadron Collider to delve into the secrets of the universe and the first micro-seconds of its existence, but he has trouble in the shape of Luddite people who think his experiment will cause the end of our solar system. He has his super-computer, Cosmos, which is able to transport him and his daughter Annie and the kid next door, our hero George, anywhere they desire throughout the universe, but there's only trouble when two of them are discovered larking about on the moon. And, as we've come to expect – this being the closing book of a trilogy – there is an evil scientist somewhere who is just intending to cause a different kind of trouble – making the big bang in the title something you might not have initially expected. Full review...
Eleven Eleven by Paul Dowswell
It's 2am in Paris on Tuesday 11th November 1918. Negotiations for ending World War I are almost complete and both sides will announce the Armistice at 11am. But the people actually fighting the war don't know that yet... Full review...
I'm Dougal Trump... and it's not my fault! by Dougal Trump
Dougal Trump is worried about dying. You might be surprised that a young boy is already writing (and rewriting) his will, but that's because you haven't met his sister Sibble (it's Sybil! - sorry Sibble), the mysterious creature in the shed, or the even more mysterious person who left the creature there with a note saying 'If it dies so will you.' If you were in his circumstances, wouldn't you be worried about your life expectancy? Full review...
