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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]==Confident readers==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreMax Boucherat|title=Fortune CookieThe Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If We meet Lori on the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on as thatfirst evening she's where Fudge's father got the idea fromhouse to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. They're actually chalk What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and cheese – Fudge that is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination worksa hit in Lori's world. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake But first Lori has rather a lot tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy own, and his problems are becoming then she finds something even more obviousspooky. Add to this that For the server she and her father couldn't cope with the problems bestie and he now has another familynobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. It's just CupcakeWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, Joey and her mother safe place in the game has been doctored – and not well, where is a lot of money.girl to turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave Eggers|title=The Wild Things|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adults, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriend, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the facts. He is a bit of a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animals, Kieran Larwood and ends up installed as their king.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeremy StrongJoe Todd-Stanton|title=Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Trevor's troublesome dogMeet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, Streakermage and healer enter specially prepared, has had three puppies. They were fatheredcentury-old, according to local bully Charlie Smuggmagical mazes, by one of his Alsatians. Trevor would ideally like and race to keep themthe exit, at least until Christmas, but his parents have other ideas perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and put them up for salethe points they grant you along the way. Charlie Smugg declares that Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's entitled to half seen of the money from latest race on the sale inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of the puppiesquestors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, but before they can be sold he has taken to the three puppies go missing in goading from the park token bully of his world and itstumbled into declaring he's up to Trevor ll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and his best friend Tina how could he possibly hope to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Annie TaylorJames Sherwood Metts|title=VioletPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet is Things have been a very special hippobit sticky for the Earthlings. She is extremely small but that does not make her adoptive parents Albert AI and Mavis love her any the less. Howeverautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they are slightly worried 're paid to do and other tasks that Violet has a very unusual habit took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of turning pink without warning other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and for no explicable reason, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=London 1601. Elizabeth I Will's life is getting on difficult, in yearsa multitude of ways. Her capital city He is a busybullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', bustling place. Boats fill he has the river wrong shoes because his dad can't work and people fill doesn't have enough money for even the streets. Jack is happy because it's his birthday most basic of things like food, and his present is dad can't work because he lost his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Maxjob at the college, who's was working a cash-in-hand job on a ''licking building site and a running had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and a leaping dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a jumping tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a tummy in light at the air and a tail wagging and end of a barking, racing, brakinglong, spinning energy dog of delight''dark tunnel. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1805141872|title=Love and KissesThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tamsin ''Seventeen banks and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boringa jeweller’s have been raided. They'd been best friends since forever and were The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the good girls. Neither missed schooltruth – his Maths teacher, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. WellMiss Judson, that isreally a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically Miss Judson and looking forward to going Ben go on to universitythe run. But Al needs them for one last job.. All that seemed to change when she met Alex. Well, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into her, from the building site where he worked. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbChristopher Edge|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a cart pulled by her horse Prettymovie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. She All big movie fans, they's very politere looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, friendlymany snacks! However, and kind-heartedas the movie starts, but she feels like they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is lacking because she doesnvery different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't have even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Adam Stower|title=Murray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to be a kingdom humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of her ownthe two. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but there But he's always a feeling that shebad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not quite as good as them because she isn't into the princess regular back garden, but into a world of anywherefrightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alex Bell and Tim Pigott-SmithMcDonagh|title=Shadow The Glorious Race of Evil (Baker Street Mysteries)Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If ever Victorian England needed Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the Baker Street Irregularswondrous library we start by visiting with him, it's nowand in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. The great Sherlock Holmes Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is dead - drowned at sea whilst attempting to foil one of Professor Moriartya generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's evil plans. More ships are likely parents were both lost to be sabotaged and the shipping owners are up in arms. To make matters worsetitular race, Queen Victoria's granddaughter has been kidnapped. Woulda globe-be clients are queuing up at 221b Baker Street, but Dr Watson is having trotting adventure where all entrants have to turn them awaynavigate the world in the company of a magical beast. And This has made the more Sam Wiggins sees, race anathema to the more he's convinced that all pair – but when a bad incident at the various shenanigans are related eatery leads to one another. If a confession from gran, Eli knows his only Holmes were there hope is to dare to tell him exactly how. But enter what he isn'tmost hates, and with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only people who are around are childrenthing to possibly save his gran. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034096006X</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean Ure Helen Cooper|title=Star Crazy MeThe Taming of the Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This book is about CarmenOnce again, but to understand her you first need to know about her familymice are pitched against cat. There's her mother In this case, who is quite laid back when it comes to all things schoolprincipally, but rather obsessed with looks (despite being we have Brie the kind of person to drive everywheremouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and get winded walking up in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a flight cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of stairs)cheeses. There's her Nan Anyway, Brie is shunned, who used to live with them scorned and always encouraged Carmen, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don's talent, perhaps to an embarrassing extentt match the other mice he lives with. Still, They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it's good to have support. And therethat story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's her father, almost as if there were another character from fable who we don't know much abouthad had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. But then This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, neither does Carmenas 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>0007224613</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcus Sedgwick Lauren St John|title=Ghosts and Gadgets (Raven Mysteries)Finding Wonder|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=EdgarRoo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, raven and self-appointed guardian now she finds herself awoken in the middle of Otherhand Castle, the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has reason dropped dead on his way to be worriedthe corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. The second-eldest of the Otherhand offspring When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, CudweedJoni, ran into something in the forbidden south wing who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of the castle and was in shock for days. Upon recovery But she has no one else, he reports the culprit was a ghostand so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. When more victims begin popping-up - maids Things continue to get worse for Roo, stable-boys as when she and shoe-polishersJoni leave London in Joni's old campervan, all quite literally scared-to-death – Edgar takes it upon himself to save breaks down in the day.middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842556940</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret Mayo, Geraldine McCaughrean, Rose Impey, Andrew Matthews, Jane Ray, Ian Beck, Angela Barrett, Emma Chichester Clark Adam Baron and Alan SnowBenji Davies|title=Magical Princess StoriesOscar's Lion|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most little girls would love 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 pretty pink book couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all about princesseshe sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, wouldnand admitting that he won't they? 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. This one has seven retellings And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of traditional fairy tales accompanied by beautiful illustrations a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and would make so on. OK, it can't work a lovely gift for dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a birthday or Christmaswonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140830516X</amazonuk>0008596751
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate DiCamillo Judith Eagle|title=The Magician's ElephantStolen Songbird|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Peter Augustus Duchene hovered outside the fortune-tellerCaro's tent in the market squaremother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. To Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go in and get an answer up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to the only question he had would cost all the money that he had – stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and he'd been given it to go out confused and buy the cheapest, poorest food that was availableworried. But he had All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to have a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an answer to the question and when he asked he was told thatorphan boy, Albie, yeswho is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, his sister as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum''was'' alive s old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and that terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the elephant would take him gang? And what has happened to her. Caro's mother? But where Is she somehow involved in this chilly, northern clime would he find an elephantthe mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406324477</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris PriestleyTania Unsworth|title=Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's MouthNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young Robert Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is put on so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a train back home for himself. He is en route to school by his stepmother. It's the first journey yet another fosterer, when he's made on jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his ownfuture. It turns out That future seems to be more in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a challenge than he could ever have imagined. The train stalls at camp on an island between the mouth two directions of a tunnel motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and while the other passengers sleep through the waitseclusion. Them, and a mysterious woman in white tells him mute girl also finding a series of stories - stories with home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a difference. 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>1408800144</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul Fleischman and David RobertsHelen Peters|title=The DunderheadsFriends and Traitors|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths.5 The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=1788004647}}{{Frontpage|author=Jamie Littler|title=Arkspire|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The vile Miss Breakbone hates kids Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is forever shouting at her classan eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. When Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the teacher confiscates religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the one-eared cat that Theodore (better known as Junkyard) is giving child in line to his mum for her birthdayinherit the power of the Watcher, the Dunderheads hatch closest to a plan to get it backruler the district has, and teach Miss Breakbone a valuable lessonone of the five major victors in said earlier war. What follows is an elaborate plot, weaving elements Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the ''Bash Street Kids'' with ''Mission Impossible''whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406322555</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Morris Gleitzman024162343X|title=Toad SurpriseStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=5
|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=I was going to mention, the bad company other people got into at some time school. I was disruptive in this review, that you would be hard pushed to confuse this book with religious education classes because I disputed the same authorexistence of a 's [[Once by Morris Gleitzman|Holocaust stories]]god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, but as it begins with an apocalyptic massacre in a hit and run road crash, perhaps you mightwas probably worse still. Such is Not too long after the lot end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the humble cane toad. Always having British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to take the warty with be called 'the smooth. Or so youcolonies'd think, until Limpy identifies as want to dispute what right the next driver army had to pull up near their swamp as Santabe there in the first place. At last Looking back, I still believe I was right - his chance but I regret that I lacked the maturity to improve human-cane toad relationships, by getting his species recognised as Santaapproach 's new little helpers. And so he hops on the truck with his best friend, the macho Goliath, and drives off with Santaproblem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''...Or does he?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141326948</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew Klavan Thiago de Moraes|title=The Last Thing I Remember (Homelander)Old Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Charlie West 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- US Air Force hopeful and karate expert last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power- remembers when his main concern was whether schoolmate Beth would go out with him, 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. So why is he strapped And so she begins her epic quest, to a chair gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in a windowless cell?stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755352998</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hazel Allan Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=Bree McCready and the Half-heart LocketFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you want to keep your children quiet and busy for [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a while then this lot further north than many people would be a good book to give them. Twelve year old Bree and her two friendsventure, Sandy and Honey, find themselves running for their lives when finding a message on ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a heart locket necklace leads them to an old, magical book polar bear – that has enormous powersshe called Bear. A monstrous enemy, ThalofedrilBack home, is trying to get his claws things on this book so that he can continue to reek death and destruction in the world, domestic and it is up to Breefamily front are a bit advanced, and but not perfect for her friends, to save us all...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905537115</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Helen Stringer |title=The Last Ghost: A Belladonna Johnson Adventure|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Belladonna Johnson can see and talk to ghosts and no one else so can. In fact she lives with two; her dead parents. But something is happening – easily be ignored when word comes through from the ghosts are disappearingislands Bear was last left on. Her mother vanishes For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and her father tells her wounded. Desperate to make sure he doesn't have much time either. The doors are closings OK, the doors she and her father return to the Other Side Arctic and there is only one left, but just as he says this, he is gone too. Not wanting to lose her parents again, Belladonna sets out on hope that in a journey with the help world of Stevevery white and very dangerous things, a boy from school. They need to she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the entrance to the Land of the Dead, the door to where the last ghost, Elsie, waits, before it's too late… friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230715044</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate ThompsonSimon Fox|title=The White Horse TrickDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We last saw Jenny before she made Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the move to Tir na n'Og force, and before she knew she was then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a changelingsecret place, and join him on the run. These days They get together, she's happily ensconced in but barely begin to smell the land whiff of Southern trains when the fairiesfather is arrested, where there is no time and nothing much happensleaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, but everyone feels toting a huge sense of lazy contentment. Her human foster parents JJ tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and Aisling Liddy have also made the move and they are equally happy, in bearer of a laid back kind whole heap of wayquestions. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370329929</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine McCaughrean Cath Howe|title=The Death Defying Pepper RouxMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I love it when I discover Ren's family home is destroyed in a new book that I just canfire. She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't put downhave any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and todaynow she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, for meor do anything, it was or even eat the story of Pepper Rouxfoods they normally eat. Our heroWhen she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, Peppercreating boxes of their lives, had his future foretold at his birth, when his Aunt Mireille had to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a vision from Saint Constance that Pepper would be dead on his fourteenth birthdayperson. On hearing this news his parents take very little interest But Ren has nothing to put in hima box, and Pepper grows up fully aware of his impending doom thanks to his very religious Aunt who forces him so she finds herself starting to confession every day, and ensures he is fully versed in the terrors of hellsteal things. SoSmall things, as you can probably guessthings that people might not really miss, his fourteenth birthday comes around and yet somehow Pepper finds that he is still alivenot when they have so much already. Through a series of chance happenings he flees the ever present menace of death, skipping from one person's life But what will happen to another, afraid at how he has somehow evaded Saint Constance and the angels of death and forever guilty at the lies he her if someone finds out what she is forced to tell to cover up his escape from death.doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192756028</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip Ardagh Rob Keeley|title=The Far From Great Escape: Grubtown TalesBoy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When the Grubtown lighthouse Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is plunged into darkness because of the failure of its one massive lightbulb back with a ship called ''The Plucked Grape'' runs aground in return to the bay. It ploughs into ''short story format! The Rusty Dolphin'' where the locals are enjoying a Hot Chocolate and Bubble-Wrap Popping Night. As if this wasn't enough Boy Who Disappeared treats us to contend with the local Police Department (all three of them) have eleven new tales, each as fun to cope with a jail break when all six members of the Fox family make a bid for freedom. Their sentence only had another fortnight to go and when they're caught there'll be another trial and they'll be imprisoned for a much longer stretchread as his previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571242340</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony Horowitz Laura Noakes|title=The Devil and his BoyCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Queen Elizabeth I met with her magician late one night and asked about the fate of a man she had known many years beforeMeet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. He was deadOr rather, but his son lived onjust Cos to her friends. Meanwhile The practice in the town of Framlingham Tom Falconer worked home she lives in is for the couple who had taken him girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in after his parents diedthe ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. There was no loveBut Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, or even affectionas the first ever inmate, from them and when he was offered unique in having no known family in the chance of escape outside world. During a daring escapade to London by steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a rich and aristocratic stranger he barely hesitateddevilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. Life was never going to be easy for the likes of Tom But why, and before long he found himself alone in London trying what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to avoid Gamaliel Ratsey – the highwayman who would see him dead.past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406305693</amazonuk>0008579059
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Walter Moers Alice M Ross|title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Meet Echo the Crat. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is accepted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hilary McKay|title=Wishing For TomorrowNowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Wishing For Tomorrow'' picks up 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 [[A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett]] left off. Avert your eyes if you've not read the first book - sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and if you haven'tripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, why notcan 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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340956534</amazonuk>1839943769
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances Hodgson BurnettNatasha Farrant|title=A Little PrincessThe Rescue of Ravenwood|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sara Crewe has started at Miss MinchinThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''s Select Seminary For Young Ladies. She's so rich Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and well-behaved that she soon becomes known they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the little princesstrees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place. However But now the house is under threat, when her father dies shortly after as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going bankruptto live, Sarabut if they's life is turned on its headll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340997397</amazonuk>0571348785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Fiona Louise Bate Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=GusSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gus Jayden's nose is forever in a beaglebook, who stands upright with his tail held high and in this delightful little book which means he tells us knows a lot about his daymythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. He shares his garden with a couple Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of tortoises called Dido and Hectoranything that might be out there. The problem, but only in summer as their mothers see it, is that they disappear in winterare never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. He's But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a dog who loves his comfort and we see him having his tummy tickledscience-minded, snoozingeducational purpose, curled up in and with a chair and making artistic designs on past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a white duvet with his muddy pawsmagical world they never knew existed. HeFor many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's always alert though seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and squirrel knows when it's best the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to make himself scarcejoin in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as do some plump pigeons.a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904312357</amazonuk>0241573483
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|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ItFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn's 1935 and Mooset sleep. A tune, rather like the son ticking of a prison guard, is living on Alcatraz Islandclock was playing over and over in his mind. His most notorious neighbour is none other than Al Capone. And Capone has done Moose a favour - somehow, It happened every time he's managed came to get Natalie, Moose's autistic sister, into the Esther P Marinoff school, where she'll get specialist helpvisit his grandfather. Nobody must ever find out though - Moose He hadn's father would get the sack and they'd be thrown off the islandt really wanted to come; after all, at the mercy of the Great Depression. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408801558</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tony Robinson|title=Bad Kids: the Worst-Behaved Children in History|rating=5|genre=Childrenhe's Non-Fiction|summary=I'm starting to wonder about the type of person who would write such a horrible ten now and terrifying book for children; it's as confusing as trying to work out an age category for this book. ''Bad Kids'all those old clocks don' is a gruesome look through history using the ways children were punished through the ages as a central core. It runs right through history from ancient Iraq, where you could get your fingers chopped off for hitting your parents (they only recently abolished that one) t appeal to the modern day and the use of ASBOshim anymore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230737870</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=T S EliotNigel Baines|title=Old Possum's Book A Tricky Kind of Practical CatsMagic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Rhymes and VerseEmerging Readers|summary=In 1939Cooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a magician, TS Eliotand named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's cat poems for his godchildren were first published. Seventy years father died suddenly, and an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical laternow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, theyor how to be. And when his dad're republished heres prop rabbit starts talking to him, complete with illustrations by Axel Scheffler, best known for his work he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on [[The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson|The Gruffalo]].anymore!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571240615</amazonuk>1444960261
}}