Difference between revisions of "Newest Confident Readers Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
(31 intermediate revisions by 3 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 -->
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob Keeley
+
|author=Louie Stowell
|title=The Treasure in the Tower
+
|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good
|rating=4
+
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both in exile and in the physical form of a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as well, to be the more suave, more popular and more successful brother of the two. Loki has a month to redeem his reputation, and get his moral compass pointing the right way again, or else, and to prove it he has to write the text we read in a sentient notebook, that is able to cry foul of his lies, and judge his progress. But Loki is the kind of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk in the park...right?
 +
|isbn=1406399752
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Lucy Strange and Pam Smy
 +
|title=The Mermaid in the Millpond
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Rob Keeley is back! Hooray! We here at Bookbag Towers are always happy to read a new adventure from Rob - his stories combine fast pace and lots of action, an easy to read style, an unerring eye for children's friendships and rivalries, and always a good dollop of naughty humour. They're all present here, in ''The Treasure in the Tower''. The chance purchase of a book during a school trip sparks the whole adventure. Who can follow the clues best and find the treasure? Jess, her brother Mason and their friend Kessie through sheer persistence? Or spoiled brat Perdita with her money and tech gadgets and willingness to cheat?
+
|summary=There is no mermaid in the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there be a friend for her in amongst all the other kids, who have had their entire childhoods sold to the mill-owners by the London workhouse they used to call home. Bess knows there is no time for friendship in a hand-to-mouth, every man for himself kind of existence. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of a kindred spirit in the slight little Dot, and despite everything that life has taught her about betrayal and how befriending people only leads to harm, there might be a glimmer of companionship in the tired-out mill workers. But surely that doesn't mean there is any truth in the existence of the mermaid?
|isbn=1800461321
+
|isbn=180090049X
}}  
+
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1849767009
+
|author=Christopher Edge
|title=It Isn't Rude to be Nude
+
|title=Escape Room
|author=Rosie Haine
+
|rating=3
|rating=5
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|genre=For Sharing
+
|summary=I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process by which a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific location, and have to solve problems in order to get their way out. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventure, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Here, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new to each other and booked into the game without any of their friends, are a team – starting out at the game's main offices, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changer. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?
|summary=This could have been one of those books which 'preaches to the choir': the only people who'll buy it are the people who know that nudity is OK and the ones who ''know'' that it's shameful will avoid it like they avoid the hot-and-bothered person in the supermarket who is coughing fit to bust.  But... Rosie Haines makes it into something so much more than a book about not wearing clothes.  It's a celebration of bodies: bodies large and small and of every possible hue.  Bodies with disabilities and markings.  They're fine.  In fact, they're wonderful.
+
|isbn=1788007964
 
}}
 
}}
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Onjali Q Rauf
+
|author=Lucy Hope
|title=The Night Bus Hero
+
|title=Fledgling
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Hector is a bully. Egged on by his two 'friends', he takes other children's sweets, harasses and threatens, plays pranks at school, and gets into trouble at every turn. Yet he finds himself frustrated when something actually isn't his fault, but then he isn't believed as everyone expects him to be telling lies.  Nothing seems fair.  His parents are barely home, and seem to only care about his perfect sister and his annoying little brother when they are, and his teachers have abandoned him as a lost cause.  So what happens when, in trying to tell the truth & fight to be believed, Hector finds himself embroiled with the police; first trying to accuse, and then trying to save a homeless man from his local park?
+
|summary=Bavaria, 1900. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decades, and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods below. It's an eccentric house, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, the roof is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, and so on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all the maintenance of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going to be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again...
|isbn=1510106774
+
|isbn=183994188X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Carlie Sorosiak
+
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall
|title=My Life as a Cat
+
|title=The Beatryce Prophecy
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is the story of an alien who has come down to spend some time on earth living as a human. It's something that each member in the alien collective is allowed to do, for 1 month, once they reach a certain age. Leonard comes to earth but gets distracted en route, and so something goes wrong with his arrival and he finds that instead of landing in Yellowstone Park, ready to work as a park ranger, he is instead in the body of a cat on the other side of the country!  This is not what he had planned!  Not only is he in the wrong place and the wrong body, he is also in the middle of a storm, stuck in a tree!  And so he meets Olive, the little girl who rows out in a boat to rescue him, and who names him Leonard.
+
|summary=''Stories have joy and surprises in them'', we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group of monks, the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate to find the girl, for it is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing?  But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?
|isbn=1788006089
+
|isbn=1529500893
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Yara Evans and Luciana Betti
+
|author=Greg James and Chris Smith
|title=The Adventures of an Urban Fox: Maggie Arrives
+
|title=The Great Dream Robbery
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Black Cat and Tabby Cat are minding their own business in their own house when a very alarming thing happens. A creature - a large, dog-like creature - appears in their house. Black Cat, always one to take charge, challenges this fearsome creature with all the courage he can muster. Tabby Cat backs him.... from a rather safe distance. The creature is indignant - ''I'm not a dog. I'm a fox!''
+
|summary=Maya's father is a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrong, and now he can't wake up. Or at least, that's what Maya has been told.  In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friend, and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really...and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!
|isbn=1511658649
+
|isbn=024147051X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren Shan
+
|author=Keith Gray
|title=Archibald Lox and the Vote of Alignment
+
|title=The Climbers
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This third and final book in the first volume of Darren Shan's new ''Archibald Lox'' series sees Archie and Inez make it almost all the way to the Cuckoo's Nest, where the Vote of Alignment will be held. But how will they get in?
+
|summary=Sully is the best tree climber in the village. He has what's known amongst the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatened, and not only that, that his chance to name the final, unnamed big tree in the park by being the first to conquer it, might be snatched from his hands. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, to do so?
|isbn=B086LLWP4V
+
|isbn=1781129991
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B086LLRZFH|title=Archibald Lox and the Empress of Suanpan
+
|author=Nick Lake and Emily Gravett
|author=Darren Shan|rating=4.5
+
|title=Locked Out Lily
 +
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Archie's second foray into 'the Merge' opens with a fantastic vista. All of the Born's most famous buildings and monuments - Big Ben, the Taj Mahal,  the Eiffel Tower - are collected together, joined by those clever Merge vines. But there's no time to waste in admiration: Archie is carrying an urgent cry for help from Inez to a venerable locksmith called Winston.Winston is a darling but is afraid to help - what is to be done? Despite yearning to go home and worry for his foster parents, Archie feels an obligation to take Winston's place. And so Archie embarks on a new, and even more dangerous, adventure....
+
|summary=Lily is, or was, or has been, very ill, and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing to do with. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents, and the babe-in-arms, already installed. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get the family back intact, even if it's not the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake.
 +
|isbn=1471194833
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1776572858
+
|author=Philip Reeve
|title=How Do You Make a Baby?
+
|title=Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep
|author=Anna Fiske and Don Bartlett (translator)
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Home and Family
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's more than sixty years since I asked how babies were made. My mother was deeply embarrassed and told me that she'd get me a book about it. A couple of days later I was handed a pamphlet (which delivered nothing more than the basics, in clinical language which had never been used in our house before)  and I was told that it wouldn't be discussed any further as it ''wasn't something which nice people talked about''. I ''knew'' more, but was little ''wiser''.  Thankfully, times have changed.
+
|summary=In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not.
 +
|isbn=1788452372
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren Shan
+
|author=Alex Foulkes
|title=Archibald Lox and the Bridge Between Worlds
+
|title=Rules for Vampires
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Time to catch you all up with some of my lockdown reading - I've been doing so much of it that I'm a bit late to the party with actual reviewing. Oops! And where better to start than with the new series from Bookbag favourite, Darren Shan?
+
|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) is a Vampire. She drinks blood, she sleeps during the day, and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock of bats to travel around, although not all of them remember to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Now, on the night of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oops! And to make things worse, the ghosts of one of the orphans and the evil master of the orphanage come back to haunt her. So, not only does Leo have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, she has to do it all while hiding it from her family. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…
 
+
|isbn=147119955X
Archie is very down. He's lost a dear friend recently, in a tragic accident, and Archie blames himself. He can't face school so he takes himself for a truanting wander around London. As he strolls across a footbridge, he sees a girl who is being pursued by some murderous-looking men in white suits. He watches, aghast. What is going on?
 
|isbn=B086LKBHD6
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Antony Wootten
+
|author= Angharad Walker
|title=Season of the Mammoth (BigShorts)
+
|title= The Ash House
 +
|rating= 5
 +
|genre= Confident Readers
 +
|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he is used to the system, used to different places and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him the rules of The Ash House. These rules centre on a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered by the arrival of the Doctor. By the end of the story, lives will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be the same again.
 +
|isbn=1912626977
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Emma Carroll
 +
|title=The Week at World's End
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Tannash and her brother Geb are waiting in great excitement for the hunting party led by their uncle to return. They're hoping for a feast of mammoth meat. Geb longs for the day he can join his uncle Gagba and the other warriors on a hunting party and take part in their deeds of derring-do. But their father, the leader of the village, thinks that they also need an education; that knowledge is power.
+
|summary=First, the title. We're in World's End Close, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog and with the boy over the road. But we could also be at World's End, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore, and not much else is able to make the news. That said, Vie has news of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed to leave, and implied her life was at risk. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?
|isbn=1939269679
+
|isbn=0571364438
}}  
+
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Tania Unsworth
+
|author=Ian Mark and Louis Ghibault
|title=The Time Traveller and the Tiger
+
|title=Monster Hunting For Beginners
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Elsie is an ordinary sort of girl. The sort of small girl who often gets overlooked, and forgotten.  She is quiet, and compliant, and makes the best of whatever happens to her. So when her parents forget that her school holidays have started before they are free to take care of her, they have to arrange for her to go and stay with her Great Uncle for a week. Poor Elsie, forgotten again, just decides to make the best of things.  On investigating the house she finds that her Great Uncle had lived in India as a boy, and he has an enormous tiger rug on the floor of one of the rooms.  When Elsie asks him about the rug he seems unhappy, and he says he has to keep it because he was the one who shot the tiger when he was 12 years old, and he says it was the worst thing he ever did. So when Elsie suddenly finds herself magically transported back many, many years, to the time in India when her Great Uncle was 12 years old, she believes that she must try to stop him from killing the tiger, in order to put something right that happened a long time ago.
+
|summary=Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's a slight boy, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out of his sight. That's because Jack's mother knew all about monsters, and look what happened to her – she died. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the ogre's death, a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? ''Monster Hunting for Beginners''...
|isbn=1788541707
+
|isbn=0755501942
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha Farrant
+
|author=Lisa Thompson
|title=Voyage of the Sparrowhawk
+
|title=The Small Things
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Set in England in the aftermath of World War One, this is the story of two children, Lotti and Ben, who have lost everyone they love, but don't want to let go of their last, tiny glimpses of hope.  Ben is living on a narrowboat on the canal, lying to the police about his brother's imminent return from the battlefields to take care of him.  Lotti, meanwhile, has been expelled from school and is back at home; it's a beautiful house that belongs to her but that her terrible Aunt and Uncle currently have guardianship for.  The day Lotti meets Ben (the day she steals a dog!) is the beginning of a deep, and powerful friendship.  It sees them become each other's family, and undertake a perilous trip to France, in the boat, to try to find out the truth of the people they both love.
+
|summary=Although Anna has friends at school, she feels like she never really fits in. Her family don't have enough money to let her do after school activities, and so she feels like her life at home is boring in comparison to theirs. When a new girl joins her class, Anna is asked to partner her, but things are complicated because the new girl, Ellie, is unwell and so can't attend school in person. Instead, she joins in with the class by using a robot. Can Anna overcome the challenge of making friends with someone through a robot, and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Ellie?
|isbn=0571348769
+
|isbn=1781129649
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Alex Cotter
 +
|title=The House on the Edge
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Faith's family home is teetering on the edge of a cliff, literally. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faith's family. Her dad has disappeared, and her mum is struggling to cope, barely leaving her bed. So that leaves Faith in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah to school, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on.
 +
|isbn=1788008626
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Joanne M Harris
+
|author=Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
|title=A Pocketful of Crows
+
|title=Julia and the Shark
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Confident Readers
 +
|summary=Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands.  Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island.  Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark.  And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night.
 +
|isbn=1510107789
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Louie Stowell
 +
|title=Otherland
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= I have always been of the mind that once you're above picture-book level and before you get to graphic sex & violence, there is no difference between books for children and books for adults. There are good books and poor ones.  And Joanne Harris does not produce poor ones.  ''A Pocketful of Crows'' is clearly aimed at the younger readers as witness the use of the middle initial in the author's name to differentiate from her adult offers. Ignore that if you have loved anything from ''Chocolat'' onwards you will know that Harris is mistress of the modern fairy tale. This is no different.  It is an utter delight.
+
|summary= Myra and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra is loud, bright and hates rules, while Rohan is very polite, serious and worries about the tiniest things. Their only connection? Being born and briefly dying at the same time at the same hospital on Midsummer's day. And so, every year their families get together to celebrate the two's birthday/deathday. But when Rohan's little sister Shilpa is taken by the fairy queen, they must journey to the Otherland, a magical realm full of fairies, vampires, dragons, and Gods. It's going to be the worst night of their lives.
|isbn=1473222184
+
|isbn=1788000463
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Ele Fountain
+
|author=Darren Shan
|title=Lost
+
|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lola lives in an Indian city with her father, and her brother, Amit.  She lives with them in a nice apartment, and although they are not rich like some of the girls at school, they have enough money to be comfortable. Lola spends her time thinking about her school friends, and trying to fit in with them, until one day, suddenly, everything in her life changes. After taking a work trip away, Lola's father doesn't come home. They have nobody else to help, and as they wait day after day, Lola wonders what will become of them until, finally, they are evicted from their flat, and she and her brother find themselves forced to live on the streets.
+
|summary=So. Having done the impossible and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Crypt, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has ''grop'' to think about. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those is. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this series. 
|isbn=178269255X
+
|isbn=B093J9TF73
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Angela Woolfe
+
|author=Maisie Chan
|title= Roxy and Jones: The Great Fairytale Cover-Up
+
|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= After her father gets married for the umpteenth time, Roxy Humperdinck is sent to live with her half-sister Gretel in Rexopolis, capital city of the Kingdom of Illustria. Gretel works as a toilet cleaner for the Ministry of Soup. Why does a country like Illustria need an entire ministry dedicated to soup, you ask? Well, after Roxy finds a secret passage in her bathroom and meets a snarky young woman known only as Jones, she soon finds out why. Turns out, fairy tales are real, and the Ministry’s official job is to safeguard all knowledge of them and monitor the living fairy tales. And, when an evil queen breaks out of a maximum-security prison and threatens to reinstate her reign of terror, Roxy and Jones hold the fate of the world in their young hands…so, no pressure then!
+
|summary=Danny is eleven years old, and what he really, really loves to do is draw.  He creates fantastical comics, whilst his best friend Ravi adds the words. Danny's dad, however, wants Danny to concentrate on his maths, and forget about the drawing, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing!  At least Danny has his own room, where he can draw in secret and in peace.  But then one day his parents tell him they have a surprise for him, and this surprise turns out to be his grandmother who has come over from China to live with them, and who will not only be sharing Danny's bedroom but she will also be sleeping on the top bunk of his bunk bed!  Danny is horrified!  His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no English, and Danny finds himself forced into being her babysitter, and showing her around the town. Poor Danny, stuck on a maths project, frustrated with his bedroom situation, and then he even has a falling out with Ravi...how on earth will things ever get better?!
|isbn=1406391379
+
|isbn=180078001X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith Eagle
+
|author=Darren Shan
|title=The Pear Affair
+
|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Set in the 1960's, this is a mystery adventure story, all about a little girl called Nell and her quest to find her nanny, Perrine (Pear) who left her very suddenly and then, after keeping in touch regularly by post, disappeared completely from her life, leaving Nell bereft. There's everything in this story, with underground tunnels as the playground of gangs of children, to travel and detective work, a mystery mould infecting Parisian bakeries, mysterious figures following Nell around, and a set of truly dreadful parents!
+
|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in the world of the Born. It's not been easy, explaining to his foster parents where he's been, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez and his other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done his best.... well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak away.
|isbn=0571346855
+
|isbn=B093H8DPQZ
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Kirsty Applebaum
+
|author=Gianna Pollero and Sarah Horne
|title= Troofriend
+
|title=Monster Doughnuts
|rating= 4.5
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Are you tired of your child's classmates constantly being horrible to them? Do you want your child to have some positive experiences with people? Introducing the new Jenson & Jenson Troofriend 560 Mark IV android! These state-of-the-art machines are capable of emulating the full range of human emotions without lying, stealing or bullying. They're the perfect companion for any child! Any mention that these androids are beginning to develop real human feelings are just unsubstantiated rumours and have absolutely no basis in reality…right?
+
|summary=After their parents mysteriously disappeared, Grace and Danni have been left to run the family bakery. But Grace needs the doughnuts and sweet treats that Danni bakes for a rather unusual reason...even though she's only ten years old, she is a monster hunter!  Monsters have a very sweet tooth, and Grace uses a number of methods to defeat them such as throwing baking powder on them, or tricking them into eating a sweet treat that will, ultimately, be their demise.  One day, though, Grace finds herself facing a cyclops monster called Mr Harris, who has a weakness for doughnuts but doesn't seem to explode as the other monsters do, and so  things start to get very strange…
|isbn=1788003470
+
|isbn=1848129432
}}
 
 
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author= M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman
 
|title= The Highland Falcon Thief
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|summary= Harrison Beck, or Hal as he prefers to be called, isn't exactly pleased when his parents send him off with his uncle Nat, a travel writer, on a long train journey. Although, this isn't any old train; this is the Highland Falcon, the royal train, and this is its last ever journey before it gets sent to a museum. A number of high-society figures, including film stars, millionaires and aristocrats, will be on this train, so it is quite the event on the social calendar. However, when an expensive brooch is stolen, Hal realises that maybe this trip won't be as boring as he previously thought. As the passengers begin to turn on each other, Hal vows to get to the bottom of the mystery…before the train gets to the end of the line.
 
|isbn=1529013062
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1781129312
+
|author=M G Leonard
|title=Sequin and Stitch
+
|title=Twitch
|author=Laura Dockrill and Sara Ogilvie (illustrator)
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Dyslexia Friendly
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sequin loved her mum to bits, but sometimes she got very cross with herIt wasn't that mum wouldn't go outside their flat - Sequin coped with that - it was because she never pushed to get credit for what she did.  Mum is a seamstress and she makes the sort of clothes that you see on red carpets or at important weddings.  She's not the designer - they're the people who make a lot of money from the clothes.  Mum is the person who actually ''makes'' the garments and she's really talented, but when people talk about the dress or the suit, they talk about the designer.  The seamstress is never mentioned.
+
|summary=Twitch is a boy who loves birds.  He keeps pigeons at home, and chickens, and even has swallows nesting in his bedroom!  His time spent watching and helping birds is easy compared to that of his time in schoolBut things are about to change for Twitch in all aspects of his life as there is a dangerous bank robber on the run, and it's possible that the missing bank haul is hidden somewhere in Aves Wood, the place where Twitch has his secret hide and that he knows like the back of his hand!  Can Twitch solve the mystery, and find the missing millions?
 +
|isbn=1406389374
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Hana Tooke
+
|author=Hannah Peck
|title= The Unadoptables
+
|title=Kate on the Case
|rating= 5
+
|rating=3.5
|genre= Confident Readers
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In the winter of 1880, five babies are abandoned at the Little Tulip orphanage in Amsterdam, much to the annoyance of matron Gasbeek. Twelve years later, Milou, the last of the five babies to be abandoned back in that winter, struggles to work out the identity of her parents from the clues she was abandoned with: a small coffin with claw-marks on the outside, a cat doll made by someone called Bram Poppenmaker and a velvet blanket. She, along with the other four, patiently wait for Milou's parents to come back and take her home. However, when the five children are sold to the dodgy merchant Meneer Rotman, they know they have to escape. And so begins the adventure of a lifetime as the Unadoptables join forces to reunite Milou with her parents, all the time being pursued by the Kinderbureau and Rotman…
+
|summary=Meet Kate, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at that.  For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idol, and the author of our heroine's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual''. Armed with a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride to the Arctic, to see her scientist mother for the first time in yonks. However, this is a train ride with a difference, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style.  It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalist...
|isbn=0241417465
+
|isbn=184812970X
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob Harrell
+
|author=Hayley Webster
|title=Wink
+
|title=Luna Rae is Not Alone
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Ross is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, aged 12, his desperate attempts at school to just be 'normal' become impossibleSuddenly he is the cancer kid, and everything he does, how he looks, and how he behaves falls under the scrutiny of the other kids in schoolRoss is, understandably, angry.  He is facing potential blindness, whilst dealing with an eye sealed in a permanent wink.  He has gloopy eye medicine to try to help with the pain, plus the need to wear a hat at all times to protect his face due to the ongoing treatment.  With the sudden ghosting by one of his best friends, and a series of horrible memes that someone at school creates about Ross, nothing about his life is normal any more, and he has to find new ways to deal with his feelings, and survive.
+
|summary=Luna Rae has just moved house.  Moving house is always tricky, but especially when you're ten years old, and you miss your old home, and you and your little sister have to start a new school but your mum seems to be out working all the timeThen there's your dad, who doesn't seem like he's coping so well, and so there's no one to take care of things but youEverything feels different, and strange, and mysterious, and so Luna finds a way of coping is by watching.  She turns detective, and starts keeping an eye on her new neighbourhood, but it turns out she's not the only one keeping watch!
|isbn=1471409147
+
|isbn=1788006046
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Alastair Chisholm
+
|author=Francesca Simon and Steve May
|title=Orion Lost
+
|title=Two Terrible Vikings
|rating=4.5
+
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre=Emerging Readers
|summary= Thirteen-year-old Beth and her parents board the transport ship Orion ready for a new life on Eos Five. Their new home is still being terra-formed and life there isn't going to be easy, but it ''is'' going to be a fresh start. As Beth's mum puts it, ''There's a future waiting for us. A chance to make our own decisions, create our own lives.''
+
|summary=In a small Viking village there live two twins, Hack and Whack, who are eager to be the very worst Vikings ever!  Nothing can stop their mad marauding, as they cause havoc at a birthday party, chaos whilst tracking a troll, and undertake a grand journey to raid Bad Island with their friends!  They get up to all kinds of mischief and naughty behaviour, along with their wolf-cub Bitey-Bitey, and their crazy cast of friends.
|isbn= 1788005929
+
|isbn=0571349498
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Struan Murray and Manuel Sumberac (illustrator)
+
|author=Danny Wallace and Gemma Correll
|title=Orphans of the Tide
+
|title=The Day the Screens Went Blank
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In the last city on Earth, anyone can be the vessel of The Enemy - the god who drowned the world - who has come to wreak havoc on the last of humanity. When a mysterious boy is pulled from the corpse of a whale, the citizens immediately believe him to be the Vessel - all except for young Ellie Lancaster, a girl inventor. As the ruthless Inquisition prepares to execute the boy, Ellie must prove that he is innocent - even if it means revealing her deepest, darkest secrets...
+
|summary=Meet Stella and her family.  They're just innocently trying to have a Sunday evening in together, watching a film – using three different screens to watch three different things, mind – when ''poof'' everything goes blank. And it's not just their home, but the entire south-western village of Mousehole, and not just that, either, but the whole country, if not world.  Suddenly people are constantly on their phones – hoping they're first to get a screen back, and not what they were constantly doing on them before.  Toasters can toast, but TVs cannot do the V part of their job, and no computer can show its computations. You might think this is going to be a social comedy about people stuck in such a Luddite experience against their will, but no. For the family finally remember Stella's grandma, and see if they can get across country to her.  Hence this has to go down as a road-trip book. But not just that, a slapstick road-trip comedy. And more than that, too – for it's a slapstick, high-drama, high-octane road-trip comedy with oodles of cuddly heart that kids of all ages will love.
|isbn=0241384435
+
|isbn=1471196887
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author= Holly Rivers
 
|title= Demelza and the Spectre Detectors
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Confident Readers
 
|summary= Demelza Clock is a scientist, often staying up late to work on her various gadgets, much to her Grandma Maeve's irritation. However, she has also inherited a certain set of skills that are not especially scientific: Spectre Detecting, the ability to summon the ghosts of the recently deceased. Under the guidance of her Grandma Maeve, Demelza begins to master her newfound skills. However, there is a mysterious individual on the prowl, kidnapping young Spectre Detectors. It's up to Demelza and her best friend Percy to get to the bottom of this...
 
|isbn=1912626039
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]

Revision as of 13:34, 25 October 2021

1406399752.jpg

Review of

Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being Good by Louie Stowell

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki is spending a month both in exile and in the physical form of a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parents, and Thor has come along as well, to be the more suave, more popular and more successful brother of the two. Loki has a month to redeem his reputation, and get his moral compass pointing the right way again, or else, and to prove it he has to write the text we read in a sentient notebook, that is able to cry foul of his lies, and judge his progress. But Loki is the kind of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk in the park...right? Full Review

180090049X.jpg

Review of

The Mermaid in the Millpond by Lucy Strange and Pam Smy

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

There is no mermaid in the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there be a friend for her in amongst all the other kids, who have had their entire childhoods sold to the mill-owners by the London workhouse they used to call home. Bess knows there is no time for friendship in a hand-to-mouth, every man for himself kind of existence. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of a kindred spirit in the slight little Dot, and despite everything that life has taught her about betrayal and how befriending people only leads to harm, there might be a glimmer of companionship in the tired-out mill workers. But surely that doesn't mean there is any truth in the existence of the mermaid? Full Review

1788007964.jpg

Review of

Escape Room by Christopher Edge

3star.jpg Confident Readers

I've seen junior variants of the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' format cover escape rooms – the process by which a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific location, and have to solve problems in order to get their way out. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventure, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Here, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new to each other and booked into the game without any of their friends, are a team – starting out at the game's main offices, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changer. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature? Full Review

183994188X.jpg

Review of

Fledgling by Lucy Hope

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Bavaria, 1900. Our scene is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decades, and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods below. It's an eccentric house, to host eccentrics, so the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, the roof is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through it, and so on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermy, a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has to do all the maintenance of this bizarre machine-like abode. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going to be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again... Full Review

1529500893.jpg

Review of

The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo and Sophie Blackall

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Stories have joy and surprises in them, we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous story, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group of monks, the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on and biting the poor Brothers. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate to find the girl, for it is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone? Full Review

024147051X.jpg

Review of

The Great Dream Robbery by Greg James and Chris Smith

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Maya's father is a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrong, and now he can't wake up. Or at least, that's what Maya has been told. In a rather strange dream one night Maya makes a new friend, and discovers that the only way to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collide...really...and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag! Full Review

1781129991.jpg

Review of

The Climbers by Keith Gray

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Sully is the best tree climber in the village. He has what's known amongst the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up in town? A new kid, called Nottingham, who clambers up some of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatened, and not only that, that his chance to name the final, unnamed big tree in the park by being the first to conquer it, might be snatched from his hands. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, to do so? Full Review

1471194833.jpg

Review of

Locked Out Lily by Nick Lake and Emily Gravett

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Lily is, or was, or has been, very ill, and to give her parents relief she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already and wants nothing to do with. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents, and the babe-in-arms, already installed. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get the family back intact, even if it's not the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake. Full Review

1788452372.jpg

Review of

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

5star.jpg Confident Readers

In a word, rich. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildsea, British but way west, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on it, and sea-witches, and legends of the Dark family that has to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sail. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head to worry about such local yokel superstitions, and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not. Full Review

147119955X.jpg

Review of

Rules for Vampires by Alex Foulkes

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Eleonore Von Motteberg (or 'Leo' for short) is a Vampire. She drinks blood, she sleeps during the day, and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock of bats to travel around, although not all of them remember to come back). Pretty cool stuff. Now, on the night of her hundredth birthnight, she has to go out and hunt her first human. However, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanage. Oops! And to make things worse, the ghosts of one of the orphans and the evil master of the orphanage come back to haunt her. So, not only does Leo have to team up with the friendly ghost Minna to stop the ghost of the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, she has to do it all while hiding it from her family. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires… Full Review

1912626977.jpg

Review of

The Ash House by Angharad Walker

5star.jpg Confident Readers

A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name, or why he is there but he is used to the system, used to different places and different faces. He meets Dom who names him Sol and sets out to teach him the rules of The Ash House. These rules centre on a variety of Nicenesses set out by the absent Headmaster. All children must remember their Niceness and complete their chores, working as a hive in the smouldering shadows of The Ash House. But soon their easy peace is shattered by the arrival of the Doctor. By the end of the story, lives will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be the same again. Full Review

0571364438.jpg

Review of

The Week at World's End by Emma Carroll

4star.jpg Confident Readers

First, the title. We're in World's End Close, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie to her friends) finds fun only with the family dog and with the boy over the road. But we could also be at World's End, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking off. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore, and not much else is able to make the news. That said, Vie has news of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding in their coal shed. Anna has, in no short time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said she'd locate something she wanted and leave, failed to leave, and implied her life was at risk. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away? Full Review

0755501942.jpg

Review of

Monster Hunting For Beginners by Ian Mark and Louis Ghibault

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Jack. Now Jack knows very little about being fearless and nimble and quick, for he's a slight boy, and although he wants for danger and peril and interesting things his dad refuses to let him out of his sight. That's because Jack's mother knew all about monsters, and look what happened to her – she died. Luckily or unluckily then, depending on your point of view, a giant ogre will threaten his aunt when Jack's father also goes AWOL, Jack will fluke the ogre's death, a dwarfish wizard-type will make him an apprentice monster hunter, and he'll be given a book that tells him all he needs to know about the perils he always wanted closer contact with. The book's name? Monster Hunting for Beginners... Full Review

1781129649.jpg

Review of

The Small Things by Lisa Thompson

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Although Anna has friends at school, she feels like she never really fits in. Her family don't have enough money to let her do after school activities, and so she feels like her life at home is boring in comparison to theirs. When a new girl joins her class, Anna is asked to partner her, but things are complicated because the new girl, Ellie, is unwell and so can't attend school in person. Instead, she joins in with the class by using a robot. Can Anna overcome the challenge of making friends with someone through a robot, and is she even interesting enough to be a good friend to Ellie? Full Review

1788008626.jpg

Review of

The House on the Edge by Alex Cotter

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Faith's family home is teetering on the edge of a cliff, literally. Is that crack in the garden getting bigger? Is the house starting to slope a little? And as the house seems to be falling apart, so is Faith's family. Her dad has disappeared, and her mum is struggling to cope, barely leaving her bed. So that leaves Faith in charge, taking care of her little brother Noah, taking care of her mum, feeding everyone, getting Noah to school, and avoiding awkward questions from interfering teachers. Is her little brother okay? Why is he obsessed with what he claims is a ghost in the cellar? What should she do about the house? Can she find a way to raise enough money to fix it? What's happened to her dad? Why did he disappear? Maybe he'll come back if she manages to get funding for the house? She carries the weight of all these worries on her constantly, and she doesn't know how much longer the cliff will hold together, or how long she can keep on keeping on. Full Review

1510107789.jpg

Review of

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Julia, our pre-teen heroine, has been packed off with her parents and their cat from the family home in SW England to be lighthousekeepers for a summer, in the far NE of the Scottish islands. Here be Vikings, that kind of Scottish island. Dad is going to be automating the lantern, which is his specialist thing, while mum will be leaving her career in algae behind to hunt the elusive Greenland shark. And Julia, well, she will be homesick and alone – until she suddenly finds company one night. Full Review

1788000463.jpg

Review of

Otherland by Louie Stowell

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Myra and Rohan are like Yin and Yang – Myra is loud, bright and hates rules, while Rohan is very polite, serious and worries about the tiniest things. Their only connection? Being born and briefly dying at the same time at the same hospital on Midsummer's day. And so, every year their families get together to celebrate the two's birthday/deathday. But when Rohan's little sister Shilpa is taken by the fairy queen, they must journey to the Otherland, a magical realm full of fairies, vampires, dragons, and Gods. It's going to be the worst night of their lives. Full Review

B093J9TF73.jpg

Review of

Archibald Lox and the Slides of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3 by Darren Shan

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

So. Having done the impossible and unpicked the lock to the Forgotten Crypt, from which the Departed communicate with the Merge, Archie now has grop to think about. But before that, soirees. Soirees! Archie, much to Inez's amusement, doesn't even know what one of those is. But he manages to come through the fancy party unscathed, even after an uncomfortable encounter with Kurtis, whose fledgling romance with Inez was crushed in the first volume of this series.  Full Review

180078001X.jpg

Review of

Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths by Maisie Chan

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Danny is eleven years old, and what he really, really loves to do is draw. He creates fantastical comics, whilst his best friend Ravi adds the words. Danny's dad, however, wants Danny to concentrate on his maths, and forget about the drawing, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing! At least Danny has his own room, where he can draw in secret and in peace. But then one day his parents tell him they have a surprise for him, and this surprise turns out to be his grandmother who has come over from China to live with them, and who will not only be sharing Danny's bedroom but she will also be sleeping on the top bunk of his bunk bed! Danny is horrified! His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no English, and Danny finds himself forced into being her babysitter, and showing her around the town. Poor Danny, stuck on a maths project, frustrated with his bedroom situation, and then he even has a falling out with Ravi...how on earth will things ever get better?! Full Review

B093H8DPQZ.jpg

Review of

Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3 by Darren Shan

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

The second trilogy in Shan's Merge saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in the world of the Born. It's not been easy, explaining to his foster parents where he's been, or slipping back into ordinary life and forgetting about Inez and his other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done his best.... well, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak away. Full Review

1848129432.jpg

Review of

Monster Doughnuts by Gianna Pollero and Sarah Horne

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

After their parents mysteriously disappeared, Grace and Danni have been left to run the family bakery. But Grace needs the doughnuts and sweet treats that Danni bakes for a rather unusual reason...even though she's only ten years old, she is a monster hunter! Monsters have a very sweet tooth, and Grace uses a number of methods to defeat them such as throwing baking powder on them, or tricking them into eating a sweet treat that will, ultimately, be their demise. One day, though, Grace finds herself facing a cyclops monster called Mr Harris, who has a weakness for doughnuts but doesn't seem to explode as the other monsters do, and so things start to get very strange… Full Review

1406389374.jpg

Review of

Twitch by M G Leonard

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Twitch is a boy who loves birds. He keeps pigeons at home, and chickens, and even has swallows nesting in his bedroom! His time spent watching and helping birds is easy compared to that of his time in school. But things are about to change for Twitch in all aspects of his life as there is a dangerous bank robber on the run, and it's possible that the missing bank haul is hidden somewhere in Aves Wood, the place where Twitch has his secret hide and that he knows like the back of his hand! Can Twitch solve the mystery, and find the missing millions? Full Review

184812970X.jpg

Review of

Kate on the Case by Hannah Peck

3.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Kate, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at that. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idol, and the author of our heroine's favourite possession, The Special Correspondent Manual. Armed with a plucky father, that book, and her talking mouse called Rupert, she is all equipped to manage a train ride to the Arctic, to see her scientist mother for the first time in yonks. However, this is a train ride with a difference, for on board is a greedy-seeming harridan and her cat, a thief – and two glowing eyes, shining from the darkness in a blink-and-you'll-miss-them style. It's definitely a case for a new young investigative journalist... Full Review

1788006046.jpg

Review of

Luna Rae is Not Alone by Hayley Webster

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Luna Rae has just moved house. Moving house is always tricky, but especially when you're ten years old, and you miss your old home, and you and your little sister have to start a new school but your mum seems to be out working all the time. Then there's your dad, who doesn't seem like he's coping so well, and so there's no one to take care of things but you. Everything feels different, and strange, and mysterious, and so Luna finds a way of coping is by watching. She turns detective, and starts keeping an eye on her new neighbourhood, but it turns out she's not the only one keeping watch! Full Review

0571349498.jpg

Review of

Two Terrible Vikings by Francesca Simon and Steve May

4star.jpg Emerging Readers

In a small Viking village there live two twins, Hack and Whack, who are eager to be the very worst Vikings ever! Nothing can stop their mad marauding, as they cause havoc at a birthday party, chaos whilst tracking a troll, and undertake a grand journey to raid Bad Island with their friends! They get up to all kinds of mischief and naughty behaviour, along with their wolf-cub Bitey-Bitey, and their crazy cast of friends. Full Review

1471196887.jpg

Review of

The Day the Screens Went Blank by Danny Wallace and Gemma Correll

5star.jpg Confident Readers

Meet Stella and her family. They're just innocently trying to have a Sunday evening in together, watching a film – using three different screens to watch three different things, mind – when poof everything goes blank. And it's not just their home, but the entire south-western village of Mousehole, and not just that, either, but the whole country, if not world. Suddenly people are constantly on their phones – hoping they're first to get a screen back, and not what they were constantly doing on them before. Toasters can toast, but TVs cannot do the V part of their job, and no computer can show its computations. You might think this is going to be a social comedy about people stuck in such a Luddite experience against their will, but no. For the family finally remember Stella's grandma, and see if they can get across country to her. Hence this has to go down as a road-trip book. But not just that, a slapstick road-trip comedy. And more than that, too – for it's a slapstick, high-drama, high-octane road-trip comedy with oodles of cuddly heart that kids of all ages will love. Full Review

Move on to Newest Cookery Reviews