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Newest Confident Readers Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= 1836282028|title=Cheeky CharlieThe Fighting Spirit|author=Mat WaughRob Keeley
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''My book is about all the naughty things that my brother Charlie has done. Some of it is funny, some of it is Would you like to adopt a bit sad, and lots of it is disgusting, because that's what Charlie can be. It might even make you be sick, so get ready.ghost?''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellRob Keeley|title=Dork DiariesChildish Spirits: Once Upon a Dork (Book 8)10th anniversary special edition|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is wishing you had a fairytale relationshipAround here, and/or having the chance to change your life drastically – and then there is being able to see what would actually happen if either wish came truewe're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. Nikki wakes up on He's a typical school day with a hellish start – no alarm clock, due to her younger sisterball of happy positivity, sandwich all over her jumper, again due to her younger sisterhe understands children, and so onhe writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, and so she can only wish for something not to take her out lecture or hector. The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of it and give her his greatest achievements. It's a dollop sequence of fantasy. That something is dodgeballghost stories centring on Ellie, which bangs her on a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the head so much she wakes up in a sheer fantasy spirit worldthrows at her, where her BFFs are Goldilocks and Red Riding HoodEdward, a spoiled lordling and the world is peopled by other folk from school, but her hunky friend Brandon is still Prince Charming, and her enemy Mackenzie Hollister is still able to make her life hell…first spirit Ellie encounters|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>147114383X</amazonuk>1783064617
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lincoln PeirceMax Boucherat|title=Big Nate Lives It Up (Big Nate, Book 7)The Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Life We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at school might actually be interesting for Big Natework, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, for onceon her lonesome. Even if What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building , critter-collecting game that is so old ita hit in Lori's falling down, an ancient student's journal much like his world. But first Lori has been discovered, peppered with a girltiny inkling that this stormy night doesn's cartoons from a longt find herself entirely on her own, long time ago – proving and then she finds something even he can have a connection with something a century oldmore spooky. (And I don't mean For the connection made when bits server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of the place actually fall onto his headtampering.) Unfortunately for NateWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, another connection and her safe place in the game has been forced on him doctored – he has had to buddy up with the new boy in class. ''He's newwell, dorky, and has a name that sounds like a British boarding school'', we're told. But what exactly where is it about Breckenridge Puffington III that gives Nate a strong sense of déjà vu…girl to turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007581270</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= StrefKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=J.M. Barrie's Peter PanDungeon Runners: The Graphic NovelHero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''The middle's nice and crunchy but the squishy bits are horribleMeet Kit.'' NoLike most of the people in his world, it seems, that's not he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a predator in prehistoric times discussing team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the eating of us humansway. InsteadUnfortunately for Kit, itthe only thing he's Borgon seen of the Axeboy's motherlatest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, discussing peaches. Yeseaten, even in and a world where a lot new trio of nasty animals are still around to potentially eat the likes of Borgon, there are still things for people to learnquestors is needed. Borgon Possibly very unfortunately indeed for one, in this third adventure in the seriesKit, he has a lot taken to learn about religion – the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he scoffs at the idea there's ll enter as a god resident in a temple he and his friends have discovered, even if his friend Hunjah insists otherwiseteam. The lesson is forced and the truth comes outWhat chance does this friendless, howevermuscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, when some thieves turn up, having pegged the site as a location of many earthly riches…and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057130737X</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Dead End Kids: Heroes of the Blitz James Sherwood Metts|authortitle=Bernard AshleyPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=It's London in 1940. Most of the men Things have been conscripted and a bit sticky for the East End is populated mainly by women and childrenEarthlings. Josie AI and her friends are carrying on much as usualautomation have been proceeding apace, though, grouping into little gangs often replacing jobs they're paid to do and arguing over turf via mud fights along the Thamesother tasks that took time to accomplish. But then comes a terrible night of bombing. It's the start of the Blitz Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and 57 consecutive nights starting to think of bombing for the East Endother, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. The fire service is stretched way beyond its capacity Life was pretty much shut down and the lucky ones make , along with it out of the shelters in the morning, while all the unlucky ones don't see another sunrisemany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408338955</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma CarrollTom Percival|title=In Darkling WoodThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In the early hours Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the morning Alice’s mum receives wrong shoes', he has the phone call they wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have been waiting enough money foreven the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. The long awaited heart transplant Throw into that mix the fact that may save her sick brother, Theo’shis mum and dad are separated, and Will's life is now possibleseems bleak in every direction. Alice finds herself sent to stay with And yet, he still has a grandmother she doesn’t know, miles away from her friends and the life she knowstiny amount of hope. There He is no TVgood at art, no phone signal and no internet but Alice feels drawn clings to the mysterious Darkling Wood surrounding the house despite her grandmother’s wish to have it chopped down. Meanwhile back in 1918 a young girl desperately waits for news moments of her brother’s safe return from the front. Her mother doesn’t like her playing in the nearby wood but it joy when he is there drawing, that she discovers secrets and magic that give her hope for feel like a light at the futureend of a long, dark tunnel. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057131757X</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|title=The Potion Diaries|author=Amy Alward|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Samantha is a mixer of potions extraordinaire. Which is just as well, because someone has to save a princess who has fallen in love with herself. Yes, you heard right! You might not think this is the most enormous problem - princesses are so spoiled and pampered, is it any wonder they fall in love with themselves? But this isn't what's happened. Princess Evelyn has taken a love potion meant to make someone else fall in love with ''her''. And the resulting havoc caused by the wrong person taking the right potion leads to some very unstable magic that could threaten the very kingdom itself. Hence the ''Wilde Hunt'', a national quest to find the ingredients for a cure.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471143562</amazonuk>}}{{newreview1805141872|title=Thirteen Days of MidnightThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Leo HuntRob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We've 'Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been here beforeraided. The lovely children whose name is in police are baffled, but only Ben knows the title of all these books truth – handy when they make time to try his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and check if they're in this Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one or not – are woken up in a ridiculous way by a blackbird making his usual cameolast job.. The Army of Great Kerfuffle is asleep – all single cat of it. The King '' Goodness me, that Miss Judson is wearing a badge that allows him terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to pretend to not be the King – this time heget mixed up with a bad 's thinking of keeping bees, although he has four animals that go un like Al? We'quack' in a hive insteadll find out. Oh yeahLuckily for Miss Judson, and the evil badgers are in prison having been naughty. But they will never follow pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the pattern and be evil and naughty and break out in order son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be eviller as good as his father some day, and more naughty, will they?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192742736</amazonuk>who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian SedgwickChristopher Edge|title=Ghosts of ShanghaiBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ShanghaiLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, 1926a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. The city is heavily divided between the naturalAll big movie fans, national areasthey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and the enclaves of the foreigners – Russian, French, Americanmany, British. many snacks! Several of the younger international youths have formed the Ghost Society gangHowever, after as the principal charactermovie starts, Rubythey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, found another divide cleaving Shanghai in two – that between the living and the dead, the they are swept up into an adventure they couldn'real world' and the Otherworldt even imagine. Her brother dead, she seemed But as they lurch from one film genre to become the conduit for a poltergeist in her apartmentnext, and recently the gang have even managed to lock a spirit into a bottle and cast it down a well. But the gang can they figure out what on earth is immediately falling apart – the lad she loves, Charlie, and his sister are diverting themselves from, or have been warned off, any further such activity. going on? Rose knows she has Will they ever get back to find the source of the problem – cinema, and cross any untold divides in her city to find the truth…their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444923900</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus and Sean MurrayAdam Stower|title=TrollhuntersMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A boy genius Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who speaks Mandarin is able to sleep and Latin eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a criminal who’s just robbed bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a bank hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and stolen a car: it’s an unusual pairing butthe catflap they both use can chuck them out, it turns outnot into the regular back garden, but into a perfect team. ‘‘Car-Jacked’’ leads us through the twists and turns world of 12-year old Jack’s frightening adventure when his parents’ car and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is hi-jacked with Jack still inside.expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>019273346X</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joan Aiken Alex Bell and Quentin BlakeTim McDonagh|title=Arabel’s RavenThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It’s been manyEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, many years since I first met Arabel and her pet ravenin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, Mortimer, whilst watching Jackanory on children’s televisiontoo – for there is a generation missing in the family. Bernard Cribbins used A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to read the storiestitular race, and they became firm favourites a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of minea magical beast. Here I am returning This has made the race anathema to the first book in pair – but when a bad incident at the serieseatery leads to a confession from gran, wellEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, just a handful with the sole aim the prize of years later, and magic at the end – the story has lost none of its charmonly thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847806910</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Philip CaveneyHelen Cooper|title= One For SorrowThe Taming of the Cat|rating= 3.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= You'd thinkOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, wouldnup against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you't youre seeing a connection, that Tom Afflick would move heaven they live in a cheese shop and earth therefore all the names used here seem to avoid leaving Manchester to go to Edinburgh: on his last two visits there he ended up tumbling into be the past, where he met all manner names of scary folkcheeses. But parents tend to be pretty determined to get their own way about such things Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and no , if you must, mous-tracised, for the way are they going to swallow some mad tale about him being chased by plague doctors and his habits don't match the other assorted murderersmice he lives with. So, off They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he has to go, displays it as art and yes – he's barely set foot makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in ''Auld Reekie'' handy one night, when hefeels all alone and cast out. It's time travelling againalmost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, in a wondrous mix of dramathough, real live people and deadly perilas all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905916957</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave CousinsLauren St John|title=Charlie Merrick's Misfits in I'm a Nobody, Get Me Out of Here!Finding Wonder
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What is that sayingRoo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, about and now she finds herself awoken in the best laid plans middle of mice and misfits gang aft agley? Charlie and his fondly thought of friends in the soccer squad we met [[Charlie Merrick's Misfits in Fouls, Friends, and Football night by Dave Cousins|last time]] are hoping for a simple trip the police banging on her door to a summer camp for a week's educative training. But no, their dopey manager tell her that her dad has booked them in dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a survival camp by mistakelottery ticket. Instead of hitting the back When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of the net they're building tarpaulin shelters. They can't set any watching footie-heads ablazeBut she has no one else, for they have and so off she goes to spark their own fires at nightlive with her unreliable aunt. They can still score, howeverThings continue to get worse for Roo, as therewhen she and Joni leave London in Joni's a points-based competition to handold campervan, but now that Charlie has dropped his team it breaks down in the proverbial, they're once more really up against it…middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192738232</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John McNallyAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Oscar's Lion|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|isbn=0008596751}}{{Frontpage|author=Judith Eagle|title=The Forbidden City (Infinity Drake, Book 2)Stolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Finn may be only 9mm tall and still a teenager, but heCaro's already saved the mother, a world once-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. Accidentally shrunk by his mad scientist Uncle Al So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, he joined a crack military team she feels frustrated and confused and helped foil the threat worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a lethal bio-weaponhalt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, the Scarlatti waspwho is living there too. But thereshe soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's no let-up for Finn. Before Al can restore him to normal sizeold suitcase, and all across London a new threat emergesfearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007521650</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom PalmerTania Unsworth|title=Rugby Academy: DeadlockedNowhere Island|rating=4.5|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=It's Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the third story in care system – the ''Rugby Academy'' series and so far we've heard from Woody system that constantly puts him in [[Rugby Academy: Combat Zone by Tom Palmer|Combat Zone]] futureless places that are not homes – and Rory in [[Rugby Academy: Surface to Air by Tom Palmer|Surface to Air]]find a home for himself. In thisHe is en route to yet another fosterer, the final book in this brilliant serieswhen he jumps into an anonymous car, we hear from Owenand lets it ride him to his future. We left That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the team at the end two directions of ''Surface a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to Air'' when Borderlands had got through to the World Championship in New Zealandprovide for their safety and seclusion. Despite the elation of doing Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so Owen isn't entirely comfortable with Jesse, the team captainmuch more successfully. He has no doubts that he was Over a brilliant player - the best on the team - but he few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can't respect him combine, or if this is one place where life as a person.we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781123993</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=E L KonigsburgHelen Peters|title=From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E FrankweilerFriends and Traitors|rating=43
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Eleven-year-old Claudia Kincaid is tired of being taken for grantedEngland, WW2. As Two young girls are new at the oldest of four childrencountry pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, she suffers many an injusticedestined to be in service all her life it seems, and like the interplay of 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 home life if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is becoming monotonous. She decides to run away from her home in Greenwichamiss, Connecticut to live and first separately and then in combination they realise the New York City Metropolitan Museum Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of Art. Middle brother Jamie, 9secrecy, talk is her chosen companionmade of meetings with Germans, and not least because he can fund their venture. By cheating his friend Bruce at card gamesonly that, Jamie a local Spitfire factory has accumulated more than $24 – whichbeen attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, in 1967 when this classic children's novel first appeared, was not an insignificant amount.and the upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690719</amazonuk>1788004647
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellJamie Littler|title=Dork Diaries: Drama Queen (Dork Diaries 9)Arkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Mackenzie Hollister. She's a typical American tweenager – concerned in popularityTwo sisters, looksJuniper and Elodie, the hot guys like Brandonborn fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and getting one over on all those around hercheese. That's made a lot more easy by her parents being spoilingly rich – if MackenzieJuniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, say, wants a new cover for her diary she will just rip up a new $220 leopard print designer blouse and use thatincluding relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. But Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the problem isreligious districts of Arkspire, what she's reading back over, and what she's writing perhaps even to become the child inline to inherit the power of the Watcher, isn't ''exactly'' her diary – it's the diary belonging closest to our beloved heroine, Nikkia ruler the district has, and Mackenzie has managed to purloin it for evil deedsone of the five major victors in said earlier war. Can Nikki get it back – or live at all without her beloved journal? Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. And could there actually But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be something worse than able to gain some power of her biggest enemy ofown – for good, likeor for very, all time, being the person reading it?very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471117707</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lewis Carroll and Sir John Tenniel024162343X|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Stolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first 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''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
|isbn=178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=Finding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It can hardly have escaped anyone's attention [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that 2015 is she called Bear. Back home, things on the 150th anniversary of domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the publication of Lewis Carrollislands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's ''Alice's Adventures OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in Wonderland'' a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and we've seen numerous anniversary editionsthat the friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447287118</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Guy Bass and Pete WilliamsonSimon Fox|title=The Beast of Grubbers Nubbin (Stitch Head)Deadlock|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's all wrong in Castle Grotteskew. The very walls should be terrified by Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the monsters the Mad Professor in the basement is creatingforce, out of various body parts and different animals. But nothen suddenly rings Archie, the clamour of noisedemanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the unlikely activities and horrendous appetite for food come from something else entirely – a hundred rescued human orphansrun. That appetite needs feeding – so it’s perfect timing for They get together, but barely begin to smell the village below whiff of Southern trains when the castlefather is arrested, Grubbers Nubbinleaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, to have their annual podge-toting a-thon feast. But when Stitch Head and tin his human friend Arabella go father was determined to purloin some human food – there being no decent alternative – they're horrified to find something even worse than keep away from his colleagues, and the monsters trapped in the castle above…bearer of a whole heap of questions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847156096</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cassie BeasleyCath Howe|title=Circus MirandusMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Micah Ren's family home is an orphan who has been raised by his grandfatherdestroyed in a fire. She, her parents, but now Micah’s grandfather is dyingand her little brother lose everything. And if that wasn’t bad enough She doesn't have any of her clothes, his horrible great aunt has arrived to take care or any of himher special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, cutting their limited time together further. But don’t worry all hope and now she is not lostliving at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When grandpa Ephraim was she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a child he visited the mysterious Circus Mirandusspecial art project, creating boxes of their lives, where he was promised to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a miracle by the miraculous Man Who Bends Lightperson. All Micah But Ren has nothing to do is get put in a message box, and so she finds herself starting to the Light Bender and his grandfather can have his miraclesteal things. With the help of Jenny Mendoza (the smartest girl in the class) Small things, Micah sets his sights on the circusthings that people might not really miss, a task that requires unconditional love and faithnot when they have so much already. Aunt Gertrudis But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is wrong, Ephraim’s stories aren’t just stories ... are theydoing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1101892315</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen DaveyRob Keeley|title=Mad About MonkeysThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating= 4|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=Of all Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the many millions of animals on our planet that deserve a large short story format hardback non-fiction book! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, I guess monkeys are one of the ideal places each as fun to start. They are, of course, our distant cousins, with the ancestor we have in common with them walking around our world within the past thirty million years. They have a large range across the planet, they have over 250 variant species, and they have a lot of interesting facts and details regarding their social life, their diet, their diversity and their potential future – all of which makes this an interesting read whatever your species bias may beas his previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909263575</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Josh LaceyLaura Noakes|title=Dragonsitter TroubleCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=You don't need me to tell you what it's like when your uncle owns two dragonsMeet Number One. He's Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. the pig-headed type who has a mummy and baby dragon living with himOr rather, and he must live on a remote island off Scotland, and he must spend half the time hunting just Cos to her friends. The practice in the world of dragons home she lives in Outer Mongolia, or searching is for the yeti, so that trouble starts from girls to just be named by the very moment you arrive with your mother and sister number they correspond to housesit for him – there's no foodin the ledger, the dragons are pooing everywhere and you canthey't even use re all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the front door properly tag as a surname because he didn't leave nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the key first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in an obvious placethe outside world. StillDuring a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, that's nothing compared she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to when adopt all the neighbouring farmer gets girls for his guns trained on the dragons when he accuses them of stealing his sheep… Institute. Or how about when your big birthday party is hereBut why, and the magician is booked – and the two dragons come what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to stay, because somebody else with the talent to care for them past she has the hots for your mother…so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1783442972</amazonuk>0008579059
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jo SimmonsAlice M Ross|title=SuperThe Nowhere Thief|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-Loud Samfull antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=1839943769}}{{Frontpage|author=Natasha Farrant|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sam This story is loud. Not just loud as in another excellent adventure from the loudest lad in class, and not just loud as in loudest fire alarm in school. No, Sam is author of '''LOUD'Voyage of the Sparrowhawk'' loud. Stop traffic Ravenwood is an old house, in the streets loudNorth of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. Scary loud. Loud enough to make passing birds forget how to fly loud. There's little rhyme or reason for thisThey are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, just as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is no real reason why there with his best friend Nina does nothing but knit all the livelong daymum, even when walking to schooland they are living together as a family. It's just something you They have to acceptgrown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place. But what's this? Their favourite teacher has vanishednow the house is under threat, and as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a new one has taken his place – Mrs Mann. Shedeveloper as it's ridiculous with her weirdly large hands, her huge cardigan becoming more and even huger beehive hairdomore expensive to maintain. The biggest thing children find themselves worrying not only about her though is the threat she poses – that of eternal silence in her lessons. How can Sam possibly continue at schoolwhere they're going to live, when but if they'll even him clearing his throat is like a plane crash in your ears?be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407152300</amazonuk>0571348785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christopher MyersRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=My PenSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=How long does it take you to read Jayden's nose is forever in a picture book? Don't worry counting , which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the number phoenixes and unicorns of words, forget totalling the pagesworld, and ignore how many times you may return to bring it off the shelffor example. What matters so much more than how long it takes Aisha is addicted to scan a page her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be how long out there. The problem, as their mothers see it lies in , is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the memoryoutside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and what it can lead towith a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. This exampleFor many of those mythological creatures are real, for instanceincluding the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the boat, can be perused in seconds, but creates including a vivid and long-standing mental imageliving gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and will if it hits the right buttons lead kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to untold future activitiesjoin in. You can't judge something like this Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the value of time.unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1423103718</amazonuk>0241573483
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=B09XWSXSKY|title=Cath Senker Maestro Orpheus and Melvyn Evansthe World Clock|titleauthor=Ancient Egypt in 30 Seconds: 30 Awesome Topics for Pharaoh Fanatics Explained in Half a Minute (Children's 30 Second)Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=EgyptFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. It's up there with dinosaursA tune, space travel and not much else that can hold a young child throughout rather like the length ticking of their school careera clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. Considering a lot of them will grow up declaring they have no interest in, or even a hatred for, history, it He hadn't really wanted to come; after all was relevant a long, long time ago – he's ten now and with Carterall those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. 's finding of King Tut's tomb closing in on its centenary it wonWho needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn't go away yetgood for anything...'' And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. There are indeed books that solely concern themselves with It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the history of our love affair with Egyptclock chimed only six times. But I guess There was nothing for it does boil down but to it being introduced by a fine teacher. go and find grandad - but where was he? Whether this latest book will supplant the human in giving us And why had all the lessons we need remains to be seen.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402373</amazonuk>clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
}}
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