134,727
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Holly Webb1836285493|title=The Story Double Life of Greenrivera Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Silken and SedgeWill is a keen player of video games, for all their differencesa conscientious student, have a lot in commonslightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. Silken But most of all, he is a girl whose father is the Master Builder of what might be the finest beaver lodge on the Greenriveran aspiring writer. Unfortunately she English is also a kind of runt figurehis favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and as a result is patronisedone at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and given the most tokenistic tasks when it comes she has suggested to fetching wood Will and shoring the dam up. She also stands out for the unique artistic ability to sing. Otters like Sedge sing, but his mum that he too, as the son spends a couple of the lady of the holt, has pressure on him to be afternoons a week at a bit less feckless and more attentive to class. Hedifferent school, after allStation Road, will eventually inherit the job of keeping the otters safe from the wolf that both animal species fear the most, and from dreaded events like a Dark Springwhere his ability might be better extended.|isbn=1510109625
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Anna Kemp and David Wyatt1836282028|title=Into Goblyn WoodThe Fighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Hazel. For the last nine of her eleven years she has been stuck as ''Would you like to adopt a foundling in a horridghost?'' ''Young spirit, Victorian institutionborn 1887, generally peeling vegetables or acting as seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a servantspeciality. She'd arrived at the place at the same time as Pete, and they're inseparably good friends now ''If interested, until a chance for them both to escapeplace outside your home three twigs, and enter in the outside worldshape of an arrow, does not go pointing to planyour front door. There had always been the idea ..'' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is celebrating a decade of his wonderfully entertaining [[Rob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in Chronological Order|Spirits]] series with a new adventure that is both a life idyllic in the nearby forests, Goblyn Wood, reboot and a tribe of Wild Childrencontinuation. Just like Doctor Who, Edward Fitzberranger, but none of that comes to passour incorrigible Victorian ghost boy, as Hazel finds herself in the care of a professor at the Natural History Museumhas some new companions. But life with him is not anything like what she might have expected it to be – Ruby and Hazel is determined to return Jayden respond to the Woods, restore her friendship with Pete – this intriguing advertisement and to work out just what is going on in the forestEdward, both who has broken the light rules as usual and the shadeabsconded from his manor house home, is adopted by them and the deathly darktakes up residence in....|isbn=1398503835a wardrobe!
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleRob Keeley|title=The Accidental StowawayChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Patch is Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a little girl who has been passed from one relation to anotherball of happy positivity, he understands children, until it seems that there is nobody left and he writes for her to go their pleasure and enjoyment, not tolecture or hector. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother ran away The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. The family lawyer, after consultation with ‘someone’, arranges for her to go to It's a school in Liverpool, but sequence of ghost stories centring on her arrival thereEllie, she gets caught up in an adventure with a little boy called Turo stalwart young girl who works on a steamship. During a chase can cope with him (when she is both trying to get anything the spirit world throws at her rollerskate back , and running away from the police!) she winds up on the steamship hiding in Edward, a lifeboat, spoiled lordling and before she knows it, the ship has left the docks and she is an accidental stowaway!first spirit Ellie encounters|isbn=05713631211783064617
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorMax Boucherat|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for TroubleThe Last Life of Lori Mills|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Alice Eclair. A perfect eye and very careful hands have made her one of ParisWe meet Lori on the first evening she's best young cake makers and decoratorsgot the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, making sure her mother's establishment is a classy affair. Not bad for a thirteen at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. OhWhat could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and a perfect eye and a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a very competent young spyhit in Lori's world. Her But first real mission will be to chase Lori has a traitor across the country – working behind the scenes tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on a posh sleeper train to the south of Franceher own, and hoping against hope that then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she can prevent documents allowing foreign agents and her bestie and nobody else should be able to creep into the country from getting into nefarious handsenter shows signs of tampering. But while nobody would have When malevolent eyes spark up on her down as a spyphone screen, can she possibly leave behind and her rookie status and find safe place in the baddygame has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?|isbn=18399409560008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David SolomonsKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gavin Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is being followedan avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, seemingly constantlycentury-old, by magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the new (very annoying) girl at school. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl storyway. Because in this instanceUnfortunately for Kit, the girl in question only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is Nikithat one team has been retired, eaten, and she is a galactic princess (no, really, she new trio of questors is!) needed. So what will Gavin do when Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he becomes embroiled in 'll enter as a situation whereteam. What chance does this friendless, potentiallymuscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, Earth and everyone on it will be blown how could he possibly hope to smithereens, all because of Nikisucceed?|isbn=08576399351839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex CotterJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Mermaid Call|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Vivien knows that mermaids don't exist. But she also knows they have to exist – at least in the public eye. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without them. A hundred years and change ago, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaids, but were forced to return to help out with the Great War effort. They also showed female emancipation, which helped create the town's tourism industry, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success story. Alice, a girl who stumbles into Vivien's gran's tourist shop one day, knows she certainly wants mermaids to exist – she thinks her family's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful in her hunt. When the shy, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with the exuberant, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find?|isbn=1839941901}}{{Frontpage|author=Alison Hughes|title=FlyPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is Things have been a very impressive readbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as it does a lot they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy the first person narration from Flyother, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsynew ways to spend time, a along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at school, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on him. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mind, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away along with calling him Flyit, all the many daily social interactions on which isn't his real name, but everybody just uses itthey depend so heavily.|isbn=15253058321736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanTom Percival|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 The Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= SoWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. We He is bullied because he has 're back to the Merge with the first chapter in the third volume of Darren Shanwrong shoes's saga of Archibald Lox, a young man who he has the wrong shoes because his dad can pick 't work and doesn't have enough money for even the locks most basic of portals from our world to anotherthings like food, called the and his dad can''Merge''. Since t work because he lost his last adventurejob at the college, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into was working a slightly uneasy truce cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the topic of fact that his regular disappearancesmum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. They don't ask too many questions and Archie And yet, he still has settled into a fairly peaceful routine tiny amount of visiting Winstonhope. He is good at art, his lock-picking mentor in and clings to the ''Merge'' and showing Kojomoments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the young guardianend of a long, around our world of the Borndark tunnel. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=00085414771805141872|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!The Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Lauren ChildRob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was ''Seventeen banks and a hot summer day right at jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the beginning of truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the summer holidays and Clarice Bean was bored:run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona LongmuirChristopher Edge|title=Looking for EmilyBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Lily. She Lucas and her mother have just moved from his friends are all booked in for a city to movie marathon at their local cinema, a tiny seaside town called Edgeplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, and everyone from said mother they're looking forward to her teacher are making demands lots of Lily that she make new friends. It turns out that she doesn't have any say in the matterexciting films, for while pretending when phoning home that she was with someone called Emilyand many, she is unaware her neighbourmany snacks! However, Samas the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is just about to make herself knownvery different, and in a big waythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But where does Emily come as they lurch from? Wellone film genre to the next, Lily used that name because of can they figure out what she'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the most mundane objectscinema, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming door, in a place calling itself 'The Museum of Emily'. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum', too, leaving the two girls and to make sure they leave no stone unturned in finding what's behind the intrigue...their real lives?|isbn=18399427541839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800901232Adam Stower|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve ColeMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers |summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted Murray is supposed to be a fashion designer. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happyhumble, if not prosperoustidy and friendly cat, so when the smartly-dressed man one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and woman came to the village to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missed. Some money changed hands sleep and Hanh was on , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the mini-bus to Hanoitwo. OnlyBut he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, Hanh and the other girls were catflap they both use can chuck them out, not going to work in into the regular back garden, but into a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factoryworld of frightening adventure and whiffs. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched This time round it drops them? Itinto a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's quite possible that Hanh turned up and her co-workers made them.he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0711266204Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Secret Life Glorious Race of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)Magical Beasts|rating=54|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=I have recently discovered Eli is a great pleasure: I sit busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and watch in the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on evening a daily basishelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. An hour can pass without my noticingEli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. IA few short years ago, Eli've established which species feed from s parents were both lost to the groundtitular race, which pop a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the feeders for a quick snatch company of some food and who settles in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeablemagical beast. It would have been wonderful if, as This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a childconfession from gran, I'd had access Eli knows his only hope is to dare to a book such as ''The Secret Life enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of Birds''magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. So – what is it?|isbn=0571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jason RohanHelen Cooper|title=S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access DeniedThe Taming of the Cat
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Arun and Sam have had little to do with DonnaOnce again, a girl at their schoolmice are pitched against cat. But things immediately change at In this case, principally, we have Brie the start of this extended sprint of a novelmouse, when she insists Arun's house has become up against Gorgonzola the attention of plain-clothes coppers cat – and that in case you're seeing a connection, they should bunk off school live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to find out whybe the names of cheeses. And thus an unlikely trio of misfit young heroes is formed – Sam is really not Donna's idea of company Anyway, but he Brie is the computer buffshunned, Donna seems to know all the criminal ins scorned and outs and survival skills, and Arun? Wellif you must, mous-tracised, itfor the way his habits don's his lot to find out that all t match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based his family life on isn't truethe visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpectedcast out. But how can this disparate trio hope It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to best MI6keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, kidnappersthough, people able as all the others had the chance to keep half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the truth about themselves secret for decades, and so much moresuccessful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=18399433860571376010
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lissa EvansLauren St John|title=WishedFinding Wonder|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When things contrive Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to force Ed and tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his sister Roo (aka Lucy) way to stay with the neighbourhood spinsterish old woman, Miss Filey, for corner shop to buy a week of half-term, they're not looking forward to itlottery ticket. For one thingWhen asked what other family she has, she thinks Wi-Fi is a special brand of biscuit. They don't particularly take to Willard eithercan only name her aunt, the new kid next doorJoni, who seems to ebulliently take over everything and everywhereshe knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But things soon change when they find some tiny old birthday candlesshe has no one else, and manage so off she goes to work out that these candles, for as long as their flames last, make birthday wishes come truelive with her unreliable aunt. How will things change Things continue to get worse for a second time Roo, as when they realise thatshe and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, having used up three of them, these should really be used for it breaks down in the wishes middle of someone two generations older than them?nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=178845202X0571376169
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Richard SmithAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Time Trap TwoOscar's Lion|rating=43
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= ''Jamie and Todd are horrified We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to learn that the Grand Plan, which they thought had been defeatedhave his mother – or father, but mother is about more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be implemented in 1775ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, America. Hector and Catherine have to thwart Travis - an agent of the Grand Plan - who all he sees is hell bent a mahoosive male lion on world domination. Jamie and Todd go with Hector and Catherine on a mission to 1775their bed, to prevent a super gun from being used in the Battle of Bunker Hilllooking sheepish, during the American War of Independence, but only have and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days . But there are benefits to stop history from being altered.'' The second book in the ''Time Trap'' series, having a lion around – it can be shown as you can see, has an urgent unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a mission birthday party for our young heroes as Oscar the firstother month. And it can shapeshift, which took place in the smog so he can take it to school and it can get him out of Victorian Londona problem. This time, Jamie and Todd are off And it's wonderful to have around the grand landscapes of North America. Travishouse – not limiting his biscuit intake, an agent of being much more lax about the Grand Planrules, is attempting to take the Gatling gun back in time and change the outcome of the Battle of Bunker Hillso on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a pivotal episode in the American War of Independencewonderful time.|isbn=B094ZFF85P0008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Justyn EdwardsJudith Eagle|title=The Great Fox IllusionStolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The latest incoming reality TV show Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is a contest with a differencenow missing. No singing Her other mother, no dancingRonnie, this show is looking for magical children! Children who can understand how magic tricks work, and who can attempt having to win The Great Fox's magical legacy - the secrets go up North to all take care of his tricks! Flick her sister who is determined unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to winstay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, but not because she wants feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to own the trickspractise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. She is interested But she soon finds herself caught up in just a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum''one'' tricks old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the trick that The Great Fox stole from her fatherSnakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And shewhat has happened to Caro's hoping if mother? Is she can find that trick then she will be able to bring her missing father home.somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=15295019460571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Ann JuckesTania Unsworth|title=The Hunt for the NightingaleNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jasper is a little boy who has some struggles, and whilst we're never told why exactlyMeet Gil. Just twelve, we can see that he has anxiety and panic attacks, and has difficulty dealing with change and big emotions. His big sister, Rosie, has been a huge support is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him, talking him down when things were difficult, encouraging him, in futureless places that are not homes – and writing find a book with him, all about birdshome for himself. He is en route to yet another fosterer, that he can read when he gets scared to help him calm down. His parents seem completely caught up in their businessjumps into an anonymous car, and so lets it is Rosie he always turns ride him tohis future. Even though she has gone away That future seems to University now, she has promised him that she will still be there in jeopardy when he needs her. But now he can't find Rosie. She hasn't come home when she said she wouldsomeone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and she isn't answering her phone. His parents won't speak definitely ignored enough to him or when they do, he doesn't understand or take in what they're sayingprovide for their safety and seclusion. Nothing seems to be right Them, and the only way he feels he can find any peace is a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if he their oddball destinies can find Rosiecombine, and or if they can find the nightingale and listen to its song, this is one place where life as they do together every Spring.we would want it just would not work…|isbn=13985108901804540080
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alastair Chisholm Helen Peters|title=Friends and Traitors|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and Eric Deschampsthen in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=1788004647}}{{Frontpage|author=Jamie Littler|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas and IronskinArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet TomasTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Happy Elodie is intent on getting closer to work with his father power in one of the blacksmith's forgereligious districts of Arkspire, he's almost perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the age Watcher, the closest to become a full apprenticeruler the district has, and help with one of the new batch of dragonswords is certainly neededfive major victors in said earlier war. Not Being trained in the magic that there are any dragons, only five people can use would definitely change the status of course – they vanished centuries ago. Except..the whole family. Strange signals from within the forge furnaceBut in finding something oddly magical, and a peculiar invite Juniper might just be able to become an apprentice clerk insteadgain some power of her own – for good, are things or for Tom to puzzle over – until it all comes out in the wash, that yes dragons do still exist in this world, and that Tom is rare in the ability to summon them, share magical attributesvery, and ride with them...very bad…|isbn=18399400260241586143
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Louie Stowell024162343X|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has I was the bad company other people got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banishedat school. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both in exile and I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the physical form existence of a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as well, to be '. Where was the more suaveproof? In history lessons, more popular and more successful brother of the twoit was probably worse still. Loki has a month to redeem his reputation, and get his moral compass pointing Not too long after the right way againend of WWII, or else, and to prove it he has I didn't so much want to write learn about the text British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we read didn't dwell on those) in a sentient notebook, that is able what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to cry foul of his lies, and judge his progress. But Loki is dispute what right the kind of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going army had to be a walk there in the parkfirst place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.right?|isbn=1406399752
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Strange and Pam SmyThiago de Moraes|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is no mermaid in Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a friend for young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her in amongst all the other kidsone-last-chance-giving headteacher, who have had their entire childhoods sold to the mill-owners by the London workhouse they used to call homeworld changes. Bess knows there is no time for friendship in Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a handpower-to-mouthout, every man for himself kind even of existence. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of a kindred spirit electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the slight little Dotentire planet (apart from mobile phones, and despite everything all that life powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has taught happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her about betrayal and how befriending epic quest, to gather all the people only leads to harm, there might be a glimmer of companionship in that can steal it back – namely the tired-out mill workers. But surely characters from myth that doesn't mean there is any truth have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the existence of semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the mermaid?tricksters.|isbn=180090049X178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=Escape RoomFinding Bear|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process [[The Last Bear by which Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific locationlot further north than many people would venture, and have to solve problems in order to get their way out. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventureshe called Bear. Back home, with things on the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Heredomestic and family front are a bit advanced, Ami and four other tweenagersbut not perfect for her, all new to each other and booked into so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the game without any of their friends, are islands Bear was last left on. For a team – starting out at the gamebear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's main officesOK, where they're told they she and her father return to the Arctic and their quest for The Answer are hope that in a world-changer. But could watching people engage with such a pastimeof very white and very dangerous things, despite she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?friendship can continue.|isbn=17880079640008582017
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeSimon Fox|title=FledglingDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=BavariaLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, 1900. Our scene is demanding he fetch something from a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decadessecret place, and now looking imperiously down join him on the village and woods belowrun. It's an eccentric house They get together, but barely begin to host eccentrics, so smell the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, whiff of Southern trains when the roof father is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through itarrested, and so leaving Archie on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermylate express to Brighton, toting a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudlytin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, bearer of a young lass who has to do all the maintenance whole heap of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going to be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again..questions.|isbn=183994188X1839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie BlackallCath Howe|title=The Beatryce ProphecyMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ren''Stories have joy and surprises s family home is destroyed in them''a fire. She, we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous storyher parents, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportionher little brother lose everything. We start with a group She doesn't have any of monksher clothes, the Order or any of the Chronicles of Sorrowingher special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingnow she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, trampling on and biting or even eat the poor Brothersfoods they normally eat. Things change drastically when When she goes back to school she discovers that the beast takes class are doing a totally maternal approach special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a homeless girl, one who person. But Ren has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits nothing to put in a King in his castlebox, desperate and so she finds herself starting to find the girlsteal things. Small things, for it is prophesied things that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great changepeople might not really miss, not when they have so much already. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat what will happen to anyoneher if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=15295008931839942835
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithRob Keeley|title=The Great Dream RobberyBoy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Maya's father Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrong, and now he can't wake up. Or at least, that's what Maya has been told. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new friendtales, and discovers that the only way each as fun to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collideread as his previous offerings...really...and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051XB0BVW69N1G
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Keith GrayLaura Noakes|title=The ClimbersCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sully is Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the best tree climber home she lives in is for the village. He has what's known amongst girls to just be named by the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up number they correspond to in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatenedledger, and not only thatthey're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that his chance Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to name be known about where she came from, as the finalfirst ever inmate, unnamed big tree and unique in having no known family in the park by being outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the first kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to conquer it, might be snatched from adopt all the girls for his handsInstitute. How can Sully stop Nottingham But why, and what does that body entail? And will could it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, possibly bring Cos closer to do the past she has solittle link with?|isbn=17811299910008579059
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettAlice M Ross|title=Locked Out LilyThe Nowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lily At last there is, or was, or has been, very ill, new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and to give her parents relief mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few dayshas stolen it. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just She also knows she should be free from worries about to be born – a child Lily swears being found out, because she hates already and wants nothing has the ability to do with. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (leave this world, and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra use an unworldly portal of her parentskaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the babe-in-armsbuildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, already installed. These devilish interlopers need can Elsbeth nab anything to be ousted to get actually generate custom at the family back intactshop? Well yes, even if it's not is the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in answer, but the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake.fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=14711948331839943769
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Philip ReeveNatasha Farrant|title=Utterly Dark and the Face The Rescue of the DeepRavenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In a word, richThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. There Ravenwood is certainly an abundance old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildseacomplex, British but way westextended family arrangement, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on itas Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and sea-witchesRaffy is there with his mum, and legends of the Dark they are living together as a family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are They have grown up swimming in the Watchercove, Andreweroaming through the trees, who has to keep notes completely at one with all of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, nature around the house and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out loving every inch of the sea one day eleven years agoplace. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himselfnow the house is under threat, both as Leo is under pressure from his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into other two brothers to sell the world of protecting their island, like property to a developer as it or 's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying notonly about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=17884523720571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex FoulkesRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Rules for VampiresSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or Jayden'Leo' for short) s nose is forever in a Vampire. She drinks bloodbook, she sleeps during which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the day, phoenixes and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock unicorns of bats the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to travel aroundher new tablet, although not all where she can see videos of them remember to come back)anything that might be out there. Pretty cool stuff. Now The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, on exploring the night outside world of her hundredth birthnightHackney, she has to go out and hunt her first humanLondon. However But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanagewith a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. Oops! And to make things worse For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the ghosts one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of one local footage. The crew of the orphans boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the evil master of kids unknowingly have the orphanage come back magical sight needed to haunt herjoin in. So Dare they side with Leila, not only does Leo have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerfulwoman on board, she has to do it all while hiding it from and her family. Did I mention vampires relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and ghosts hate each otherbecome saviours of the unseen? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955X0241573483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Angharad WalkerB09XWSXSKY|title= The Ash HouseMaestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A new boy arrives at The Ash Housetune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. He doesnhadn't know his namereally wanted to come; after all, or why he is there but he is used to the system, used to different places 's ten now and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out all those old clocks don't appeal to teach him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the rules of The Ash Housetime. And time isn't good for anything. These rules centre on a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered by '' And that was why he was looking at the arrival of clock beside the Doctorbed. By It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the end of the story, lives will be changed forever clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and The Ash House will never be find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the same again.|isbn=1912626977clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
}}
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]