Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
 
(333 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
 
[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
+
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
+
 
|author=Jay Jay Burridge
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Supersaurs 1: Raptors of Paradise
+
|author=Rob Keeley
 +
|title=Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hector.
 +
 
 +
The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters
 +
|isbn= 1783064617
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Max Boucherat
 +
|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers  
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''I'm thirteen years OLD, not young.'' And it's a good job too, for her grandma and godfather have taken Bea on an extended holiday to Indonesia, where the wild dinosaurs live.  Yes, this is a world where they never went extinct, and have been used for riding for leisure or as pack animals ever since mankind domesticated them.  But wild and dangerous ones still exist, such as the Raptors of Paradise.  Bea's older guardians have another reason to go there, though – they are in search of clues that might lead them to at last discover the fate of Bea's birth parents, who disappeared a decade agoShe's unaware of this being the final grasp at one last clue – and all of them are ignorant of how the real danger and mystique on the island may actually come not from the fabulous beasts, but from other humans…
+
|summary=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, on her lonesomeWhat could possibly go wrong?  Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world.  But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spookyFor the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering.  When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786968002</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008666482
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Frances Hardinge
+
|author=Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
|title= A Skinful of Shadows
+
|title=Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4
|genre= Confident Readers  
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Once again the vivid and decidedly quirky imagination of Frances Hardinge has produced a story which grips the reader while he or she is reading it, and remains in the memory long after the book has been replaced on the shelf. This time the English Civil War is erupting and we meet Makepeace, whose gift (or curse, depending on your perspective) means she has a space inside her where ghosts can hide. Her first ''guest'' is a large, angry bear which has spent its unhappy life being seriously ill-treated, and much of her energy in the earlier part of the story is given over to stopping it using her body to rampage around smashing everything and everyone in sight.
+
|summary=Meet 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, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team.  What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509869301</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839945184
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Kelly Barnhill
+
|author=James Sherwood Metts
|title= The Girl Who Drank the Moon
+
|title=Planet Storyland
|rating= 4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Every year the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest, in the hope that this sacrifice will keep their town safe. Little do they know that the witch, Xan, is a kind soul who rescues the children and finds them new homes with families on the other side of the forest. She feeds the babies on starlight to keep them nourished throughout their journey, but one year she accidently feeds a baby moonlight which fills the child with a powerful magic. Xan names the baby Luna and realises she must raise this magical child as her own, locking away her magical abilities until her thirteenth birthday. But as the day approaches where Luna's magic will emerge, she will have to learn to protect the safe and loving world she has always known.
+
|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848126476</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1736128426
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Sita Brahmachari and Jane Ray
+
|author=Tom Percival
|title=Worry Angels
+
|title=The Wrong Shoes
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Amy-May was devastated when her parents split up: she and her mother left the delightful seaside cottage where the waves had sung her to sleep and moved into a 'garden flat'That didn't mean that it had a garden, just that it was on the ground floor.  They didn't have a lot of possessions as the bailiffs had taken most of them.  Her father was living in another old cottage now and hopefully he'd be able to set up his kiln, but he wouldn't be able to home-school Amy-MayThe alternative was Sandcastles Secondary School but the rather nervous Amy was considered to be too ''anxious'' to start at the school full time.  As a gentle introduction to schooling she went to Grace's art school instead.
+
|summary=Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of waysHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accidentThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction.  And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope.  He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178112695X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1398527122
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Kenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen
+
|isbn=1805141872
|title=The Wind in The Willows
+
|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|rating=4
+
|author=Rob Keeley
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Kenneth Grahame's ''The Wind in the Willows'' was one of the defining books of my childhood and more than sixty years after I first read the book I've just recently passed it onto another young reader. Since the book was first published in 1908 there have been some notable illustrators: Paul Bransom provided illustrations for the 1913 edition, Ernest H Shepard (perhaps better known for his illustrations of ''Winnie the Pooh'') in 1933, Arthur Rackham (possibly the leading illustrator from the golden age of book illustration) in 1940 and Robert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of ''The Wind in the Willows''.
+
|summary=''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! 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...''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786751062</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Laura Ellen Anderson
+
|author=Christopher Edge
|title= Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball
+
|title=Black Hole Cinema Club
|rating= 3.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= The annual Barbaric Ball is fast approaching and Amelia is facing the prospect of being the only person her age at it again. Things are different this year, however and the King may finally be returning to public life.
+
|summary=Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'.  All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting 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 they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405286725</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942738
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Brian Gallagher
+
|author=Adam Stower
|title= Pawns
+
|title=Murray and Bun
|rating= 3.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers  
|summary=''Pawns'' tells the story of Johnny, Stella and Alice, all of whom are growing up in Ireland during the War of Independence, and who have somehow become friends in spite of their very different political views. Stella is passionately pro-British, while Johnny frequently risks his life to pass information to the pro-Irish rebels, and Alice is left stranded in the middle, supporting neither side of the dispute.
+
|summary=Murray is 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 two.  But he's a bad 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 into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847178936</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008561249
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Baker
+
|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|title=Eloise Undercover
+
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Eloise has a wonderful life with her two best friends, Albert and Maddie, until the German soldiers start to arrive and everything changes. Nazi-occupied France is not a place Eloise wants to be. Maddie and her family are taken away and Albert starts to act very strangely. Then her father disappears. Eloise is lost until she discovers her father has been working for the resistance and there might, if she is brave enough, be a way to rescue him before he's deported to Germany. She now has hope and a plan. But will the resistance let a twelve year old schoolgirl join them?
+
|summary=Eli 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. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910611131</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571382231
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Kieran Larwood
+
|author=Helen Cooper
|title= The Gift of Dark Hollow
+
|title=The Taming of the Cat
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating=3.5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= This is the second marvellous book featuring the rabbits of Enderby, and the delightful young rabbit hero, Podkin One Ear. I love the format of a story within a story. The adventures of Podkin in ''The Gift of Dark Hollow'', are told by an old rabbit who has been a Bard all his life - a teller of stories and legends from the rabbit world. The Bard has an apprentice, Rue, desperately eager to learn his tradeHe hangs on every word spoken by the Bard as they travel together to a festivalRue is hungry to learn the art of story-telling, but also wants to know all about Podkin One Ear, and what better way to do this than to hear from the Master himself. The tale he tells Rue (and us) is a gripping and scary one, featuring Podkin and his friends in their ongoing battle to overturn the ruthless Gorm, and their cruel leader, Scramashank.
+
|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat.  In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses.  Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives withThey nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on itAnd that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out.  It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive.  This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571328415</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571376010
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Jonathan Stroud
+
|author=Lauren St John
|title= Lockwood and Co: The Empty Grave
+
|title=Finding Wonder
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In a world that takes the best and worst of Victorian times (atmospheric fogs, candles, mudlarks who scavenge along the banks of the Thames for treasures) and the modern day (leggings, skinny jeans, cabs and concrete underpasses) absolutely anything can happen – and it does. For fifty years ghosts of all kinds have infested Britain, and as only children and young people can see them, theirs is the task of protecting the adults and ridding the country of the menaces, one by painful one. Lucy, George, Holly and Lockwood are the members of the smallest and most ramshackle independent agency, but their constant success (and survival despite forever lengthening odds) is a thorn in the flesh of the elite Fittes Agency, which has acquired almost total control over the whole ghost-bashing business.
+
|summary=Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult.  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 her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket.  When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of.  But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for 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!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552575798</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571376169
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Zillah Bethell
+
|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies
|title=The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare
+
|title=Oscar's Lion
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=3
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Auden has a condition called achromatopsia, which means that he can't see colours. He likes to pretend that it doesn't matter but it does. And the older Auden gets, the more it seems to matter. Mind you, so does everything else...
+
|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school.  But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.
... because Auden lives in a near-future Britain in a world where climate change has taken root. It never rains any more. Britain, an island with plenty of coastline, is doing better than many countries thanks to its desalination plants. But water is still rationed and the Water Authority Board is now a quasi-government as the most important and powerful body in the land. Water wars have broken out worldwide and Auden's father is away fighting.
+
|isbn=0008596751
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848126085</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|title=Greta Zargo and the Death Robots from Outer Space
+
|author=Judith Eagle
|author=A F Harrold
+
|title=The Stolen Songbird
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''No one knew that only three things stood in the way of the complete and utter destruction of the Earth: one elderly parrot, one eleven-year-old spelling mistake and one intrepid young newspaper-reporter-cum-schoolgirl in search of a Big Scoop.''
+
|summary=Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro?  Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to 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.  But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang?  And what has happened to Caro's mother?  Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?
 
+
|isbn=0571363148
Oh my word! What a prospect! Let me break it down for you. The parrot has only ever learned to speak one sentence. The spelling mistake is between great and Greta. Both these things point the alien danger to Earth, a silvery robot, in the direction of Greta Zargo, who is the wannabe reporter.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408869470</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Jakob Wegelius and Peter Graves (translator)
+
|author=Tania Unsworth
|title=The Murderer's Ape
+
|title=Nowhere Island
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sally Jones is in clover as a mechanic on a cargo ship – when, that is, there is cargo to actually ship.  Having needed emergency repairs, the two-strong crew of her and the Chief are idling in Lisbon, and are given a mysterious and mysteriously overpaid job – a job that shouldn't go wrong, but does.  Unfortunately for the Chief, taking even the first step at writing the wrong sees him arrested for murderSally Jones is forced into hiding, which she manages to do with a lovely, kind woman with a hidden talent for singing, and her landlord, who makes and repairs accordions and other musical instrumentsLife with them seems to be a new form of clover, then, but hints of that past nastiness keep coming back to haunt Sally Jones, especially when there's a suggestion that the alleged murder victim might still be alive…
+
|summary=Meet Gil.  Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himselfHe is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his futureThat future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion.  Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully.  Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…
+
|isbn=1804540080
Oh, and did I say that Sally Jones is actually a gorilla?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782691618</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Chris Colfer
+
|author=Helen Peters
|title= The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide
+
|title=Friends and Traitors
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating=3
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Finally, after much anticipation, the grand finale to the best-selling ''Land of Stories'' is here. The previous book [[The Land of Stories: An Author's Odyssey by Chris Colfer|The Land of Stories: An Author's Odyssey]] left us dangling on an almighty cliffhanger, as well as leaving many plot threads unresolved. We have been with the Bailey twins from the very beginning; seen them grow and mature from awkward pre-teens to confident young adults. Orson Welles famously said: ''If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.'' Is the fact that the book begins with this quote an ominous warning that the Bailey twins may not get their 'happily ever after' after all?
+
|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. 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0316355895</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1788004647
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Bali Rai
+
|author=Jamie Littler
|title= Tales from India
+
|title=Arkspire
|rating= 4
+
|rating=4
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|summary=
 
Fairy stories, folk tales and fables are a rite of passage for an inquiring mind. They open the door to enchantment, magic and moral lessons. Many European collections exist, some of the most notable being that of Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Andrew Lang and Perrault. Tales can also originate from exotic climes. An endless source of delight for me as a child was my great grandmother's much cherished copy of The Arabian Nights. Full of mystery, imagination and charm, it communicated to me the power of storytelling and transported me to different worlds. This is what Bali Rai aims to do for young readers with his latest offering. Inspired by the collected tales of the C19th Sydney-born English folklorist Joseph Jacob, Rai has lovingly created a tribute to the traditional stories of India.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141373067</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lucy Adlington
 
|title=The Red Ribbon
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ella is rushing to her audition for a job in fashion, as are several other young womenThrown in at the deep end in the high-pressure workplace, she is tasked with creating a dress from scratch for an important client before four pm that dayBut she manages it, even working through the non-existent lunch break, to design a silk wonder worthy of any environmentBut this is no typical make-or-break-'em fashion design house, and this is no normal environment for the recipient to be wearing the frockThis is Birchwood – or Auschwitz-Birkenau to you and I.
+
|summary=Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheeseJuniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the BadlandsElodie is 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 ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier warBeing trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole familyBut in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own for good, or for very, very bad…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471406288</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241586143
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Cressida Cowell
+
|isbn=024162343X
|title= The Wizards of Once
+
|title=Stolen History
|rating= 4.5
+
|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|rating=5
|summary= Xar and Wish only meet because they are both where they are not supposed to be. Xar is an impetuous young wizard keen to prove his magical prowess. Wish is a young warrior desperate to demonstrate her worth. They live in a world in which Iron vanquishes Magic - and the Magic of the witches is pretty evil stuff. Thankfully, the warriors have used Iron to keep the witches at bay. And now, they are turning their attention to the wizards. But what if not all Magic is bad? What if the witches are a threat to warrior and wizard alike? What then?
+
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444936700</amazonuk>
+
|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school.  I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof?  In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely.  I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
+
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Pug-a-Doodle-Do!
+
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crafts
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I was reading a book so utterly different to this the other day, it has to bear mentionIt was an exceedingly academic book about graphic novels and comics for the YA audience, and it featured an essay picking up on the way books like the fill-in-bits-yourself entries in the Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries series (such as [[Dork Diaries: How to Dork Your Diary by Rachel Renee Russell|this one]]) let you interact with the franchise, and also to create your own contentThere was some weird high-falutin' academic language to describe such books – but you know what?  I say (redacted) to that – let's just hang it and have funAnd this book, spinning off from the four books this partnership has so far been responsible for, is certainly a provider of that.
+
|summary=Meet TrixieForever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisanceBut just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changesSuddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake)Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us.  And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192764047</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=178845295X
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano
 
|title=Life on Earth: Dinosaurs: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps!
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
 
|summary=I was a big fan of dinosaurs when I was a nipper.  Since then the science regarding them has evolved leaps and bounds.  We've got in touch with them perhaps being feathered, and have assumed colours and noises they made – we can even extrapolate from their remains what their eyesight, hearing and so much more may have been likeBut science will never stop, and the next generation will need to be on board with the job of discovering them, analysing them, and presenting them to a world that never seems to get enough of the nasty, superlative beasties of Hollywood renown.  As you're the kind of person to ask questions, you may well ask 'how do you get that next generation ready for their place in the field and in the laboratory?'  I would put this as the answer – even if it is made itself of a hundred questions.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847808972</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Heather Alexander and Andres Lozano
+
|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold
|title=Life on Earth: Jungle: With 100 Questions and 70 Lift-flaps!
+
|title=Finding Bear
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We're constantly being asked to save something.  Save the hedgerows, save the elephant, save our seas.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those goals – some of them are larger than the others, and more demanding, but they are all worthyBut seeing as it's (a) the largest land feature we need to save, and (b) it's the most worthwhile to save, why not just go for the jugular – and try and save the Amazonian rainforest? Forget jugular, you'll be saving the jaguar; you'll be protecting the source of a lot of our food, spices and medicines – and when did a hedgerow near you have almost fifty different species of ant on a singular tree?  The first step to saving anything is to understand it, to let us appreciate it, and this primer is how we get in touch with what's important about jungles so we can deem them worthwhile.
+
|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called BearBack home, 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.  For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847809014</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008582017
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Kaye Umansky
+
|author=Simon Fox
|title=The Pongwiffy Stories 1: A Witch of Dirty Habits and The Goblins' Revenge
+
|title=Deadlock
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Pongwiffy.  She must be the smelliest, ugliest, most slurpy, non-house-cleaning and all-round disgusting witch out thereShe's forced to live alongside the noisiest, most stupid Goblins around, and it's with great reluctance that anyone ever comes to visit – and when they do they get acclaimed as her best friend.  And she doesn't even have a familiar, either. She is a hopeless person.  But when said 'best friend' forces her to advertise for a familiar, nobody could expect what turns up…
+
|summary=Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the runThey get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471167380</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839944420
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=J R Wallis
+
|author=Cath Howe
|title= The Boy With One Name
+
|title=My Life on Fire
|rating= 4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jones is the boy with one name, snatched as an infant from his loving parents by a Badlander called Maitland, he only longs to be a normal boy and have his family back. One night, he and Maitland are on patrol and come across an ogre 'moon-bathing.' Things don't go quite to plan; enter: Ruby, a foster child on the run, who is desperate to be part of the Badlander's world, despite its dangers and terrors. Along with a talking gun, a miniature fire breathing black dog, an old camper van, and a hefty sprinkling of magic – you're sure to be taken on one hell of a ride.
+
|summary=Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire.  She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything.  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 foods they normally eat.  When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things.  Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already.  But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147115792X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1839942835
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=William Steig
+
|author= Rob Keeley
|title=Dominic
+
|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|rating=3
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Dominic – a character that the text very belatedly gets round to telling us is a dog.  He is in a nice place with nice friends, but is seeking something – his destiny, his calling, his adventure.  And so, when he's been shown the right path for excitement by a ''witch-alligator'', and once he's been gifted a spear by a catfish, he can go off and see what he can find. That turns out to be a major fortune, which seems to be a little bit too much of a burden – particularly when, no matter what Dominic does, the nastiness that is the Doomsday Gang can always sniff him out…
+
|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178269143X</amazonuk>
+
|isbn= B0BVW69N1G
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Neal Zetter and Chris White
+
|author=Laura Noakes
|title=Here Come the Superheroes
+
|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I'm quite sure you're well aware of the spate of superhero movies doing the rounds these days, with any and every star of the comics page seemingly on the big screen – and the small.  They're everywhere, and their numbers are only growing.  But here is a unique chance to meet a few more – Mega Slug, Micro Girl, Magnetic Me, Sister Speed even one calling himself the Ultimate Superhero.  But we're not meeting them in a well-established comic universe, or with some horrid and convoluted back story. No, we're being introduced to them all in the format of verse – and for the young superhero and/or poetry fan this clearly has an instant appeal.
+
|summary=Meet Number One.  Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate.  Or rather, 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 to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon.  But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world.  During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute.  But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909991465</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0008579059
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Peter Schossow
+
|author=Alice M Ross
|title=Where is Grandma?
+
|title=The Nowhere Thief
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town.  Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it.  She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder.  With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…
 +
|isbn=1839943769
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Natasha Farrant
 +
|title=The Rescue of Ravenwood
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Emerging Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet HenryHe's a young lad being taken by a nanny to hospital to check up on his grandma, who's in having had an accidentIt's a shame, then, that said nanny is so busy yacking into her phone to look after him, for he ends up going off on his own adventure to find his granAnd what an adventure – babies being born, people with stomach problems, chemo, beans stuck up their nose… all life is here in this hospital, and both that and the lad's mishap are clearly and very pleasantly conveyed.
+
|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their livesThey are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a familyThey have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place.  But 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1776571541</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0571348785
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Andrea Beaty and David Roberts
+
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson
|title=Iggy Peck's Big Project Book for Amazing Architects
+
|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Out of all the things I wanted to be as a child, an architect was not one of themWhich is a shame, perhaps – I might have had a few Prince Charles-friendly ideas under my belt, and even if I hadn't exactly progressed at that I might have been more at ease at those stupid team-bonding 'build-a-this-or-that' exercises you are sometimes forced to undergo as an adultI never knew I would ever hold any importance in my ability to draw buildings, conceptualise towns and create model structures of my own creations – partly because I knew I had no abilityBut for the likes of Iggy Peck, the whole idea is never in doubt he spends his entire time thinking of buildings and how to improve on the ones he knowsAnd so, for the duration of your engagement with these pages, will you.
+
|summary=Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example.  Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there.  The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, LondonBut 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 existedFor many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footageThe crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join inDare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1419718924</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0241573483
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Ruth Eastham
+
|isbn=B09XWSXSKY
|title= The Warrior in the Mist
+
|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock
|rating= 4
+
|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|rating=4
|summary= Fracking is a big issue in some parts of the country, particularly in the north, and for Aidan, it means not only the destruction of the countryside he loves but a huge change in his life. Once they start blasting, his dad will lose his job caring for a rich landowner's horses, and he and Aidan will have to leave their home and their friends to live seventeen floors up in a tower block. But despite the protesters' determined efforts the blasting is going ahead, and there is only one small, faint hope – find the tomb of the warrior queen Boudicca, reputedly slaughtered nearby by the Romans in AD 61, so the area can be declared a World Heritage Site.  
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>191134238X</amazonuk>
+
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep.  A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather.  He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.
 +
 
 +
''Who needs old clocks anyway?  All they do is tell the time.  And time isn't good for anything...''
 +
 
 +
And that was why he was looking at 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 and find grandad - but where was he?  And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Cas Lester
+
|author=Nigel Baines
|title= Do You Speak Chocolate?
+
|title=A Tricky Kind of Magic
|rating= 4
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary= When a new girl arrives at Jaz's school she is delighted and warms to her immediately. The only problem is that Nadima does not speak any English at all. However Jaz is the type of girl who is not going to let this get in her way and in her typical straightforward manner determines to make sure that this friendship blossomsInitially this appears to have worked and the girls bond through a shared love of music, movies and food, especially chocolate! But then difficulties, misunderstandings and past traumas get in the way and Jaz struggles to cope with the consequences.
+
|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricksHis father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper.  But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be.  And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471405036</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1444960261
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jenny Oldfield
 
|title=Storm Cloud
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
 
|summary=Kami Miller was invited to stay at Wolf Ridge Farm, the home of her best friend Macy Lucas, for the summer.  They were both going to be working as real cowgirls and there was a herd of 300 cows to be brought back from the mountains to the ranchIt wasn't going to be easy work, particularly as Macy's father was recovering from an accident and couldn't ride.  All the pressure of running the ranch has fallen on Macy's brother, Wes - and he's not coping well.  Kami's upset that he's taking it out on one of the young colts, Storm Cloud, but what can she do about it?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781126895</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 08:02, 9 June 2024


1783064617.jpg

Review of

Childish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hector.

The Childish Spirits series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters Full Review

0008666482.jpg

Review of

The Last Life of Lori Mills by Max Boucherat

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn? Full Review

1839945184.jpg

Review of

Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial by Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet 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, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed? Full Review

1736128426.jpg

Review of

Planet Storyland by James Sherwood Metts

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Full Review

1398527122.jpg

Review of

The Wrong Shoes by Tom Percival

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Full Review

1805141872.jpg

Review of

The Teacher Who Knew Too Much by Rob Keeley

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

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! 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 a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving Full Review

1839942738.jpg

Review of

Black Hole Cinema Club by Christopher Edge

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting 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 they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't 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? Full Review

0008561249.jpg

Review of

Murray and Bun by Adam Stower

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Murray is 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 two. But he's a bad 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 into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening 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… Full Review

0571382231.jpg

Review of

The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts by Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Eli 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. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. Full Review

0571376010.jpg

Review of

The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as 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? Full Review

0571376169.jpg

Review of

Finding Wonder by Lauren St John

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. 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 her dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for 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! Full Review

0008596751.jpg

Review of

Oscar's Lion by Adam Baron and Benji Davies

3star.jpg Confident Readers

We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time. Full Review

0571363148.jpg

Review of

The Stolen Songbird by Judith Eagle

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to 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. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too? Full Review

1804540080.jpg

Review of

Nowhere Island by Tania Unsworth

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself. He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future. That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work… Full Review

1788004647.jpg

Review of

Friends and Traitors by Helen Peters

3star.jpg Confident Readers

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. 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? Full Review

0241586143.jpg

Review of

Arkspire by Jamie Littler

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is 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 ruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the 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… Full Review

024162343X.jpg

Review of

Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera

5star.jpg Children's Non-Fiction

I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's Stolen History. Full Review

178845295X.jpg

Review of

Old Gods New Tricks by Thiago de Moraes

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters. Full Review

0008582017.jpg

Review of

Finding Bear by Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Last time, April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, 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. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue. Full Review

1839944420.jpg

Review of

Deadlock by Simon Fox

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a whole heap of questions. Full Review

1839942835.jpg

Review of

My Life on Fire by Cath Howe

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything. 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 foods they normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing? Full Review

B0BVW69N1G.jpg

Review of

The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories by Rob Keeley

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings. Full Review

0008579059.jpg

Review of

Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star by Laura Noakes

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, 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 to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with? Full Review

1839943769.jpg

Review of

The Nowhere Thief by Alice M Ross

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions… Full Review

0571348785.jpg

Review of

The Rescue of Ravenwood by Natasha Farrant

5star.jpg Confident Readers

This story is another excellent adventure from the author of Voyage of the Sparrowhawk. 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 they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place. But 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. Full Review

0241573483.jpg

Review of

Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street by Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. 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 crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen? Full Review

B09XWSXSKY.jpg

Review of

Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock by Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.

Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything...

And that was why he was looking at 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 and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock? Full Review

1444960261.jpg

Review of

A Tricky Kind of Magic by Nigel Baines

4.5star.jpg Emerging Readers

Cooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a magician, and named Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, or how to be. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, he really doesn't know what's going on anymore! Full Review

Move on to Newest Cookery Reviews