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<h1 id="mf-title">The Bookbag</h1>
Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - [[:Category:Fiction|fiction]], [[:Category:Biography|biography]], [[:Category:Crime|crime]], [[:Category:Cookery|cookery]] and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of [[:Category:Interviews|author interviews]], and all sorts of [[:Category:Lists|top tens]] - all of which you can find on our [[features]] page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the [[Book Recommendations|recommendations]] page. [https://ewritingservice.com/ Ewritingservice.com] is the custom writing service thousands of students trust all over the world.
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There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Reviews}}''' reviews at TheBookbag.
'''Read [[:Category:Features|the latest features]].'''<!-- Remove -->
{{newreview
|author=Roger MooreDK|title=A Bientot...My Encyclopedia of Very Important Animals|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=The news animal kingdom is a diverse one, full of the death creatures that do all sorts of things. The number of Sir Roger Moore animals out there is so vast that even vets need to do a quick google when something strange appears in May 2017 came as their practice. For budding vet-to-be animals are a great shock: he was one constant source of those people fascination and they will absorb as much knowledge as you knew would go on for evercan give them. There was just one small glimmer of light in It is not practical to visit the sadness zoo every day, but getting an educational and entertaining animal encylopedia is.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241276357</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=DK|title=DK Children's Encyclopedia|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non- the news that Fiction|summary=More than sixty years ago my grandparents bought me an encylopedia: it was a matter of days before his death hemajor purchase for them as they didn'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, t really ''À bientôt…do''books, but it was a treasure trove for me and I still have it today. It didn't just teach me facts - it taught me how to find out information for myself and how to his publishersuse an index. Just a few months later a copy landed on It opened my desk eyes to subjects I'd never considered and widened my knowledge on those I didnalready loved. In format, in size and content it was very similar to ''DK Children's Encyclopedia''t even bother and I can imagine a younger me hunched over it and begging just to be allowed to look as though finish this bit before I could resist reading it straight awaywent to bed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17824386100241283868</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Jonathan StroudKelly Barnhill|title= Lockwood and Co: The Empty GraveGirl Who Drank the Moon|rating= 54
|genre= Confident Readers
|summary= In Every year the people of the Protectorate leave a world that takes baby as an offering to the best and worst of Victorian times (atmospheric fogs, candles, mudlarks witch who scavenge along lives in the banks of forest, in the Thames for treasures) and hope that this sacrifice will keep their town safe. Little do they know that the modern day (leggingswitch, skinny jeansXan, cabs and concrete underpasses) absolutely anything can happen – and it does. For fifty years ghosts of all kinds have infested Britain, and as only is a kind soul who rescues the children and young people can see finds them, theirs is new homes with families on the task other side of protecting the adults and ridding forest. She feeds the country of the menacesbabies on starlight to keep them nourished throughout their journey, but one by painful oneyear she accidently feeds a baby moonlight which fills the child with a powerful magic. Lucy, George, Holly and Lockwood are the members of Xan names the smallest baby Luna and most ramshackle independent agencyrealises she must raise this magical child as her own, but their constant success (and survival despite forever lengthening odds) is a thorn in locking away her magical abilities until her thirteenth birthday. But as the flesh of day approaches where Luna's magic will emerge, she will have to learn to protect the elite Fittes Agency, which safe and loving world she has acquired almost total control always known.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848126476</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Robin Jarvis|title= Time of Blood|rating= 4|genre=Teens|summary= Travel back over the whole ghost-bashing businessa hundred years into Whitby's past to see two witches battle an ancient evil. Follow young Lil as she tries to avoid spoilers and find her best friend.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>05525757981405280255</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Kenneth StevenJ M Barrie and Robert Ingpen|title=Winter TalesPeter Pan and Wendy
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesFor Sharing|summary= Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around It's a common theme childhood staple - the story of WinterWendy, John and Michael Darling and their beloved nurse, Nana the Newfoundland dog who took them to school each day. You are taken around It's George Darling, their father, who makes the world as you read stories set mistake when he locks Nana in the yard and the children are whisked away to Neverland by Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. There's a variety wonderful mix of places characters, from Helsinki Peter Pan, the boy who never wants to New Yorkgrow up, Tinkerbell, the rather unpleasant fairy, Captain Hook, Tiger Lily, Germany to Russia. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a key component the lost boys and - of short stories course - that you can read each story in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subjectWendy, such as bullying, ensuring that you are reading but then it wouldn't have been a distinct story every time you open classic since the original stage production in 1904 and the booknovel of 1911 if it were otherwise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19106745081786750856</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= William SuttonEmily Winslow|title= Lawless and the House of ElectricityLook For Her|rating= 54|genre= Crime (Historical)|summary= Campbell Lawless is backIn 1976, this time tasked with solving Annalise Wood disappeared on her journey home from school and instantly became a series of terrorist attacks across the nationlocal celebrity. Is it For decades the work town of Lilling tried to solve the Frenchmystery of Annalise's disappearance until, as police and public are being led to believealmost twenty years later, or someone closer to home? Who can be trusted her body was discovered. Annalise's body was badly decomposed and what does Roxburythere was lack of DNA available, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, have to do with the bombs used to cause chaos across the country? Employing only trace on the services of Molly, the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets body was found in motion a campaign her skirt and does not match anyone on record. The chances of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery finding her killer were extremely low and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxburymurder soon becomes a 'cold case's constant invention– but still the most famous Lilling has ever seen.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17856501300749022663</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=K J LawrenceGrady Hendrix|title= The CossackPaperbacks from Hell: A History of Horror Fiction from the '70s and '80s|rating=4.5|genre=ThrillersHorror|summary=Daniel Brooking is not what you'd think of as hero material: he's a photographer of some merit and in his fifties he has a settled life. It Demonic possession, murderous babies, man-eating moths… for these books, no plot was the disappearance of his assistanttoo ludicrous, Ivan Shevchenkono cover art too appalling, which disrupted everythingno evil too despicable. It wasnNow horror author Grady Hendrix risks his soul and his sanity (not to mention the reader't unknown for him s!) to disappear occasionallyrelate the true, but missing an exhibition was untold story of a first for himfascinating and often forgotten era in publishing. He'd been distracted for a few days Read the synapse- and then there were shattering story summaries!<br>See the strange papers which arrived, to be kept safe. The authorities, in horrific hand-painted cover imagery!<br>And learn the form of a shadowy senior member true-life tales of the security serviceswriters, confirmed the view that Ivan was probably deadartists, because of some supposed connections with organised crime and drug dealingpublishers who gleefully violated every literary law but one – never be boring.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19997827041594749817</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=James Goss and Russell T DaviesLuke Dittrich|title=Doctor Who: Now We Are Six HundredPatient H.M.: A Collection Story of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who)Memory, Madness and Family Secrets|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse Popular Science|summary=Consider Luke Dittrich seeks to shed light on the man behind the Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep in touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for exampleinitials, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and enemies. As luck would have it, he has the space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, doing so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and get himself ready. And if you're working on uncovered quite a shorter timescale, with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the samebit more than he expected.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17859427190099571862</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Zillah BethellSita Brahmachari and Jane Ray|title=The Extraordinary Colours of Auden DareWorry Angels|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersDyslexia Friendly|summary=Auden has 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 condition called achromatopsia, which means that he can't see coloursgarden flat'. He likes to pretend that it doesn That didn't matter but mean that it does. And the older Auden getshad a garden, just that it was on the more it seems to matterground floor. Mind you, so does everything else...... because Auden lives in They didn't have a near-future Britain in a world where climate change has lot of possessions as the bailiffs had taken rootmost of them. It never rains any more. Britain Her father was living in another old cottage now and hopefully he'd be able to set up his kiln, an island with plenty of coastline, is doing better than many countries thanks but he wouldn't be able to its desalination plantshome-school Amy-May. But water is still rationed and The alternative was Sandcastles Secondary School but the Water Authority Board is now a quasi-government as the most important and powerful body in rather nervous Amy was considered to be too ''anxious'' to start at the landschool full time. Water wars have broken out worldwide and Auden As a gentle introduction to schooling she went to Grace's father is away fightingart school instead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848126085178112695X</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=J Saxena and J ZimmermanCassandra Parkin|title=Basic WitchesThe Winter's Child|rating=45|genre=Spirituality and ReligionParanormal|summary= Before I started this book I was expecting to be thrown into the world ''A modern Gothic tale of magic twisted love, secrets and would know how to levitate by the end of hauntings'' it says on the first chaptercover. Unsurprisingly, I was wrong'll go along with that. HoweverSuzannah Harper doesn't believe in life after death or gypsies being able to tell the future, what I was met by was but that hasn't stopped her spending a book that explores fortune on psychics and fortune tellers in the origins desperate hunt for her son. Joel has been missing for five years. He skipped out of witchcraft, teaches you how to dress and act like a witch school one day after an argument at home and contains spells ranging from accepting compliments to conjuring up a relaxing Netflix bingehas not been seen since.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>15947497791785079034</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Maja Lunde Clare Foges and Diane Oatley (translator)Al Murphy|title=The History of BeesBathroom Boogie
|rating=4
|genre=General FictionFor Sharing|summary=Bees are Every day I leave the house with the feeling that I left it in a handy symbol pretty tidy state, but on my return some things always seem out of place. This is especially true of my bathroom. Why is there toothpaste on the planet's environmental degradationmirror, as you'll know if you've read anything by [[:Category:Dave Goulson|Dave Goulson]] – whose endorsement is featured proudly or a flannel on the cover of this U.K. release of Norwegian childrenfloor? It would appear that I may not actually be to blame and that when I's writer Maja Lunde's first novel m at work all the bathroom items come out for adultsa boogie. The creatures also provide subtle links between Will I ever catch them in the book's three story lines.act?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14711627450571337317</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|titleauthor=Greta Zargo and the Death Robots from Outer SpaceMark Alder|authortitle=A F HarroldSon of the Night|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersFantasy|summary=''No one knew that only three things stood in In [[Son of the way Morning by Mark Alder|Son of the complete Morning]], author Mark Alder plunges the reader into a chaotic, dangerous world, taking them back to the turbulent reign of Edward III and utter destruction the dangers of the Earth: one elderly parrotHundred Years War. Adding elements of fantasy and theology to the mix, one eleven-year-old spelling mistake and one intrepid young newspaper-reporter-cum-schoolgirl Alder created an intriguing read which is continued in search ''Son of a Big Scoop.the Night'' 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 With Lucifer, Satan, God, Devils and Greta. Both these things point the alien danger to Earth, Angels interacting with a silvery robotcast of real and well researched characters, in the direction Alder continues his exploration of Greta Zargo, who is the wannabe reporterHundred Years war whilst rather incredibly keeping his readers as educated as they are entertained. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>14088694700575115203</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Yaba BadoeKenneth Grahame and Robert Ingpen|title= A Jigsaw of Fire and StarsThe Wind in The Willows|rating= 4|genre= Literary FictionConfident Readers|summary=Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore Kenneth Grahame's ''The Wind in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor Willows'' was one of the tragic sinking defining books of a ship carrying migrants my childhood and refugees. Her people. Fourteen more than sixty years on sheafter I first read the book I's a member 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 Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But'Winnie the Pooh'') in 1933, Arthur Rackham (possibly the leading illustrator from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante is to tell their story age of book illustration) in 1940 and her ownRobert Ingpen who illustrated the centenary edition of ''The Wind in the Willows''. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>17866954801786751062</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)Simon Jenkins|title= The Invisible Life of Euridice GusmaoBritain's 100 Best Railway Stations|rating= 4.5|genre= Literary FictionReference|summary= On In the surfacemid twentieth century the railway was something which harked back to the Victorian age with trains being supplanted by cars and planes, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it all. A nice-enoughbut steam was being replaced by oil, parenteven then and in the twenty-pleasing husband with a steady banking job, two young children upon whom first century oil is giving way to dote, an immaculate home complete with maidelectricity. That It's all anyone could ever wantcleaner, isnmore environmentally friendly and the stations which we't it? Not Euridice. She has an inexplicable ache inside her for something mored all rushed through as quickly as possible, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projectskeen to escape their grime, from a desire were restored and became places to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry be admired, possibly even lingered in her living room, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenor. He wants a wife who doesn't draw attention to herself, whose only domains are her house and her family Simon Jenkins has chosen his hundred best railway stations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178607298X024197898X</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Jakob Wegelius and Peter Graves (translator)Sarah Baker|title=The Murderer's ApeEloise Undercover|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sally Jones is in clover as Eloise has a mechanic on a cargo ship – whenwonderful life with her two best friends, that isAlbert and Maddie, there until the German soldiers start to arrive and everything changes. Nazi-occupied France is cargo not a place Eloise wants to actually shipbe. Having needed emergency repairs, the two-strong crew of Maddie and her and the Chief family are idling in Lisbon, taken away and are given a mysterious and mysteriously overpaid job – a job that shouldn't go wrong, but doesAlbert starts to act very strangely. Unfortunately for the Chief, taking even the first step at writing the wrong sees him arrested for murderThen her father disappears. Sally Jones Eloise is forced into hiding, which lost until she manages to do with a lovely, kind woman with a hidden talent discovers her father has been working for singingthe resistance and there might, and her landlordif she is brave enough, who makes and repairs accordions and other musical instruments. Life with them seems to be a new form of clover, then, but hints of that past nastiness keep coming back way to haunt Sally Jones, especially when thererescue him before he's deported to Germany. She now has hope and a suggestion that plan. But will the alleged murder victim might still be alive… Oh, and did I say that Sally Jones is actually resistance let a gorillatwelve year old schoolgirl join them?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17826916181910611131</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= David BergenNalini Singh|title= StrangerSilver Silence A Psy-Changling Trinity Novel
|rating= 4
|genre= Literary Fiction Paranormal|summary=''Stranger'' tells the story Jump straight into a rich and diverse universe at this designated jumping on point. Visit a world of Íso, a young Guatemalan womanhumans, changelings and her affair with an American doctorPsy. When an accident forces him to return to The world the States, she is left pregnant books have set in has faced a dramatic change and lonelya new world-order of peace has been declared. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter The peace is abducted, and taken to live with the doctor painful and his wifenot universally loved. What followed - tales of the journey Íso embarked upon Into this world a bear falls in the hope of finding her baby - was love with an amazing story of the lengths a mother will go to in order to save her child.emotionless Psy – how'd ya reckon it'll turn out?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07156524191473217571</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Marianne TaylorColin Thubron|title= Owls: A Guide Mirror to Every SpeciesDamascus|rating= 4.5|genre= ReferenceTravel|summary=I feel like I am being watched. A huge pair of piercing orange eyes are staring right at me, locking me into their gaze. In contrast with the hardness of the deep-amber eyes, soft grey feathers fan out into the surrounding area, intricateDamascus today is a monument to her past, detailed and beautiful. An enigma; harsh and gentle at the same time, the owl is beckoning the reader to turn all the pages people and take a closer look inside...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178240404X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Orlando Weeks|title=The Gritterman|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=There's a man who has an ice cream vancivilisations that helped shape her. In summer, what there is this enthusiastic piece of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for wintertravel writing, when Collin Thubron tells the van becomes tale of a Gritting Van city that has seen empires rise and fall, conquerors come and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up go and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being requiredlasted for over two thousand years. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. ThereIt's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live rich in impressive history and this book is rich in a world where the B2116 doesn't need grittingimpressive detail.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184614955X0099532298</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Adam SilveraFearne Cotton and Sheena Dempsey|title= They Both Die at the EndYoga Babies
|rating= 4
|genre=TeensFor Sharing|summary= ''No matter how we choose to liveRadio host, TV presenter, fashion designer, we both die at the end'author – is there anything Fearne Cotton can' The year is 2017, t do? Based on the place is Americacontent of this book, but this is not a place we recognise. A company called Death-Cast know can undoubtedly add Yogi to the exact date ongoing list of everyonetalents, because it's death and make it their mission hard to inform Deckers that they will be dead within the next twenty-four hours. Many have tried to cheat death, all have failedimagine any other way in which this came into being. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>14711662011783445645</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= K J WhittakerClaire Freedman and Jane Massey|title= False LightsFlorence Frizzball
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Historical FictionFor Sharing|summary=Cornwall, 1817. What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon Florence Frizzball has crushed the Duke frizziest, curliest, most out of Wellington at the Battle control mop of Waterloohair you've ever seen! And she longs for smooth, and his ex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied Englandsleek, brushable locks like all her friends. Cornwall erupts into open rebellionAs a kid, and young heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's former intelligence officer, a half-French aristocrat haunted I remember being chased round the garden by his part in the catastrophic defeat. Togethermy mother, they become embroiled in brandishing a web of treachery hair brush and espionage as plans are laid trying to get me to free Wellington from secret captivity in the Scilly Isles sit still and lead have my frizz sorted out. To say I identified with Florence would be an uprising against understatement. As the tale goes on, though, we see another side to the French occupationstory. In a country rife with traitorsFlorence gets what she wants, but when her dream comes true she quickly learns that maybe she was wanting all the wrong things, Hester and Crow know it that actually her frizzball is impossible to play such a game as this for long..part of her identity.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17866953401471144542</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Cynthia Ryland and Mary BlairStuart Maconie|title=Walt Disney's Cinderella: Illustrated by Mary Blair (Walt Disney Classics)Long Road From Jarrow|rating=45|genre=Emerging ReadersTravel |summary=Icancelled my 'm sure almost all my readers are au fait with 'Country Walking'' magazine subscription about a year ago and the story of Cinderella, only thing I miss is Stuart Maconie's column. His down-to-earth approach and sharp wit belie an equally sharp intellect and of how she went from the gutter a soul more sensitive than he might be willing to the stars in one romantic swoopadmit. It Let's only a good thing the relevant people didnbe honest, though, I picked this one up because of someone else't have foot fetishes or phobiass review, for then the tale would have been utterly differentin which I spotted names like Ferryhill and Newton Aycliffe. Places I grew up in. Disney made Like Maconie I have no connection (that I know of) to the Jarrow Crusade but when he talks about it slightly different, being ''a whole matrix of courseevents reducible to one word like Aberfan, when they made the animated classic based on the legendHillsborough, and this book, complete with art from the time the film was being madeor Orgreave'' then somehow it does become part of my history too. Tangentially, is evidence of just how the look and the emotion of the piece were intended to beat least.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14052869971785030531</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Jon Scieszka and Mary BlairKieran Larwood|title=Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland: Illustrated by Mary Blair (Walt Disney Classics)The Gift of Dark Hollow|rating=4.5|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=I'll take This is as read you have some knowledge 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 Alice Podkin in Wonderland – certainly when she got to be 150 years ''The Gift of Dark Hollow'', are told by an old rabbit who has been a couple Bard all his life - a teller of years back there were no end of editions of her storystories and legends from the rabbit world. The Bard has an apprentice, Rue, desperately eager to learn his trade. And He hangs on every word spoken by the Bard as you know, 150 years is a heck of they travel together to a lot of unbirthdaysfestival. But her Rue is hungry to learn the art of story got -telling, but also wants to be slightly differentknow all about Podkin One Ear, and if anything only more lovedwhat 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, courtesy of featuring Podkin and his friends in their ongoing battle to overturn the Disney cartoonruthless Gorm, and the fact that this book features artwork that was generated during the production of that film is the unique selling pointtheir cruel leader, Scramashank.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14052870040571328415</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|titleauthor=MoonrisePhil Allcock and Richard Watson|authortitle=Sarah CrossanClumpety Bump|rating=54|genre=TeensFor Sharing|summary=Joe Clumpety Bump likes apples. Nothing wrong with that, after all: they're tasty and full of goodness. But you don't get delicious, juicy treats like that unless you deserve them, and naughty Clumpety is seventeen and he hasna bit too keen on saying ''I can't seen be bothered'' when his brother friend Wally asks for ten yearshelp. And the reason for that is brutal - Ed is on Death Row in TexasSo, after several disasters, convicted of the murder of a police officer. Ed says Wally decides he's innocentd be better off leaving Clumpety at home and using his tractor instead. Aunt Karen doesnUnfortunately, things don't believe him. And Mum is long goneturn out too well, no-one knows where. When the execution date comes through, Joe passes up on his job and a spot on a summer athletics scholarship and treks from New York across the country so our two heroes learn that Ed is not aloneif you want to be properly happy, other people need to be happy too. He is determined to spend these last weeks with his brother no matter what anybody else thinksSelfishness just makes everyone sad.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140886780X1848862458</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|titleauthor=I am TraitorRoger Moore|authortitle=Sif Sigmarsdottir A Bientot...|rating=4.5|genre=TeensAutobiography|summary=Alien ships have arrived The news of the death of Sir Roger Moore in the skies above London. The Prime Minister appeared May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one of those people you knew would go on TV to announce this ominous visitation and order a curfewfor ever. After There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news thata matter of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, he went AWOL and took all reliable information with him''À bientôt…'', leaving the army to patrol the streetshis publishers. Not that the army has any answer Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother to the long pipes that snake down from the ships and gobble up teenagers. To where, nobody knowslook as though I could resist reading it straight away.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14449344731782438610</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|titleauthor=Charlotte SaysJonathan Stroud|authortitle=Alex BellLockwood and Co: The Empty Grave|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=''Charlotte says... don't open 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 doormodern day (leggings, skinny jeans, cabs and concrete underpasses) absolutely anything can happen – and it does.'' Jemima's mother died in an awful fire not long ago For fifty years ghosts of all kinds have infested Britain, and as only children and that young people can see them, theirs is why Jemima decides to leave London the task of protecting the adults and take up a job as a teacher on ridding the Isle country of Skye. But leaving the place doesn't mean escaping the memories and Jemima is tormented menaces, one by second-guessing what actually happened on that terrible nightpainful one. It doesn't help that Miss GraysonLucy, George, Holly and Lockwood are the mistress at members of the schoolsmallest and most ramshackle independent agency, but their constant success (and survival despite forever lengthening odds) is a strangethorn in the flesh of the elite Fittes Agency, forbidding sort, while which has acquired almost total control over the school itself is a thoroughly creepy old buildingwhole ghost-bashing business.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18471584040552575798</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= J Jefferson FarjeonKenneth Steven|title= Seven DeadWinter Tales|rating= 4|genre= Historical FictionShort Stories|summary=Ted Lyte was petty criminal, but not usually the housebreaking type. He lacked the courage. However, needs must, and whilst feeling down on his luck he decided to try his chances at Upon opening this book you are presented with an isolated house with eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around a shuttered window. ''...he might find a bit common theme of alright behind those shutters! Wot abart it?'' Ted does indeed find something interesting behind the shutters, but it definitely isn't what he'd hoped. In a locked room he finds seven dead bodies; six men and a womanWinter. Fleeing You are taken around the house world as you read stories set in horror, he is pursued and caught by a passing yachtsmanvariety of places from Helsinki to New York, Thomas Hazeldean, who also happens Germany to be Russia. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a journalist. Fascinated by Ted's key component of short stories - that you can read each story (and a possible scoop), Hazeldean decides in one sitting - to investigate this curious case and its assortment of odd clueshis advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subject, including a portrait shot through the heartsuch as bullying, an old cricket ball and ensuring that you are reading a mysterious note written by one of distinct story every time you open the victimsbook.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07123568861910674508</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Chris ColferWilliam Sutton|title= The Land of Stories: Worlds Collide|rating= 4.5|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 Lawless and 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, House 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?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0316355895</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Brian Masters|title= Killing for CompanyElectricity
|rating= 5
|genre= True Crime(Historical)|summary= Killing for Company Campbell Lawless is back, this time tasked with solving a detailed criminal study series of terrorist attacks across the nation. Is it the work of Dennis Nilsenthe French, unique in that it was produced with Nilsen's full cooperation as police and includes material from Nilsen's prison diaries. Covering Nilsen's early lifepublic are being led to believe, his career or someone closer to home? Who can be trusted and subsequent murderswhat does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, this is a detailed analysis have to do with the bombs used to cause chaos across the country? Employing the services of Molly, the man behind the murder and an attempteffervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, on Masters' parthe sets in motion a campaign of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, to understand what shaped Nilsen skulduggery and what could have caused such apparently senseless violencethe desperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant invention.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17847594221785650130</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= E V HarteK J Lawrence|title= The Prime of Ms Dolly GreeneCossack|rating= 5|genre= CrimeThrillers|summary= I love reading full stop so I Daniel Brooking is not what you'd think of as hero material: he's a photographer of some merit and in his fifties he has a settled life. It was excited to have the chance disappearance of his assistant, Ivan Shevchenko, which disrupted everything. It wasn't unknown for him to read the first crime novel from establisheddisappear occasionally, well-regarded author Daisy Waugh, writing under but missing an exhibition was a pseudonymfirst for him. But, as He'd been distracted for a selffew days -confessed chicklit fanand then there were the strange papers which arrived, who's never read to be kept safe. The authorities, in the form of a crime novel beforeshadowy senior member of the security services, I wasn't sure if I confirmed the view that Ivan was going to like it...probably dead, because of some supposed connections with organised crime and drug dealing.turns out I absolutely loved it!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14721242431999782704</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Vicky HaywardJames Goss and Russell T Davies|title=Juan Altamiras' New Art of CookeryDoctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Spanish Friar's Kitchen NotebookCollection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who)|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryChildren's Rhymes and Verse |summary=In 1745 a Spanish friary cook, Juan Altamiras, published Consider the first edition of Doctor. his ''New Art of CookeryJust how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, Drawn From the School were he to keep in touch with even half of Economic Experience''. his companions? It contained more than two hundred recipes He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for meatsome of them, poultrysay, gamefor example, salted whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and fresh fish, vegetables that of some of his friends and dessertsenemies. The style was informal, chatty and humorous on occasions and As luck would have it was aimed, not at those who could afford he has the space in his TARDIS to cook on a grand scalestock up in advance, but at those with more modest budgetsso my advice to him – sorry, who sometimes needed her – would be to cook for large numbers. Whilst the ingredients were - for the most part pop along to his local Earth- modestly priced there is a stress on the careful combination of flavours based book emporium and aromasget himself ready. Spices are used conservatively and the bluntness of some Moorish cooking is eschewed in favour of something much more subtle and we see influences from AltamirasAnd if you' own regionre working on a shorter timescale, Aragonwith a shorter lifespan, the Iberian court and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the New Worldsame.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14422794191785942719</amazonuk>
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