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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]==Confident readers==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeff KinneyMax Boucherat|title=Diary The Last Life of a Wimpy Kid: Dog DaysLori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that school summer holidays are only enjoyable if you want to enjoy summer. Greg here doesnWe meet Lori on the first evening she't want s got the house to notice it, and would prefer herself – no neighbour to spend his days curtains drawnpop in, face glued to late night TV or a computer gamebabysitter poorly, hand either clicking away mother at a controller or shovelling in snackswork, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. The last thing he needsWhat could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, thenshe has one main intention, and that is his motherto log on to Voxminer, the world-building, on critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn'family togetherness'' tript find herself entirely on her own, and on a budget, with bad ideas of what Greg then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be doing insteadable to enter shows signs of tampering.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327650</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rick Yancey|title=The Monstrumologist: The Terror Beneath|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=In late 19th century America When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, young Will Henry and her safe place in the game has been the apprentice of the sterndoctored – well, forbidding Dr Warthrop since the death of his parents, who were also employed by the doctor. The twelve year old boy has seen many things in his service to the monstrumologist - a specialist in monsters - but nothing can prepare him for the fateful day when an elderly grave robber brings the doctor the twin corpses of where is a young girl and the headless creature with fangs in his chest who had tried to feast on her.turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184738546X</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt Kieran Larwood and DaveJoe Todd-Stanton|title=Yuck's Robotic BottomDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's concerned me for a while that Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – princessesthe sport where a team of warrior, magic soft toysmage and healer enter specially prepared, mermaids century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and pets abound – but there's a much smaller choice for boysthe points they grant you along the way. ItUnfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's important too with early readers that seen of the latest race on the content inn TV equivalent is ''interesting'' that one team has been retired, eaten, and reading becomes more than just something which you ''have'' a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to do at school the goading from the token bully of his world and moves stumbled into being fundeclaring he'll enter as a team. Matt and Dave What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have found the answer in Yuck.actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester ClarkJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Best of TimesPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most children enjoy Things have been a good traditional tale bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems to automation have all the right ingredients – a handsome prince and a beautiful princess who fall in lovebeen proceeding apace, get married often replacing jobs they're paid to do and live happily ever afterother tasks that took time to accomplish. Or do Just as they? Sadly, not long after Prince Frederico marries the lovely Princess Serafina, she becomes very sad. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadness, but poor Prince Frederico is desperate were beginning to get used to find a cure for his wife's misery. He tries everything in his power all this technological change and eventually decides starting to offer his kingdom think of other, new ways to anyone who can make her happy again before she dies of a broken heartspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Lots of people come to the palace to try Life was pretty much shut down and help but in , along with it, all the end the solution is a simple one provided by some very kind travellersmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon WestonTom Percival|title=Nelson to the RescueThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike the MilkWill's milk floatlife is difficult, but he has now retiredin a multitude of ways. He lives in is bullied because he has 'the stable at wrong shoes', he has the back of wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the dairy along with a couple most basic of tricky ratsthings like food, Rhodri and Rhyshis dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a pigeon who has no sense of direction, cash-in-hand job on a frog who thinks he's a secret agent spy building site and had an old racehorse who spends most of his time sleepingaccident. Rhodri Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and Rhys find a mysterious message on Mikedad are separated, and Will's fridge and the animals believe that Mike life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has been invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBEa tiny amount of hope. Somehow our heroHe is good at art, Nelson, finds himself travelling down and clings to Londonthe moments of joy when he is drawing, pulling that feel like a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving light at the end of a TV interview about his experiencelong, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jon Berkeley1805141872|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I shall start with ''Seventeen banks and a word of advicejeweller’s have been raided. When you're being hounded by The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a circus mastersafecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and a magician, Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for the soul of a tiger thatone last job...'s contained in a tiger's egg Goodness me, that's contained in the brain of your teddy bear, and your best friend - Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a fallen angel - is trying nice teacher like her best manage to make sure the other angels do not turn on you in get mixed up with a big way - then youbad 'un like Al? We're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogyll find out. Still - never mindLuckily for Miss Judson, the angel's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud citiespupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the chase after your enemies will take you across the world son of a famous magician who has ambitions to desert oases and backbe as good as his father some day, and friends new and old will be on board to help.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy StantonChristopher Edge|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?Black Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her back, Lucas and leaves the town of Lamonic Bibber his friends are all booked in for a day movie marathon at the seasidetheir local cinema, Mr Gum falls out with his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over a place that has the placenickname of 'The Black Hole'. Meat is getting thrown around like itAll big movie fans, they's going out re looking forward to lots of fashionexciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and we have they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to doubt whether Polly and her companions the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever utilise get back to the power of love cinema, and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreAdam Stower|title=Fortune CookieMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of Murray is supposed to be a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got the idea from. They're actually chalk humble, tidy and cheese – Fudge friendly cat, one who is loud mouthed able to sleep and opinionated eat and Cupcake is quiet eat and sleep and thoughtful – but , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the combination workstwo. TheyBut he's a bad magician've just started at secondary school s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and Cupcake has rather the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy world of frightening adventure and his problems are becoming more obviouswhiffs. Add This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to this that her father couldnbe honest, but he't cope with the problems s turned up and he now has another family. It's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of money.ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Wild ThingsGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionConfident Readers|summary=Meet MaxEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. When I say he sometimes gets Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the wrong end of the stick about adultsfamily. A few short years ago, or dislikes his motherEli's new boyfriendparents were both lost to the titular race, or gets a bit feisty when he feels globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the need for revenge, I am certainly understating world in the factscompany of a magical beast. He is a bit of a rascal This has made the race anathema to say the least. But all that might change pair – but when he finds himself travelling a bad incident at the eatery leads to a strange land confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their kingmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241144221</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy StrongHelen Cooper|title=Christmas Chaos for The Taming of the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Trevor's troublesome dogOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, Streakerwe have Brie the mouse, has had three puppies. They were fatheredup against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, according they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one be the names of his Alsatianscheeses. Trevor would ideally like to keep themAnyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, at least until Christmasmous-tracised, but for the way his parents have habits don't match the other ideas and put them mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for salebedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. Charlie Smugg declares And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when hefeels all alone and cast out. It's entitled almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to half of keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the money from others had the sale of chance to half-inch some cheese while the puppies, but before they can be sold cat was distracted. But will the three puppies go missing in story have the park and successful sequel it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash!needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141327243</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Annie TaylorLauren St John|title=VioletFinding Wonder|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet is a very special hippoRoo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. She is extremely small but Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that does not make her adoptive parents Albert and Mavis love her any dad has dropped dead on his way to the lesscorner shop to buy a lottery ticket. However When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, they are slightly worried that Violet has a Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very unusual habit highly of turning pink without warning . But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for no explicable reason.Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A J HealyAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Tommy Storm and the Galactic KnightsOscar's Lion|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Tommy Storm. He's one 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 five teenagers snapped up from around the universe times before he has to be a gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destructionready for school. Not just the planetBut when he enters his parents' bedroom, or the solar systemall he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, or even the galaxylooking sheepish, but EVERYTHINGand admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. Nobody seems But there are benefits to know what's going having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to cause this destruction, or whenthe bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, but so he can take it to school and his friends and their ship seem it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to be have around the only people proactively going house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about saving the dayrules, and so on. So OK, itcan's t work a pity that they start this book strung up by dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a nasty loony who's about to kill themwonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>0008596751
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeanette WintersonJudith Eagle|title=The Battle of the SunStolen Songbird|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=London 1601Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Elizabeth I Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is getting on in yearsunwell. Her capital city So who is a busygoing to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, bustling place. Boats fill the river she feels frustrated and confused and people fill the streetsworried. Jack All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is happy because itstuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: house, along with an excitable black puppy named Maxorphan boy, Albie, who's is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a ''licking and mystery, as she discovers a running and painting of a leaping bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a jumping fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and a tummy terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight''. mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880042X</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreTania Unsworth|title=Love and KissesNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boringMeet Gil. They'd been best friends since forever and were the good girls. Neither missed schoolJust twelve, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that he is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been determined to escape the care system – the boffin head system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to universityfind a home for himself. All that seemed He is en route to change yet another fosterer, when she met Alexhe jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future. Well, That future seems to be in jeopardy when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that Alex pushed someone lives with his wheelbarrow into herbrother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, from the building site where he workeda place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. OhThem, and did I mention that he was seventeena mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, Polish and spoke very little English?or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal LaytonHelen Peters|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Friends and Traitors|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Having successfully seen off England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the rather unpleasant humans country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in earlier volumesservice all her life it seems, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart 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 return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods of Difficult Sumsbomber flight-paths. They The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn're supposed to be making presentations about what 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 did during realise the holidays too, but Oscar hasnLord Evesham must be a rum 't done any preparation andun. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, franklytalk is made of meetings with Germans, he can't really remember what he actually did do with all and not only that free time other than no Difficult Sums, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>1788004647
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbJamie Littler|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very politeTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, friendlyborn fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and kind-heartedtrader in illicit magic, but she feels like something including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is lacking because she doesn't have intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a kingdom ruler the district has, and one of her ownthe five major victors in said earlier war. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but there's always a feeling Being trained in the magic that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't only five people can use would definitely change the princess status of anywherethe 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>1846160421</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Pigott-Smith024162343X|title=Shadow of Evil (Baker Street Mysteries)Stolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=If ever Victorian England needed I was the Baker Street Irregularsbad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it's nowwas probably worse still. The great Sherlock Holmes is dead - drowned at sea whilst attempting to foil one Not too long after the end of Professor MoriartyWWII, I didn's evil plans. More ships are likely t so much want to be sabotaged and learn about the shipping owners are up in arms. To make matters worse, Queen VictoriaBritish army's granddaughter has been kidnapped. Would-be clients are queuing up at 221b Baker Streetsuccesses (and occasional failures, but Dr Watson is having we didn't dwell on those) in what came to turn them away. And be called 'the more Sam Wiggins sees, the more hecolonies's convinced that all as want to dispute what right the various shenanigans are related army had to one anotherbe there in the first place. If only Holmes were there Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to tell him exactly howapproach 'the problem' politely. But he isn I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''t, and the only people who are around are children. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034096006X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean Ure Thiago de Moraes|title=Star Crazy MeOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This book is about CarmenMeet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, but to understand her you first need to know about her familyshe could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. There But just when she's being told that by her mother, who is quite laid back when it comes to all things schoolone-last-chance-giving headteacher, but rather obsessed with looks (despite being the kind of person to drive everywhereworld changes. Suddenly, and get winded walking up practically everything electronic stops working – a flight power-out, even of stairs). Thereelectric cars, hits not just the town the school's her Nanin but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, who used to live with them and always encouraged Carmenall that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's talentsake). Trixie, perhaps to an embarrassing extent. Stillluckily, it's good to realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have supporttaken the power of power from us. And there's so she begins her fatherepic quest, who we don't know much about. But thento 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, neither does Carmenhalf-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224613</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most little girls [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would love venture, and finding a pretty pink book all about princessesridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, wouldn't they? things on the domestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. This one For a bear doing very Bear-y things has seven retellings of traditional fairy tales accompanied by beautiful illustrations been shot and would wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a lovely gift for a birthday or Christmasworld of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140830516X</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young Robert Late one night Graham Blake is put on a train late back to school by from his stepmother. It's shift on the first journey force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he's made fetch something from a secret place, and join him on his ownthe run. It turns out They get together, but barely begin to be more of a challenge than he could ever have imagined. The train stalls at smell the mouth whiff of a tunnel and while Southern trains when the other passengers sleep through father is arrested, leaving Archie on the waitlate express to Brighton, toting a mysterious woman in white tells him tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a series whole heap of stories - stories with a differencequestions. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800144</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I was going to mention, at some time in this review, that you would be hard pushed to confuse this book with the same authorRen's [[Once by Morris Gleitzman|Holocaust stories]], but as it begins with an apocalyptic massacre family home is destroyed in a hit fire. She, her parents, and run road crash, perhaps you mighther little brother lose everything. Such She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the lot of the humble cane toadfoods they normally eat. Always having When she goes back to take school she discovers that the warty with the smooth. Or so you'd thinkclass are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, until Limpy identifies the next driver to pull up near their swamp display things that are important to them and show who they are as Santaa person. At last - his chance But Ren has nothing to improve human-cane toad relationshipsput in a box, by getting his species recognised as Santa's new little helpersand so she finds herself starting to steal things. And so he hops on the truck with his best friendSmall things, the macho Goliaththings that people might not really miss, and drives off with Santanot when they have so much already. ...Or does heBut what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141326948</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew Klavan Rob Keeley|title=The Last Thing I Remember (Homelander)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Charlie West - US Air Force hopeful and karate expert - remembers when his main concern was whether schoolmate Beth would go out with him. So why is he strapped to a chair in a windowless cell?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755352998</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hazel Allan |title=Bree McCready Boy Who Disappeared and the Half-heart LocketOther Stories|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you want to keep your children quiet and busy for a while then this would be Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a good book return to give them. Twelve year old Bree and her two friends, Sandy and Honey, find themselves running for their lives when a message on a heart locket necklace leads them the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to an old, magical book that has enormous powers. A monstrous enemyeleven new tales, Thalofedril, is trying each as fun to get read as his claws on this book so that he can continue to reek death and destruction in the world, and it is up to Bree, and her friends, to save us all..previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905537115</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen Stringer Laura Noakes|title=The Last Ghost: A Belladonna Johnson AdventureCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Belladonna Johnson can see and talk Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to ghosts and no one else canher friends. In fact The practice in the home she lives with two; her dead parents. But something in is happening – for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ghosts are disappearing. Her mother vanishes ledger, and her father tells her he doesnthey't have much time eitherre all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. The doors are closing, But Cosima bears the doors tag as a surname because nothing else seems to the Other Side and there is only one leftbe known about where she came from, but just as he says thisthe first ever inmate, he is gone tooand unique in having no known family in the outside world. Not wanting During a daring escapade to lose her parents againsteal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, Belladonna sets out on she discovers a journey with the help of Steve, plan involving said outside world – a boy from school. They need devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to find the entrance want to adopt all the Land of the Deadgirls for his Institute. But why, the door and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to where the last ghost, Elsie, waits, before it's too late… past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230715044</amazonuk>0008579059
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate ThompsonAlice M Ross|title=The White Horse TrickNowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We At last saw Jenny before she made there is new stock in the move to Tir na n'Og impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and before her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she knew has stolen it. She also knows she was a changeling. These daysshould be free from worries about being found out, because she's happily ensconced in has the land ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of the fairieskaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where there is no time the sea levels are rising dramatically and nothing much happens, but everyone feels a huge sense the buildings are generally empty of lazy contentmenthumans and ripe for plunder. Her human foster parents JJ and Aisling Liddy have also made With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the move and they are equally happyanswer, in but the fact a laid back kind of way. mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370329929</amazonuk>1839943769
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine McCaughrean Natasha Farrant|title=The Death Defying Pepper RouxRescue of Ravenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I love it when I discover a new book that I just canThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''t put down. Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and today, Raffy have been living for me, it was the story most of Pepper Rouxtheir lives. Our heroThey are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, Pepperas Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, had and Raffy is there with his future foretold at his birthmum, when his Aunt Mireille had and they are living together as a vision from Saint Constance that Pepper would be dead on his fourteenth birthdayfamily. On hearing this news his parents take very little interest They have grown up swimming in himthe cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and Pepper grows up fully aware loving every inch of his impending doom thanks to his very religious Aunt who forces him to confession every day, and ensures he is fully versed in the terrors of hellplace. SoBut now the house is under threat, as you can probably guess, Leo is under pressure from his fourteenth birthday comes around other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and yet somehow Pepper finds that he is still alivemore expensive to maintain. Through a series of chance happenings he flees the ever present menace of deathThe children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, skipping from one personbut if they's life to anotherll even be together, afraid at how he has somehow evaded Saint Constance and the angels of death and forever guilty at the lies he is forced to tell to cover up his escape from deathif Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192756028</amazonuk>0571348785
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip Ardagh Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Secret Beast Club: The Far From Great Escape: Grubtown TalesUnicorns of Silver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the Grubtown lighthouse is plunged into darkness because phoenixes and unicorns of the failure world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of its one massive lightbulb a ship called ''anything that might be out there. The Plucked Grapeproblem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' runs aground in themselves, exploring the bayoutside world of Hackney, London. It ploughs into But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage. The Rusty Dolphin'' where crew of the locals boat, including a living gargoyle, are enjoying a Hot Chocolate tasked with saving the rare critters – and Bubble-Wrap Popping Night. As if this wasn't enough to contend with the local Police Department (all three of them) kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to cope with a jail break when all six members of the Fox family make a bid for freedomjoin in. Their sentence only had another fortnight to go and when Dare they're caught there'll be another trial side with Leila, the woman on board, and they'll be imprisoned for her relative who lives as a figure in a much longer stretch.painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571242340</amazonuk>0241573483
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Horowitz B09XWSXSKY|title=The Devil Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and his BoyJoanne Grodzinski
|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 before. He was deadFrederick (or Fred, but his son lived onnever Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. Meanwhile in A tune, rather like the town ticking of Framlingham Tom Falconer worked for the couple who had taken him a clock was playing over and over in after his parents diedmind. There was no love, or even affection, from them and when It happened every time he was offered the chance of escape came to London by a rich and aristocratic stranger he barely hesitatedvisit his grandfather. Life was never going He hadn't really wanted to be easy for the likes of Tom come; after all, he's ten now and before long he found himself alone in London trying all those old clocks don't appeal to avoid Gamaliel Ratsey – the highwayman who would see him deadanymore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406305693</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances Hodgson BurnettNigel Baines|title=A Little PrincessTricky Kind of Magic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=Sara Crewe has started at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary For Young LadiesCooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. She But sadly Cooper's so rich father died suddenly, and well-behaved that she soon becomes known as the little princessnow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be. However, And when her father dies shortly after going bankrupthis dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, Sarahe ''really'' doesn't know what's life is turned going on its head.anymore!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340997397</amazonuk>1444960261
}}