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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Gareth P JonesRob Keeley|titlerating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Clash Will is a keen player of the Rival Robots (Adventures video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of the Steampunk Pirates)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=The Fighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley

|summary=We learn ''Would you like to adopt a lot about ghost?'' ''Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a speciality.'' ''If interested, place outside your home three twigs, in the world shape of the Steampunk Pirates in this volume an arrow, pointing to your front door...'' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is celebrating a decade of their adventures. While having had references to Britain fighting France before now, we find the location matters more than his wonderfully entertaining [[Attack of the Giant Sea Spiders (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates) by Gareth P JonesRob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in Chronological Order|last timeSpirits]], as we head back to England. The Pirates have been told of series with a new adventure that is both a reboot and a way to get into the Tower of London to steal the Crown Jewelscontinuation. We also learn a lot about their upbringingJust like Doctor Who, if you can call it that – certainly more than last timeEdward Fitzberranger, as we see what made them piratical in the first placeour incorrigible Victorian ghost boy, which was a surprise to their inventor when it happenedhas some new companions. But you never know, they may be about Ruby and Jayden respond to face a showdown against said scientist – this intriguing advertisement andEdward, worsewho has broken the rules as usual and absconded from his manor house home, his next generation of robotsis adopted by them and takes up residence in.... If only they perhaps had been programmed to avoid temptation…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847156061</amazonuk>a wardrobe!

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Karen McCombieRob Keeley|title= Catching Falling StarsChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= It is 1940 and after a year of the ''phoney war'' London is suffering in the Blitz. Glory and her younger brother Rich have now been evacuated to a country village far from everything they know and love. When the arrangements made by their mother fall through the children are sent to live with Miss Saunders, a cold and unwelcoming woman who is not popular in the village and Glory wonders if they would have been better off remaining in London despite the danger of falling bombs. The local children appear unfriendly and even in the countryside they are not completely safe from the enemy. All Glory wants is to return home to her parents but she will soon discover that her life is to change in unexpected ways and she will learn that her first impressions should not always be trusted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407138898</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Alexander McCall Smith|title=Precious and the Zebra Necklace|rating=5

|summary=There is a new girl at Precious RamotsweAround here, we're big fans of children's schoolauthor Rob Keeley. Her name is NancyHe's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and Precious he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hector.  The ''Childish Spirits'' series is asked to look after her and make sure she settles into schoolone of his greatest achievements. PreciousIt's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, already a budding detective stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at such a young ageher, soon sniffs out that there is a little bit of a mystery surrounding Nancy and on discovering that all Nancy has left of her parents is Edward, a fading photograph spoiled lordling and a zebra necklace she decides that she must try to help Nancy discover the truth about what happened to them.first spirit Ellie encounters|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780273274</amazonuk>1783064617

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary McKayMax Boucherat|title=Binny in SecretThe Last Life of Lori Mills

|summary=Reading Binny We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in Secret was rather like that moment when, as a childbabysitter poorly, I discovered that Noel Streatfield had written a LOT of other shoe books ormother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a few years agoblanket fort, when I suddenly discovered Jeanne Birdsall and her Penderwick storiesshe has one main intention, and I gorged that is to log on themto Voxminer, the world-building, utterly delighting critter-collecting game that is a hit in their humour and kindnessLori's world. I donBut first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't quite know how I haven't come across Hilary McKay beforefind herself entirely on her own, but and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of course now tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a long list of her books have gone onto my 'girl to read' pile because I thoroughly enjoyed this story and I immediately wanted more!turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444913409</amazonuk>0008666482

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate PankhurstKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title= The Disappearing Dinner Lady (Mariella Mystery)|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary=Mariella has to admit itDungeon Runners: the school dinners have been much better lately. When Big G was in charge, vegetable mush was the order of the day, but since the 'Ladies Who Lunch' agency have been supplying the meals, they have been serving up heavenly dishes like 'Monday Munchie Madness', 'Princess Pie' and 'Pirate Pasta Bake'. The mystery girls love the new menu, but even more than that, they love the new dinner lady, Diana Dumpling. When Diana goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Mariella and her friends are on the case to discover what really happened to their favourite dinner lady.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444012347</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tomiko Inui and Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator)|title=The Secret of the Blue GlassHero Trial

|summary=One problem with being four inches or so tall, as any [[The Borrowers: The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton|Borrower]]-type creature I'm sure will tell you, is getting aroundMeet Kit. There're Like most of the impracticalities of being so smallpeople in his world, encounters with catsit seems, and a whole lot more. But with this modern world things can happen he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – such as an English governess-type taking the sport where a married couple team of Little People to Japan with her. There they have kidswarrior, mage and she leaves them with her favourite pupil – alongside the most necessary equipmenthealer enter specially prepared, century-old, a small blue glass gobletmagical mazes, that helps and race to the human bond exit, perhaps bothering with the Little People by using it to donate milk to them on a daily basistreasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. WeUnfortunately for Kit, the only thing he're now into s seen of the latest race on the second generation of Japanese people looking after theminn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, but something much more threateningeaten, all-enveloping and worrying than a cat new trio of questors is around needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the corner – World War Twotoken bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690344</amazonuk>1839945184

{{newreviewplainFrontpage|author=James Sherwood Metts|title=In Their Shoes: Fairy Tales and FolktalesPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5

|summary=Lots of books Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation havebeen proceeding apace, in their own way, shown fairy tales often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to have relied on certain tropesaccomplish. You certainly don't have Just as they were beginning to get used to read them all, or indeed many, this technological change and starting to see the wily child outsmart the adult again and again, people tricked into changing ownership think of magical thingsother, the power of being a stepmothernew ways to spend time, or the power of doing things in threesalong came an awful pandemic. Still, I think this must be one of a very rare few collections to look at footwear as a themeLife was pretty much shut down and, along with a tidy, small selection of fairy and folk-tales to entertainit, all with that subjectthe many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782691014</amazonuk>1736128426

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ulrich Hub, Jorg Muhle and Helena Ragg-Kirkby (translator)Tom Percival|title=Meet at the Ark at Eight!The Wrong Shoes|rating=4|genre= Confident Readers|summary=An educated penguin, an agnostic penguin and a violent, smaller, young penguin walk into a snowdrift… You might not be able to make a full joke out of that opening line, but this book practically does continue on from there. Three penguins – each a little different from the other, even if they generally look and definitely smell the same, and God, a subject of their conversation when a butterfly comes along, of all things. The young, hot-headed one (well, in the pictures he wears a woolly hat, he's bound to be hot-headed) leaves in umbrage, leaving just two – which is perfectly timed if you're a dove, and come along telling all the animals to get into Noah's Ark in pairs, as an almighty flood is about to happen…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690875</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Steven Butler|title=The Diary of Dennis the Menace: Canine Carnage (book 5)|rating=4

|summary= IWill'm sure Dennis the Menace has s life is difficult, in a hate-hate relationship with school, but the nature multitude of it is relevant when considering these booksways. The fact He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he goes at all is has the cause wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for them in even the first place – most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he [[The Diary of Dennis lost his job at the Menace by Steven Butler|originally]] college, was tasked with writing working a journal as homework, cash-in-hand job on a building site and turned it had an accident. Throw into a menacing manual for usthat mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, his readersand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. But if he paid attention there he might realise £1,000 is not quite enough to build his own, self-aggrandising theme parkAnd yet, even if he manages to employ the bummy, booky, wimpy types behind the scenesstill has a tiny amount of hope. The grand sum He is what Dennis intends good at art, and clings to win the moments of joy when The Fame Factor TV talent show hits town. That, as we can easily foretell, he is going to be very menacingly interestingdrawing, but that's not feel like a light at the site end of the titular carnage – for that we have to rely on an unusual sleep-over…a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141355840</amazonuk>1398527122

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1805141872|title=Cheeky CharlieThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Mat WaughRob Keeley|rating=4.5

|summary=''My book is about all Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the naughty things that my brother Charlie has done. Some of it is funnytruth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, some of it is really a bit sadsafecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and lots of it is disgusting, because that's what Charlie can beBen go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job.. It might even make you be sick, so get ready.''

You know what? That's about the size of it. After Harry has introduced herself - she's almost seven years oldGoodness me, she doesn't that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her freckles, she's used manage to people thinking that someone called Harry ought to be get mixed up with a boy, and she has a younger brotherbad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is three and called Charlie. This is Harry's book about Charlie. Charlie is Ben, the son of a cheeky chappie. He never shuts up. He likes famous magician who has ambitions to push be as good as his luck. Andfather some day, having pushed his luck once, he likes to push it again. And again. And again. This and who thinks Miss Judson is much to Harry's exasperation, as she explains by dint of a book full of anecdotes... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1508910510</amazonuk>worth saving

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellChristopher Edge|title=Dork Diaries: Once Upon a Dork (Book 8)Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=3.54

|summary=There is wishing you had Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a fairytale relationshipmovie marathon at their local cinema, and/or having a place that has the chance to change your life drastically – and then there is being able to see what would actually happen if either wish came truenickname of 'The Black Hole'. Nikki wakes up on a typical school day with a hellish start – no alarm clockAll big movie fans, due they're looking forward to her younger sisterlots of exciting films, sandwich all over her jumperand many, again due to her younger sistermany snacks! However, and so onas the movie starts, and so she can only wish for they very quickly realise that something to take her out of it about this new film format is very different, and give her a dollop of fantasythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. That something But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is dodgeball, which bangs her going on ? Will they ever get back to the head so much she wakes up in a sheer fantasy worldcinema, where her BFFs are Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood, 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…their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>147114383X</amazonuk>1839942738

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lincoln PeirceAdam Stower|title=Big Nate Lives It Up (Big Nate, Book 7)Murray and Bun

|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Life at school might actually Murray is supposed to be interesting for Big Natea humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, for oncewell, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. Even if the building is so old itBut he's falling down, an ancient studenta bad magician's journal much like cat, so his favourite bun has been discovered, peppered with turned into a girl's cartoons from a longhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, long time ago – proving even he and the catflap they both use can have chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a connection with something a century old. (And I don't mean the connection made when bits world of the place actually fall onto his headfrightening adventure and whiffs.) Unfortunately for NateThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, another connection has been forced on him where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he has had to buddy up with the new boy in class. ''He's new, dorky, turned up and has a name that sounds like a British boarding schoolhe'', we're told. But what exactly is it about Breckenridge Puffington III that gives Nate a strong sense of déjà vu…?ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007581270</amazonuk>0008561249

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= StrefAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan: The Graphic NovelGlorious Race of Magical Beasts

|genre=Graphic NovelsConfident Readers|summary=Here's Eli is a quiz question for you busy lad – despite by day an apprentice in the uniform seventy year copyright rulewondrous library we start by visiting with him, which work has been and in the evening a helper at the sole recipient of an endless extension of it, courtesy of an ex-Prime Minister? dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. The answer is obvious now at leastEli lives with his lovely gran, as this too – for there is one such volumea generation missing in the family. ItA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a very readable and pleasant variant on J M Barrie's original stage version and novel regarding Peter Pan, which globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of course helps and always will now help the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospitala magical beast. And for This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a boy who never grows upconfession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at 111 years old he's in spritely good healththe end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780272901</amazonuk>0571382231

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Helen MossCooper|title= Secrets The Taming of the Tombs 2: The Dragon Path|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= They don't actually intend to have an adventure: quite the opposite, in fact. As far as fifteen-year-old Ryan and his friend Cleo are concerned, being chased by bad guys and falling down deep holes is seriously over-rated. But they're on their way to China with their parents anyway, so they can hardly refuse when Cleo's grandmother asks them to put a jade bracelet she's had for eighty years back where it belongs. Where's the harm?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444010417</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Kjartan Poskitt and Philip Reeve|title=Borgon the Axeboy and the Whispering Temple (Borgon the Axeboy 3)Cat

|summary=''The middle's nice and crunchy but the squishy bits Once again, mice are horriblepitched against cat.'' NoIn this case, principally, thatwe have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you's not re seeing a predator connection, they live in prehistoric times discussing a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the eating names of us humanscheeses. InsteadAnyway, itBrie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don's Borgon t match the Axeboy's mother, discussing peachesother mice he lives with. Yes, even in a world where a lot of nasty animals are still around to potentially eat They nibble up paper wrapping from the likes of Borgon, there are still things cheese for people to learnbedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. Borgon for And that story-telling will come in handy onenight, in this third adventure in the series, has a lot to learn about religion – when he scoffs at the idea therefeels all alone and cast out. It's a god resident in a temple he and his friends have discovered, even almost as if his friend Hunjah insists otherwisethere were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. The lesson is forced and This makes Brie the top dog in the truth comes outmouse community, howeverthough, when as all the others had the chance to half-inch some thieves turn up, having pegged cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the site as a location of many earthly riches…successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057130737X</amazonuk>0571376010

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Dead End Kids: Heroes of the Blitz Lauren St John|authortitle=Bernard AshleyFinding Wonder|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=ItRoo's London life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in 1940. Most the middle of the men have been conscripted and night by the East End is populated mainly by women and children. Josie and police banging on her door to tell her that her friends are carrying dad has dropped dead on much as usual, though, grouping into little gangs and arguing over turf via mud fights along his way to the Thames. But then comes corner shop to buy a terrible night of bombinglottery ticket. It When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn's the start t think very highly of the Blitz . But she has no one else, and 57 consecutive nights of bombing so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for the East End. The fire service is stretched way beyond its capacity Roo, as when she and the lucky ones make Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it out of the shelters breaks down in the morning, while the unlucky ones don't see another sunrise.middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408338955</amazonuk>0571376169

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma CarrollAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=In Darkling WoodOscar's Lion|rating=53

|summary= In the early hours 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 the morning Alice’s mum receives the phone call they have been waiting times before he has to be ready forschool. The long awaited heart transplant that may save her sick brother But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, Theo’slooking sheepish, life is now possibleand admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. Alice finds herself sent But there are benefits to stay with having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a grandmother she doesn’t know, miles away from her friends and birthday party for Oscar the life she knowsother month. There is no TV And it can shapeshift, no phone signal so he can take it to school and no internet but Alice feels drawn it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the mysterious Darkling Wood surrounding house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the house despite her grandmother’s wish to have rules, and so on. OK, it chopped down. Meanwhile back in 1918 can't work a young girl desperately waits for news of her brother’s safe return from the front. Her mother doesn’t like her playing in the nearby wood dimmer switch but it is there that she discovers secrets and magic that can give her hope for the futureOscar a wonderful time. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057131757X</amazonuk>0008596751

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Potion DiariesJudith Eagle|authortitle=Amy AlwardThe Stolen Songbird

|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Samantha Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is a mixer having to go up North to take care of potions extraordinaireher sister who is unwell. Which So who is just as wellgoing to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, because someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to save a princess who has fallen in love halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with herself. Yesan orphan boy, you heard right! You might not think this is the most enormous problem - princesses are so spoiled and pamperedAlbie, who is it any wonder they fall living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in love with themselves? But this isn't whata mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's happened. Princess Evelyn has taken old suitcase, and all across London a love potion meant to make someone else fall in love with ''her''fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. And Is the resulting havoc caused by painting somehow linked to the wrong person taking the right potion leads gang? And what has happened to some very unstable magic that could threaten the very kingdom itself. Hence the Caro''Wilde Hunt'', a national quest to find s mother? Is she somehow involved in the ingredients for a cure.mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471143562</amazonuk>0571363148

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Thirteen Days of MidnightTania Unsworth|authortitle=Leo HuntNowhere Island

|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Luke Manchett really isn't that upset when Meet Gil. Just twelve, he gets is so determined to escape the care system – the news system that his father has died. You might think constantly puts him in futureless places that's are not homes – and find a tad harsh, but Luke has been estranged from his father home for yearshimself. His primary concern He is his motheren route to yet another fosterer, who is disabled by crushing cluster headaches. Sowhen he jumps into an anonymous car, rather than worry her, Luke heads off and lets it ride him to a lawyer's office his future. That future seems to deal 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 reading two directions of his father's will by himselfa motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. And he gets Them, and a mute girl also finding a shockhome there, albeit so much more successfully. Luke's inheritance adds up to six million dollars. SIX MILLION! Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408337460</amazonuk>1804540080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Dougherty and David Tazzyman (illustrator)Helen Peters|title=Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face Friends and the Bees of StupidityTraitors|rating=53

|summary=We've been here beforeEngland, WW2. The lovely children whose name is in Two young girls are new at the title of all these books – handy when they make time to try and check if they're in this one or not – are woken up in a ridiculous way by a blackbird making his usual cameocountry pile called Stanbrook. The Army of Great Kerfuffle One is asleep – Nancy, destined to be in service all single cat of her life itseems, like the female generations before her. The King other is wearing Sidney, a girl from a badge hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that allows him to pretend to not be the King – this time hehas been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn's thinking of keeping beest guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, although he has four animals that go 'quack' and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a hive insteadrum 'un. Oh yeahMidnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and the evil badgers are in prison having not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been naughtyattacked. But they will never follow surely the pattern girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be evil and naughty and break out in order to be eviller and more naughty, will theyso underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192742736</amazonuk>1788004647

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian SedgwickJamie Littler|title=Ghosts of ShanghaiArkspire

|summary=ShanghaiTwo sisters, 1926Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. The city Juniper is heavily divided between the naturalan eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, national areas, and the enclaves of including relics from prior major wars left out in the foreigners – Russian, French, American, BritishBadlands. Several Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the younger international youths have formed the Ghost Society gangreligious districts of Arkspire, after perhaps even to become the principal character, Ruby, found another divide cleaving Shanghai child in two – that between line to inherit the living and power of the deadWatcher, the 'real world' closest to a ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the Otherworldstatus of the whole family. Her brother deadBut in finding something oddly magical, she seemed Juniper might just be able to become the conduit gain some power of her own – for good, or for a poltergeist in her apartmentvery, and recently very bad…|isbn=0241586143}}{{Frontpage|isbn=024162343X|title=Stolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=I was the gang have even managed to lock a spirit bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a bottle and cast 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it down a wellwas probably worse still. But Not too long after the gang is immediately falling apart – end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the lad she loves, Charlie, British army's successes (and his sister are diverting themselves fromoccasional failures, or have been warned off, any further such activity. Rose knows she has but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to find be called 'the source of colonies' as want to dispute what right the problem – and cross any untold divides army had to be there in her city the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to find approach 'the truth…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444923900</amazonuk>problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus and Sean MurrayThiago de Moraes|title=TrollhuntersOld Gods New Tricks

|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=West Coast USA in the 1960sMeet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the city is wracked and wrecked by school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a slew young goddess of missing children reportsnuisance. The parents with their new anguishesBut just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, and new rules against playing out after darkthe world changes. Suddenly, have no idea of the horrors in their vicinity practically everything electronic stops working – literally under their feet lies a city power-out, even of trollselectric cars, guilty of snatching hits not just the children. Last to go, Jack Sturgess. Cue town the modern era and Jackschool's younger, now grown-up brother Jimin but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and Jim Jr live a sheltered life in all that powers the most barricaded and secure home imaginableInternet, and Jim Jrjust for our convenience's life is as exciting as you'd expectsake). UnfortunatelyTrixie, howeverluckily, realises what has happened – the trolls are about ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, to make a return to their nastiest of ways 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 their intentions are a lot more surprising than Jim Jr could ever predict…so on known as the tricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471405192</amazonuk>178845295X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Caroline LawrenceHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title= The Case of the Bogus DetectiveFinding Bear|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Howdy folks! Welcome to Virginia City[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, bustling and busy finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home to prospectors, dancing girlsthings on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, lawyersbut not perfect for her, gamblers and newspapermenso can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. It's 1862, and our twelve For a bear doing very Bear-year-old pal Pinky is continuing the quest to become a successful detective y things has been shot and eventually join Uncle Allan in the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicagowounded. But for the moment there Desperate to make sure he's so much crime right here in NevadaOK, thanks she and her father return to the untold wealth being found daily Arctic and hope that in the nearby silver minesa world of very white and very dangerous things, that Pinky she can find one specific white and financial partner Ping are soon busy day dangerous thing – and night, chasing desperados, solving crimes and righting all manner of wrongsthat the friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444010336</amazonuk>0008582017

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ali SparkesSimon Fox|title=Car-Jacked|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=A boy genius who speaks Mandarin and Latin and a criminal who’s just robbed a bank and stolen a car: it’s an unusual pairing but, it turns out, a perfect team. ‘‘Car-Jacked’’ leads us through the twists and turns of 12-year old Jack’s adventure when his parents’ car is hi-jacked with Jack still inside.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019273346X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Joan Aiken and Quentin Blake|title=Arabel’s RavenDeadlock

|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It’s been manyLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, many years since I first met Arabel and her pet raventhen suddenly rings Archie, Mortimerdemanding he fetch something from a secret place, whilst watching Jackanory and join him on children’s televisionthe run. Bernard Cribbins used They get together, but barely begin to read smell the stories, and they became firm favourites whiff of mine. Here I am returning to Southern trains when the first book in father is arrested, leaving Archie on the serieslate express to Brighton, well, just toting a handful of years latertin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the story has lost none bearer of a whole heap of its charmquestions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847806910</amazonuk>1839944420

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Philip CaveneyCath Howe|title= One For SorrowMy Life on Fire|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= YouRen'd thinks family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, wouldnand her little brother lose everything. She doesn't youhave any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, that Tom Afflick would move heaven and earth now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to avoid leaving Manchester to go to Edinburgh: on his last two visits there he ended up tumbling into school she discovers that the pastclass are doing a special art project, where he met all manner creating boxes of scary folk. But parents tend to be pretty determined their lives, to get their own way about such display things, and no way that are they going important to swallow some mad tale about him being chased by plague doctors them and other assorted murderersshow who they are as a person. So, off he But Ren has nothing to goput in a box, and yes – he's barely set foot in ''Auld Reekie'' when he's time travelling againso she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, in a wondrous mix of dramathings that people might not really miss, real live people and deadly perilnot when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905916957</amazonuk>1839942835

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave CousinsRob Keeley|title=Charlie Merrick's Misfits in I'm a Nobody, Get Me Out of Here!The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories

|summary=What Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is that saying, about the best laid plans 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 by Dave Cousins|last time]] are hoping for back with a simple trip return to a summer camp for a week's educative training. But no, their dopey manager has booked them in to a survival camp by mistake. Instead of hitting the back of the net they're building tarpaulin shelters. They can't set any watching footie-heads ablaze, for they have short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to spark their own fires at night. They can still score, howevereleven new tales, each as there's a points-based competition fun to hand, but now that Charlie has dropped read as his team in the proverbial, they're once more really up against it…previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192738232</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John McNallyLaura Noakes|title=The Forbidden City (Infinity Drake, Book 2)Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star

|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Finn may be only 9mm tall and still a teenagerMeet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, but he's already saved just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the world once. Accidentally shrunk girls to just be named by his mad scientist Uncle Althe number they correspond to in the ledger, he joined a crack military team and helped foil they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the threat of tag as a lethal bio-weaponsurname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the Scarlatti wasp. But there's first ever inmate, and unique in having no let-up for Finnknown family in the outside world. Before Al can restore him During a daring escapade to normal sizesteal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a new threat emergesdevilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007521650</amazonuk>0008579059

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom PalmerAlice M Ross|title=Rugby Academy: DeadlockedThe Nowhere Thief|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full 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

|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=It's the third This story in is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Rugby AcademyVoyage of the Sparrowhawk'' series and so far we've heard from Woody . Ravenwood is an old house, in [[Rugby Academy: Combat Zone by Tom Palmer|Combat Zone]] the North of England, where Bea and Rory in [[Rugby Academy: Surface to Air by Tom Palmer|Surface to Air]]Raffy have been living for most of their lives. In thisThey are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, the final book in this brilliant seriesas Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, we hear from Owenand they are living together as a family. We left They have grown up swimming in the team cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the end house and loving every inch of ''Surface to Air'' when Borderlands had got through to the World Championship in New Zealandplace. Despite But now the elation of doing so Owen isn't entirely comfortable with Jessehouse is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the team captainproperty to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. He has no doubts that he was a brilliant player - the best on the team - The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but he canif they't respect him as a personll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781123993</amazonuk>0571348785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=E L KonigsburgRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=From the Mixed-Up Files Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Mrs Basil E FrankweilerSilver Street

|summary=Eleven-year-old Claudia Kincaid Jayden's nose is tired forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of being taken the world, for grantedexample. As the oldest Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of four childrenanything that might be out there. The problem, she suffers many an injusticeas their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, and exploring the interplay outside world of school Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and home life is becoming monotonouswith a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. She decides to run away from her home in Greenwich For many of those mythological creatures are real, Connecticut to live in including the New York City Metropolitan Museum one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of Artlocal footage. Middle brother Jamie The crew of the boat, 9including a living gargoyle, is her chosen companion, not least because he can fund their ventureare tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. By cheating his friend Bruce at card games Dare they side with Leila, Jamie has accumulated more than $24 – whichthe woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in 1967 when this classic children's novel first appeareda painting, was not an insignificant amount.and become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690719</amazonuk>0241573483