'''Read [[Features|new features]].'''
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{{newreview
|author=Ian Whybrow and Lynne Chapman
|title=Stinky! Or How The Beautiful Smelly Warthog Found A Friend
|rating=3.5
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Stinky the warthog lives in a neighbourhood with the Crocodile family, the Monkey family and the Littlebird family. One by one they invite Stinky round to play with their children, but his foul odour and the flies buzzing around him cause all manner of problems. Will he be able to find a friend? ...Well, yes, it says so in the title.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1862337594</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Josephine Wilkinson
|summary=Since his mother died, Kid has been staying with Nadine and flipping burgers in a fast food joint after school. It's not an exciting life, but he isn't unhappy. And then Nadine gets a boyfriend and the flat gets rather cramped. And then a box of his mother's possessions arrives. Inside, he finds a photo of the father he's never met and a copy of his birth certificate, which tells him that his father comes from Belize. And suddenly, Kid makes a decision. He's going nowhere fast in London, so he's going to head out to Belize and find the man in the photo. He's on a plane within days.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571236200</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=David Grimstone
|title=Gladiator Boy vs The Living Dead
|rating=2.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[A Hero's Quest (Gladiator Boy) by David Grimstone|A Hero's Quest]] introduced us to Decimus Rex. This seventh book in the overall ''Gladiator Boy'' series (and start of a new sub-series of 6) begins with our hero, Decimus Rex, and his friends all having received messages from their former ally Teo. I say former because they all thought Teo was dead. They're all hoping against hope that Teo is really alive, but there's a nagging doubt that their nemesis Slavious Doom is setting a trap for them...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340989270</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jenny Valentine
|title=Iggy and Me and the Happy Birthday
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ooh, hooray! Iggy and Flo are back! We loved their [[Iggy and Me by Jenny Valentine|first outing]], just as we love all Jenny Valentine's books for older readers. Flo's just your everyday run of the mill eight year old. Iggy's a normal five year old (going on six). Iggy's a funny little thing, Flo's sweet. They're sisters who do what sisters do, in a regular family. They learn to swim, they fall ill, they make cakes, they ride bikes. They toddle along with life and have a lovely time.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007283636</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Gene Kemp
|title=No Way Out
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Alex and Adam are twins, and they're telepathic to boot. They're very close, but are also like chalk and cheese: Adam's looking forward to their holiday on Uncle Ben and Aunt Sadie's farm, but Alex can't think of anything worse. Adam is always happy to read to their little sister Emmy, but Alex resents the attention she gets (she's disabled, y'see). By and large, they're just ordinary kids, with ordinary grumbles. When the car they're in goes through thick fog and crashes, they find themselves in a town from times past, with inhabitants who don't want to let them leave, and who have an eye on Emmy.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571244556</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Allan Manham and Penny Dann
|title=The Giant Carrot
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=Jack is quite the gardener. All his hard work means his vegetable patch is awash with lucious veggies. One day, he decides to pull up some carrots and make soup, but the biggest carrot just wouldn't budge. He's going to have to get some chums to help him.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843625911</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Castle Freeman
|title=All That I Have
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Castle Freeman may sound like two thirds of a firm of provincial solicitors but thankfully this Castle Freeman is a man very skilled in writing about the law rather than practicing it. In his latest novel Freeman tells an intriguing tale involving local Sheriff Lucian Wing and his practical yet low-key approach to maintaining order in rural Vermont. Not for Wing the gung ho approach to fighting crime. He doesn't wear a uniform, he drives a battered old car rather than the standard issue sheriff's wagon and his gun, so ubiquitous in US law enforcement, is safely tucked away in his bottom drawer. Everyone in the area knows the sheriff and by and large they respect him and his slightly unorthodox way of doing business.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715639021</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Dan Rhodes
|title=Little Hands Clapping
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=The first character to mention in this book is a moth. It's a human moth, drawn to the flame that is a museum of suicide - a supposedly cautionary, life-affirming, memento mori, somewhere in Germany. Its curator is an old hand at lonely, unloved museums, fresh from an art gallery in an airport - it didn't take off - who notices the noise of the latest suicide to happen in the museum, and goes right back to sleep. A spider crawls into his mouth and gets eaten.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847675298</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Lindsey Leavitt
|title=Princess for Hire
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Desi is not the happiest of teenagers, although when are teenage girls ever actually happy? Anyway, her ex-best friend Celeste is doing everything possible to humiliate and alienate her from their friends, and to top it all off Celeste is also dating the boy Desi has a huge crush on, Hayden. (He is perhaps a dubious prospect for Desi since he can't even get her name right). Still, she has landed herself summer job working for a pet store and although it involves being dressed in a furry groundhog costume at least no-one can tell it's her in there. Well, not until Celeste comes along and unmasks her. In front of Hayden. Desi finds herself feeling more and more like vapour every day, that she doesn't matter or almost doesn't exist. Cue the fairy-godmother style entrance of Meredith, an agent for Facade which is a magical company that offer jobs to teens with magical potential to work as substitute princesses...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140524612X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz
|title=Commotion In The Ocean
|rating=4
|genre=For Sharing
|summary=There's a commotion in the ocean: the dolphins are squeaking, the jellyfish are jiggling, and the lobsters are clippetty-clapping snippety-snapping. Animal by animal, Giles Andreae (best-known for [[Giraffes Can't Dance Magnet Book by Giles Andreae and Guy Parker-Rees|Giraffes Can't Dance]]) takes us through the underwater adventures, with short, snappy poems.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408308452</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Delphine de Vigan
|title=No and Me
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Lou is a clever, clever child with an IQ approaching 160. She's thirteen, but she's been moved up two years at school and she compares her flat chested, nervous self somewhat unfavourably with her fifteen-year-old peer group. Funnily enough, her only real friend at school is Lucas, who's seventeen and such a rebel that he's been moved down two years. Things at home aren't great for Lou. Her baby sister died a few years ago and her mother has been severely depressed ever since. She barely talks, seldom gets dressed. Her father is worn down to the bone with worry and Lou doesn't get a great deal of attention from him either, so distracted is he.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408807513</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Paul Magrs
|title=The Diary of a Dr Who Addict
|rating=3
|genre=Teens
|summary=Davey, in his first term at secondary school, is horrified. Not only is his best friend trying to grow up through the use of a home gym, and standing him up on the first morning of term, he also seems to be becoming dismissive of The Show. Still, he is trying to be esoteric - just like his sister, painting her face to look like Bowie album sleeves of all things - and Davey knows better. He knows everyone should be enthralled with the spectacle of Tom Baker falling off a building and becoming Peter Davison.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384129</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Joshua Ferris
|title=The Unnamed
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Tim Farnsworth seemed to have it all. He loved his wife Jane and daughter Becka and his job as a partner in prestigious law firm was enjoyable, fulfilling and financially rewarding. The fly in the ointment was that sometimes he was overtaken by a compulsion to walk. The time of day, the weather or the occasion did not matter – when the compulsion came he had to walk until he was physically exhausted and fell asleep immediately after calling his wife to come and collect him. There seemed to be no medical explanation for what was happening – and Tim and Jane had tried every source they could find – but Tim was still reluctant to accept that this was a mental rather than a physical illness.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670917702</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Michele Monro
|title=Matt Monro: The Singer's Singer
|rating=4.5
|genre=Biography
|summary=In terms of British chart statistics and record sales, Matt Monro never quite fulfilled his full potential. When measured against the achievements of contemporary ballad singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, he fell some way short. Yet the former Terry Parsons was a regular fixture on the light entertainment circuit, and overseas, particularly in Latin America and the Philippines, he was undoubtedly one of Britain's most successful exports ever, and at one point he was the biggest selling artist in Spain. His idol Frank Sinatra, to whom he was often compared, often said that Matt was the only British singer he ever really listened to.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566182</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=James A Owen
|title=Shadow Dragons (Imaginarium Geographica)
|rating=4
|genre=Teens
|summary=If you want to know where Tolkein, C S Lewis and their ilk got their ideas from, you might consider their jobs. No - not their work in Oxbridge universities. In this book, at least, John, Charles and Jack are guardians of a very important book, the Imaginarium Geographica, within which lives a lot of secret, vital information, and almost the soul of the land. They might not get a surname so we know immediately who is whom. They might be from a different world - there is certainly enough talk of those in these pages. But we'll see them meet a vanishing Cheshire cat, a certain Spanish knight we might have thought fictional, and more, en route to a quest of Arthurian proportions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847386512</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Robin Cook
|title=Intervention
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Although Robin Cook has written many books, ''Intervention'' is the first one that I have read - I'm a Robin Cook 'virgin.'
This is a big book in many respects. It's a classic, glossy 'coffee table' edition; it's a big, satisfying read and it's a multi-layered book in that it covers many current-day topics which have their roots in history. In fact, this book is so multi-dimensional that, you could argue, there are several books within this book.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230743633</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Victoria Forester
|title=The Girl Who Could Fly
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could fly? It would be such a wonderful sensation, soaring through the air, looping the loop, swooping down over your house and garden. But have you also stopped to think what other people might think if they saw that you could fly whilst no one else could? Would children still want to be your friend? What would your family think? The little girl in this story, Piper McCloud, can fly. She lives on her parents farm and was always a little, well, unusual, and after her mum found her floating in the air one day when she was a baby she decided to home school Piper, rather than expose her to the gossips in the village. But one day, at the village picnic, Piper flies during the baseball match as she tries to catch the ball, and suddenly her whole life is turned upside down...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330512536</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=P C Cast
|title=Divine by Mistake (Goddess of Partholon)
|rating=3.5
|genre=Fantasy
|summary=Shannon Parker, broke Oklahoma English teacher, likes a good bargain hunt at an auction. But she gets more than her money's worth when she buys a vase with her likeness painted on it. Somehow transported to the magical world of Partholon, Shannon finds herself in the shoes of Rhiannon, her mirror double. Along with Rhiannon's station as Goddess Incarnate, Shannon finds herself landed with her double's less than enviable reputation and a Centaur husband.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0778303578</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Jon Mayhew
|title=Mortlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Abyssinia, 1820. Three Englishment search for the Amarant, a mythical flower with the power over life and death, in a strange desert oasis. On finding the flower surrounded by decaying faces, they realize that it is cursed, and take a blood oath never to remove it.
London, 1854. 13 year old knife thrower Josie performs with her guardian the Great Cardamom, an especially gifted magician who we quickly learn is Chrimes, the coward of the original three Englishmen. Their relatively peaceful existence is shattered when three macabre Aunts (note the capital letter, never a good sign…) descend on them, and Cardamom instructs Josie, with his dying breath, to find the twin brother he'd never told her about and destroy the Amarant.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408803925</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Carole White and Sian Williams
|title=Struggle or Starve
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=Struggle or Starve is a collection of autobiographical writings about girls' and women's lives in South Wales between the wars. This is a new edition of a book first published in 1998 by Honno, an independent publisher set up to encourage Welsh women writers. Most of the contributors in this book came from miners' families and grew up in real poverty and economic insecurity.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906784094</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Julia Green
|title=Drawing with Light
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Emily doesn't remember her biological mother. She ran away with another man when Emily was just two. Now, her older sister Kat, her father, and her stepmother Cassy make up the family unit and Emily thinks it's just fine that way. She doesn't need a mother who didn't want her and has never even tried to get in touch. But then Kat goes off to university, her father buys a rundown house in the middle of nowhere and moves them into a caravan while it's being renovated, and Cassy gets pregnant.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408802732</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sarah Dessen
|title=Along for the Ride
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Auden has always felt like the odd one out amongst her peers. Her parents - now divorced - are both academics and high achievers, and they, especially her mother, want the same for Auden. Auden's older brother is the rebel and so Auden feels as though she needs to be the one who satisfies her mother's ambition. So she works hard and never lets her diligence or conscientiousness slip for even a moment. But she's socially awkward and lacking in experience. She's never had a boyfriend, hates the colour pink and can't even ride a bike.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327480</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Caroline Moorehead
|title=Dancing to the Precipice : Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution
|rating=4
|genre=History
|summary=Two hundred years ago, with the fall of the monarchy and the Napoleonic wars, France underwent one cataclysmic change after another. There were many who witnessed and experienced the volatile age at first hand, but few left a more detailed record than the subject of this biography, Lucie-Henriette Dillon, Marquise Marchioness de La Tour du Pin.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099490528</amazonuk>
}}
