'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Karen King and Marina Le Ray
|title=Silly Moo
|rating=3.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=When an apple falls on Cow's head, she gets all woozy so decides to go home for a bit of a lie down. She's got mild amnesia, so she goes from place to place on the farmyard, getting to meet all the animals, and causing all sorts of problems as she doesn't realise where she needs to go.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846669014</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=B R Collins
|summary=It's the morning of Jack's fifth birthday, but Jack is no ordinary boy. He and his Ma have been imprisoned by the character known only as 'Old Nick' in a single room for all Jack's life. True he has a television, but his mother has convinced him that those people are not real. The room is all Jack has ever known - and in it he has developed his own attachment to things like Bed, Rug, Table, Skylight and Wardrobe where he sleeps. The first victim of incarceration, it seems, is the definite article.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330519018</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Susan Hill
|title=The Small Hand
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Adam Snow, an antiquarian book dealer, accidentally finds himself within the grounds of a derelict house hidden away in the countryside. As he is walking around the lost garden he feels an invisible hand creep into his own. Drawn into investigating the history of the house, and whose hand it might be, he finds himself suffering from panic attacks as well as feeling the small hand again, in different locations, each time pulling him closer and closer to danger.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846682363</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Steve Duno
|title=Last Dog On The Hill
|rating=5
|genre=Pets
|summary=Driving through northern California Steve Duno found a puppy by the side of the road. He was flea-bitten, tic infested, emaciated and suffering from an infection. His father was a Rottweiler and his mother a German Shepherd - both were guard dogs at the local marijuana farm. When Steve whistled the dog came to him and it's no exaggeration to say that in that moment his life changed. He'd always wanted a dog, but hadn't been able to have one as a child. There was a moment's indecision at the side of the road – and then Lou became Steve's dog.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330520024</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
|title=Stop the Train
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Cissy and her family have come to set up a grocery store in the brand new town of Florence, Oklahoma, near the railroad. She quickly makes friends with a very chatty, kind boy called Kookie, short for Habbakuk. Other people come to stake their claim on plots of land, and open up businesses. It is all very exciting but the settlers of this new town soon discover they have a serious problem. The railroad company wanted the land the town is being built on, and when everyone turns down the cash they are offered to give up their claims, the railroad boss announces his trains will not stop in Florence. The railroad is the reason for the town's existence, and without it Florence will collapse before it is properly started.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192718819</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Geraldine McCaughrean
|title=Pull Out All The Stops!
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A diphtheria epidemic is in town and has already claimed several victims including pupils at school. The school is closed and all the remaining children sent out of town to stay with relatives and friends until the danger is over. Cissy and two of her classmates are sent away to stay with their former teacher, Miss Loucien, now part of a touring theatre company with her new actor husband. Their new teacher, Miss May March, comes along as a chaperone on the train journey, motivated by a sense of duty and concern for her charges' welfare.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192789953</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Kelley Armstrong
|title=Waking the Witch (Women of the Otherworld)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Tired of doing the legwork for Paige and Lucas, Savannah Levine – powerful witch/sorcerer with half-demon blood – is glad to finally get the chance to go it alone. For the week. But what started as a babysitting gig soon progresses to a full blown case for the temporary head of Cortez-Winterbourne Investigations.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149805X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Mark van Vugt and Anjana Ahuja
|title=Selected: Why some people lead, why others follow, and why it matters
|rating=4
|genre=Business and Finance
|summary=''Selected'' is based on the psychology of leadership. Some of us may ask the perfectly reasonable question 'Does it matter who leads and who follows?' Well, apparently it not only matters but it matters greatly. And the co-authors go to great lengths to tell us why. The useful prologue informs us that the whole area of leadership can be traced back in time, by no less than several million years. Vugt and Ahuja explain that the rather innocent (and even a bit airy-fairy to some) word 'leader' is evolved from various academic disciplines. Including the more obvious psychology, there is also biology and anthropology in the mix. Heady stuff. And yes, I did want to read on.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683270</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Anne-Marie Conway
|title=Phoebe Finds Her Voice (Star Makers Club)
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is a sweet story in which Anne-Marie Conway makes good use of the current obsession with all-singing, all-dancing shows. Her lead character, Phoebe, is painfully shy. She never used to be though, and always loved singing and dancing before, but since she moved up to the big school, and things started to go wrong at home, she has lost her confidence. Against all her inner fears she somehow ends up joining the local drama club, and whilst she tries to find ways to deal with her crippling stage fright she also begins fighting to get her parents back together again.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409516512</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=C J Sansom
|title=Heartstone (Matthew Shardlake)
|rating=5
|genre=Crime (Historical)
|summary=Henry VIII was not one to ponder on his failings but his recent invasion of France had gone completely wrong and the French fleet was preparing to cross the Channel and invade England. The only way that Henry could raise the money to gather a large militia army was to debase the currency and the country was put in the grip of raging inflation and economic crisis. Meanwhile the English fleet gathered at Portsmouth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405092734</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Elizabeth Buchan
|title=Separate Beds
|rating=4
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Annie and Tom Nicholson looked like the sort of people you would envy. Both had rewarding jobs, Tom in the World Service and Annie in hospital management. They had a lovely home and three grown-up children. But all is not as it seems. For five years they have had separate existences after a family row when Tom caused his elder daughter to walk out of the house and never return. There hasn't been a catalyst which would have caused them to separate but Tom moved into his daughter's vacated room and he and Annie have lived together - but apart. It could have gone on indefinitely but then Tom came home one day and dropped the bombshell which could well finish them off.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141019891</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Vornholt, Arthur Byron Cover and Alice Henderson
|title=Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No. 1: Night of the Living Rerun; Coyote Moon; Portal Through Time
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=There is something really satisfying about a huge brick of a book: the prospect of settling down for hours and hours of reading pleasure is very tempting. And this book offers an even more tempting lure for Buffy fans, because it contains three whole stories, adding variety to the mix. It's absolutely ideal for a holiday read.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857070606</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lesley Thomson
|title=A Kind of Vanishing
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=The novel interweaves between the past (the 1960s) and the present (the 1990s). Thomson gives us the run-down on the two playmates, the two young girls, Eleanor Ramsay and Alice. They have been instructed by their respective parents to play together nicely. The Ramsay family is middle-class, they live in a big, rambling house and are always busy doing things. Alice is an only child of working-class parents. They are over-protective and monitor her every waking moment. Will a noisy tom-boy and an angelic Alice who wears impossibly shiny shoes get on, have things in common?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0954930940</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Nick Green
|title=The Cat Kin
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A group of misfit children find themselves at the local sports centre having arrived to take various different classes but find they're all part of a group being run by the strange Mrs Powell who teaches them about Pashki. Pashki shows them how to 'find their inner cat' as it were (I know - bear with me, it does get better!) and utilise their new skills to move quietly, stealthily and even super-humanly across fences, tree branches, skipping from pole to pole and even from one bus rooftop to another in an exciting chase sequence. Ben and Tiffany both have their own sets of troubles at home, and so Pashki becomes an escape for them both. However, they soon find their new skills get them into more trouble than they could ever have imagined.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905537166</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michelle Pan
|title=Bella Should Have Dumped Edward: Controversial Views on the Twilight Series
|rating=3.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=I'm sure die hard (Twi-hard) fans will love this book, since it gives them a little bit more about Bella and Edward and Jacob. All those things they've mulled over since the series ended are encapsulated in the topics raised here. Team Edward need not shake their heads in dismay at the book's title - it's controversial on purpose - and the question of who Bella should have ended up with is looked at from both points of view, along with other issues such as whether she should have become a vampire, the faithfulness of the films to the books and which character readers would most like to be.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1569758220</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Phil Cousineau
|title=Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words
|rating=3.5
|genre=Trivia
|summary=I formed a new, close friendship recently, and one of the first things I subtly dropped into things was the fact that I might use a different dictionary to other people. Probably there was a subconscious thought forming that it would be better to make it known, in case I trod on any toes, said anything that didn't go down quite as well as I had planned. But that's nothing compared to what Phil Cousineau has done here, for he has written his own dictionary, and got it published in a very nice, glossy, browsable form. Alright, it's nothing like a complete dictionary, but everything is here in his own personal style - 250 main words, definitions, derivations and examples of use. Oh, and some modern-ish artworks as well.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1573444006</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Roger Smith
|title=Wake Up Dead
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Straight away Smith plunges us into the underworld of Cape Town and the street chat of the locals. Boozed up and drugged up most of the time, violence is a nightly occurrence. And when local 'businessman' Joe is gunned down, it sparks off a whole chain of events for his American trophy wife, Roxy. Strong language, strong violence and strong feelings from the local criminals and low-life are the order of the day in this uncompromising novel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687578</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tony Bradman and Tony Ross
|title=The Orchard Book of Swords, Sorcerers and Superheroes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jason and the Argonauts, King Arthur, Aladdin, William Tell, Hercules, Sinbad, St George, Ali Baba, Theseus and Robin Hood. If you love myths and legends as much as [[Top Ten Retellings of Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales|we do]] then those ten heroes will have got your juices flowing, and you'll be desperate to dive in to this collection of adventures. It's fantastic. You'll love it!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408309211</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Keegan
|title=The American Civil War
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=While before reading this book I considered myself to be vaguely familiar with the major facts about the American Civil War – the fight to liberate the slaves, the well-known battles, and the towering figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S Grant, and Robert E Lee – I was keen to learn more about the war and get an in-depth view of it from a renowned historian. After finishing the book, I certainly consider myself to be far better informed on the military, and tactical, side of things, but found it a little lacking in certain other areas such as the causes and effects.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0712616101</amazonuk>
}}
