132,613
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi PinfoldMax Boucherat|title=Finding BearThe Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]]We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, April had been on Bear Islandher lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, a lot further north than many people would ventureshe has one main intention, and finding that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a polar bear – tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she called Bearfinds something even more spooky. Back home, things on For the domestic server she and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, bestie and so can easily nobody else should be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left onable to enter shows signs of tampering. For a bear doing very Bear-y things When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been shot doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?|isbn=0008666482}}{{Frontpage|author=Kieran Larwood and woundedJoe Todd-Stanton|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Kit. Desperate to make sure Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he's OKis an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, she and her father return race to the Arctic exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and hope the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that in one team has been retired, eaten, and a world new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very white unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and very dangerous thingsstumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.how could he possibly hope to succeed?|isbn=00085820171839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Simon FoxJames Sherwood Metts|title=DeadlockPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on Things have been a bit sticky for the force, Earthlings. AI and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret placeautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and join him on the runother tasks that took time to accomplish. They Just as they were beginning to get together, but barely begin used to all this technological change and starting to smell the whiff think of Southern trains when the father is arrestedother, leaving Archie on the late express new ways to Brightonspend time, toting a tin his father along came an awful pandemic. Life was determined to keep away from his colleaguespretty much shut down and, along with it, and all the bearer of a whole heap of questionsmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=18399444201736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Cath HoweTom Percival|title=My Life on FireThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=RenWill's family home life is destroyed difficult, in a firemultitude of ways. She, her parentsHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any enough money for even the most basic of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboardthings like food, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they his dad can't touch anythingwork because he lost his job at the college, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eatwas working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. When she goes back to school she discovers Throw into that mix the class fact that his mum and dad are doing a special art projectseparated, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a personWill's life seems bleak in every direction. But Ren And yet, he still has nothing to put in a boxtiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and so she finds herself starting clings to steal things. Small thingsthe moments of joy when he is drawing, things that people might not really missfeel like a light at the end of a long, not when they have so much alreadydark tunnel. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=18399428351398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn= Rob Keeley1805141872|title= The Boy Teacher Who Disappeared and Other StoriesKnew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Hooray''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...'' Goodness me, that Miss Judson is back a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a return to bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us son of a famous magician who has ambitions to eleven new tales, each be as fun to read good as his previous offerings.|isbn= B0BVW69N1Gfather some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Laura NoakesChristopher Edge|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a StarBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Number One. Or ratherLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, Cosima Unfortunatea place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. Or ratherAll big movie fans, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond 're looking forward to in the ledgerlots of exciting films, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilitiesmany, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. many snacks! But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came fromHowever, as the first ever inmatemovie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and unique in having no known family in the outside worldthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes But as they lurch from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want film genre to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But whynext, and can they figure out what does that body entailon earth is going on? And could it possibly bring Cos closer Will they ever get back to the past she has so little link withcinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=00085790591839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alice M RossAdam Stower|title=The Nowhere ThiefMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=At last there Murray is new stock in supposed to be a 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 the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside towntwo. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found outBut he's a bad magician's cat, because she so his favourite bun has the ability to leave this worldbeen turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worldscan chuck them out, where not into the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty regular back garden, but into a world of humans frightening adventure and ripe for plunderwhiffs. With eviction imminentThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answerbe honest, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=18399437690008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha FarrantAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Rescue Glorious Race of RavenwoodMagical Beasts|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This story Eli is another excellent adventure from a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. Ravenwood is an old housewondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the North of England, where Bea evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and Raffy have been living for most of their livesruns. They are part of a complexEli lives with his lovely gran, extended family arrangement, as Bea is too – for there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a generation missing in the family. They have grown up swimming in the coveA few short years ago, roaming through Eli's parents were both lost to the treestitular race, completely at one with a globe-trotting adventure where all of entrants have to navigate the nature around world in the house and loving every inch company of the placea magical beast. But now This has made the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers race anathema to sell the property pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only about where they're going thing to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn downpossibly save his gran.|isbn=05713487850571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe AndersonHelen Cooper|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns Taming of Silver Streetthe Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=JaydenOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you's nose is forever in re seeing a bookconnection, which means he knows they live in a lot about mythological creatures – cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the phoenixes and unicorns names of the world, for examplecheeses. Aisha Anyway, Brie is addicted to her new tabletshunned, scorned and, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problemif you must, as their mothers see itmous-tracised, is that they are never for the way his habits don'out there' themselves, exploring t match the outside world of Hackney, Londonother mice he lives with. But when a narrowboat turns They nibble up carrying a sciencepaper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-minded, educational purposetelling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existedcast out. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks sheIt's seen on a bit of local footagealmost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. The crew of This makes Brie the top dog in the boatmouse community, including a living gargoylethough, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and as all the kids unknowingly have others had the magical sight needed chance to join inhalf-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. Dare they side with Leila, But will the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of story have the unseensuccessful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=02415734830571376010
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09XWSXSKYLauren St John|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiFinding Wonder
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldnRoo't sleeps life has become almost impossibly difficult. A tuneHer mum died when she was young, rather like and now she finds herself awoken in the ticking middle of a clock was playing over and over in the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his mind. It happened every time he came way to the corner shop to visit his grandfatherbuy a lottery ticket. He hadnWhen asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't really wanted to come; after allthink very highly of. But she has no one else, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal so off she goes to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the timelive with her unreliable aunt. And time isn't good Things continue to get worse for anything...Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni'' And that was why he was looking at s old campervan, it breaks down in the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go middle of nowhere and find grandad - but where was he? then bursts into flames! And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nigel BainesAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicOscar's Lion|rating=4.53|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=Cooper loves We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to perform magic tricks. His have his mother – or father was , but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Coopercouple of times before he has to be ready for school. But sadly Cooperwhen he enters his parents's father died suddenlybedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and now Cooper doesnadmitting that he won't quite know who be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can beshown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, or how so he can take it to beschool and it can get him out of a problem. And when his dadit's prop rabbit starts talking wonderful to himhave around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, he ''really'' doesnit can't know what's going on anymore!work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|isbn=14449602610008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorJudith Eagle|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingThe Stolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[Alice EclairCaro's mother, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]]a world-famous whistler, Alice Eclair had has failed to prove herself as a spy return home from her recent work trip abroad and as a master at all things French and fancy and fondantis now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, as the only way is having to go up North to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer on the French railwaystake care of her sister who is unwell. HereSo who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, we start on a bateau-mouche in Parissomeone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and even though the espionage isn't a complete success it proves worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to Alice and practise her handlers that things gymnastics are afootbrought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. And there will never be more feet than at the WorldBut she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's Fairold suitcase, reviving the huge expo that gave the city the Eiffel Tower and this time showing all her interwar glories off to across London a fearsome gang called the worldSnakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Once again Alice will have to present Is the front painting somehow linked to the world of being a humble yet world-class cake decorator, while seeking out clues. gang? At stakeAnd what has happened to Caro's mother? Pioneering flight technology that Is she somehow involved in the enemy just cannot be allowed to smuggle out…mystery too?|isbn=18399409720571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy GreeneTania Unsworth|title=Fritz and KurtNowhere Island|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and KurtMeet Gil. Just twelve, and their muckers, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want he is so determined to do escape the care system – kicking things around the empty market place, helping the neighbours, being dutiful when it comes to the synagogue choir and at a vocational school. Kurt has to make sure the lamps system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are turned on at their very Orthodox neighbours' each Friday night not homes – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as find a light switchhome for himself. But this He is the time just before the Austrian leader is going en route to cave to Hitler's willyet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and instead of having a national vote lets it ride him to keep the Nazis out, invite them in with open armshis future. ''Kristallnacht'' happened That future seems to be in Vienna just as much as in Germany, as did all the round-ups jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of Jews. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home belongings – but that someone lives with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of brother in a camp on an evacuation to Britain or island between the UStwo directions of a motorway, while Fritz a place inaccessible and his father are, unknown initially definitely ignored enough to each otherprovide for their safety and seclusion. Them, packed off on the same train to Buchenwald and the stone quarry a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this could come about…is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=024156574X1804540080
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robin StevensHelen Peters|title=The Ministry of Unladylike ActivityFriends and Traitors|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=May Wong is a long way from her family in Hong KongEngland, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. She’s stuck One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her school, Deepdeanlife it seems, and desperate to get away, and do something useful to help end like the war and to get homefemale generations before her. She just knows The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that she would make the perfect spy! And when she finds herself turned has been removed there away by the Ministry, she takes matters into her own hands, along with a boy she meets outside the Ministry, Ericfrom bomber flight-paths. They both go undercover in a large country houseThe girls are chalk and cheese, pretending to be evacuees, in an attempt to and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Nazisit so. But there something is a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imaginedamiss, and suddenly first separately and then in combination they find themselves in realise the middle Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of a murder scenesecrecy, talk is made of meetings with even more to try to unravel Germans, and solvenot 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=02414298621788004647
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithJamie Littler|title=Super GhostArkspire|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Paragon City has been lucky Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to have be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the great Doctor ExtraordinaryBadlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, their very own superhero taking care perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of them. Whenever the evil Captain Chaos has come up with another cunning plan (usually involving Watcher, the closest to a giant robot of some description) Doctor Extraordinary ruler the district has been there to thwart her mischief , and save one of the dayfive major victors in said earlier war. But one day the Doctor and Being trained in the Captain are trapped together inside a giant robot magic that then explodes, and only five people can use would definitely change the hero and status of the villain are no morewhole family. Or are they…?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…|isbn=02414705360241586143
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Natasha Hastings and Alex T Smith024162343X|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost FairStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersChildren'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'The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep.'' And thus Where was the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the completely iced-over riverend of WWII, like our heroine ThomasinaI didn't so much want to learn about the British army's father with his gingerbread successes (and confectionery shop. Thomasina will occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be working called 'the Fair too – but her twin brother woncolonies't, as he dies want to dispute what right the army had to be there in Chapter Onethe first place. It Looking back, I still believe I was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bedright -bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in but I regret that I lacked the four years since, either. But into maturity to approach 'the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasinaproblem' politely. Not only can he introduce her to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its coreI wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.|isbn=0008496056
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Holly WebbThiago de Moraes|title=The Story of GreenriverOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Silken Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and Sedgeadventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, for all their differences, have she could almost be thought a lot in commonyoung goddess of nuisance. Silken is a girl whose father is the Master Builder of what might be the finest beaver lodge on But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the Greenriverworld changes. Unfortunately she is also Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a kind power-out, even of runt figureelectric cars, and as a result is patronisedhits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and given all that powers the most tokenistic tasks when it comes to fetching wood and shoring the dam up. She also stands out Internet, just for the unique artistic ability to singour convenience's sake). Otters like Sedge singTrixie, but he tooluckily, as realises what has happened – the son of ancient Gods have taken the lady power of the holt, has pressure on him to be a bit less feckless and more attentive to classpower from us. HeAnd so she begins her epic quest, after to gather all, will eventually inherit the job of keeping people that can steal it back – namely the otters safe characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the wolf that both animal species fear Gods, ie the mostsemi-deities, giants, half-gods and from dreaded events like a Dark Springso on known as the tricksters.|isbn=1510109625178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Anna Kemp Hannah Gold and David WyattLevi Pinfold|title=Into Goblyn WoodFinding Bear|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Hazel. For the last nine of her eleven years she has [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been stuck as on Bear Island, a foundling in lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a horrid, Victorian institution, generally peeling vegetables or acting as ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a servantpolar bear – that she called Bear. She'd arrived at the place at Back home, things on the same time as Pete, domestic and they're inseparably good friends nowfamily front are a bit advanced, until a chance but not perfect for them both to escapeher, and enter so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the outside world, does not go to planislands Bear was last left on. There had always For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been the idea of a life idyllic in the nearby forests, Goblyn Wood, shot and a tribe of Wild Children, but none of that comes wounded. Desperate to passmake sure he's OK, as Hazel finds herself in the care of a professor at the Natural History Museum. But life with him is not anything like what she might have expected it to be – and Hazel is determined to her father return to the Woods, restore her friendship with Pete – Arctic and to work out just what is going on hope that in the foresta world of very white and very dangerous things, both the light she can find one specific white and the shade, dangerous thing – and that the deathly dark..friendship can continue.|isbn=13985038350008582017
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleSimon Fox|title=The Accidental StowawayDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Patch Late one night Graham Blake is a little girl who has been passed late back from one relation to anotherhis shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, until it seems that there is nobody left for her to go to. Her father died when she was very youngdemanding he fetch something from a secret place, and her mother ran awayjoin him on the run. The family lawyerThey get together, after consultation with ‘someone’, arranges for her but barely begin to go to a school in Liverpoolsmell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, but leaving Archie on her arrival therethe late express to Brighton, she gets caught up in an adventure with toting a little boy called Turo who works on a steamship. During a chase with him (when she is both trying tin his father was determined to get her rollerskate back and running keep away from the police!) she winds up on the steamship hiding in a lifeboathis colleagues, and before she knows it, the ship has left the docks and she is an accidental stowaway!bearer of a whole heap of questions.|isbn=05713631211839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorCath Howe|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for TroubleMy Life on Fire|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Alice EclairRen's family home is destroyed in a fire. A perfect eye She, her parents, and very careful hands her little brother lose everything. She doesn't have made any of her one clothes, or any of Paris's best young cake makers her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and decorators, making sure now she is living at her mothergrandmother's establishment is a classy affairhouse where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. Not bad for When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a thirteen year old. Ohspecial art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a perfect eye and a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she is a very competent young spyperson. Her first real mission will be But Ren has nothing to chase a traitor across the country – working behind the scenes on put in a posh sleeper train to the south of Francebox, and hoping against hope that so she can prevent documents allowing foreign agents finds herself starting to creep into the country from getting into nefarious handssteal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But while nobody would have what will happen to her down as a spy, can if someone finds out what she possibly leave behind her rookie status and find the baddyis doing?|isbn=18399409561839942835
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David SolomonsRob Keeley|title=A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gavin Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is being followed, seemingly constantly, by back with a return to the new (very annoying) girl at school. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl short story. Because in this instance, the girl in question is Niki, and she is a galactic princess (no, really, she isformat!) So what will Gavin do when he becomes embroiled in a situation where, potentiallyThe Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, Earth and everyone on it will be blown each as fun to smithereens, all because of Niki?read as his previous offerings.|isbn=0857639935B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex CotterLaura Noakes|title=The Mermaid CallCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Vivien knows that mermaids don't existMeet Number One. But she also knows they have to exist – at least in the public eyeOr rather, Cosima Unfortunate. For there would be nothing Or rather, just Cos to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without themher friends. A hundred years and change ago, two teenaged The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls allegedly spent months with mermaids, but were forced to return just be named by the number they correspond to help out in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with the Great War effortdisabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. They also showed female emancipationBut Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, which helped create as the town's tourism industryfirst ever inmate, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success storyunique in having no known family in the outside world. Alice, During a girl who stumbles into Vivien's gran's tourist shop daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one dayafternoon, knows she certainly wants mermaids discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to exist – she thinks her family's black sheep died searching adopt all the girls for them, or else was just too successful in her hunthis Institute. When the shyBut why, doubting Thomasina and what does that is Vivien collides body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with the exuberant, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find?|isbn=18399419010008579059
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alison HughesAlice M Ross|title=FlyThe Nowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a very impressive read, as seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it does a lot of what mainstream teen and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy the first person narration She also knows she should be free from Flyworries about being found out, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsybecause she has the ability to leave this world, a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleaner, a carer while at schooland use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and a bundle the buildings are generally empty of assumptions people lay on himhumans and ripe for plunder. First they assume that with a broken body comes a broken mindWith eviction imminent, then they decide he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him FlyElsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, which isn't his real nameis the answer, but everybody just uses it.the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=15253058321839943769
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanNatasha Farrant|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 The Rescue of Ravenwood|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= So. We're back to the Merge with the first chapter in This story is another excellent adventure from the third volume author of Darren Shan's saga 'Voyage of Archibald Lox, a young man who can pick the locks of portals from our world to another, called the ''MergeSparrowhawk''. Since his last adventure Ravenwood is an old house, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce on in the topic North of his regular disappearancesEngland, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They don't ask too many questions and Archie has settled into are part of a fairly peaceful routine of visiting Winstoncomplex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his lock-picking mentor mum, and they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the ''Merge'' and showing Kojocove, roaming through the young guardiantrees, completely at one with all of the nature around our world the house and loving every inch of the Bornplace. But now the house is under threat, 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 to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD0571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Clarice BeanSecret Beast Club: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildThe Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a hot summer day right at lot about mythological creatures – the beginning phoenixes and unicorns of the summer holidays and Clarice Bean was bored: ''Nothing ever happens except world, for sometimesexample. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there.. And only on rare-sh occasions The problem, as their mothers see it, which is hardly ever.that they are never 'out there' There are seven members themselves, exploring the outside world of the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives on the ground floor because he's wobbly)Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, Mum and Dad, Claricewith a past involving Jayden's older brothercousin, Kurt and younger brother, Minal Cricketthey find a magical world they never knew existed. There's also MarcieFor many of those mythological creatures are real, whoincluding the one Aisha thinks she's main claim to fame seems to be that she steals seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the batteries from Clarice's torchboat, including a living gargoyle, which means that she can't read are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in the airing cupboard. Clarice would love to have someone who listened to herDare they side with Leila, rather than wanting to talkthe woman on board, but the only one and her relative who does that is Granny and she lives as a figure in New York. The Bean family is ''different''.a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|isbn=0241573483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Fiona LongmuirB09XWSXSKY|title=Looking for EmilyMaestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet LilyFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. She and her mother have just moved from A tune, rather like the ticking of a city to a tiny seaside town called Edge, clock was playing over and everyone from said mother over in his mind. It happened every time he came to her teacher are making demands of Lily that she make new friendsvisit his grandfather. It turns out that she doesn He hadn't have any say in the matter, for while pretending when phoning home that she was with someone called Emily, she is unaware her neighbour, Sam, is just about really wanted to make herself known, and in a big way. But where does Emily come from? Well; after all, Lily used that name because of what shehe'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of the most mundane objects, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming door, in a place calling itself 'The Museum of Emilys ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum', too, leaving Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the two girls to make sure they leave no stone unturned in finding whattime. And time isn's behind the intriguet good for anything...|isbn=1839942754}}''
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0711266204Nigel Baines|title=The Secret Life A Tricky Kind of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)Magic|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionEmerging Readers|summary=I have recently discovered Cooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a great pleasure: I sit magician, and watch named Cooper after the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on a daily basisgreat Tommy Cooper. An hour can pass without my noticing. IBut sadly Cooper've established which species feed from the grounds father died suddenly, which pop to the feeders for a quick snatch of some food and now Cooper doesn't quite know who settles in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeableto be, or how to be. It would have been wonderful ifAnd when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, as a child, Ihe 'd had access to a book such as 'really'The Secret Life of Birds'doesn'. So – t know what is it?'s going on anymore!|isbn=1444960261
}}
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]