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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David Roberts and Alan MacDonaldMax Boucherat|title=My Burptastic Body Book (Dirty Bertie)The Last Life of Lori Mills

|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=OhWe meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, to be young and innocentbabysitter poorly, and to be full of questions. Questions like 'is eating my bogies good for me'mother at work, or 'why is poo brown'just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, or 'what makes sweat smell'on her lonesome. You don't have to be What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a kid like Dirty Bertie blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to want log on to know Voxminer, the answers – respectivelyworld-building, no; itcritter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's down to dead bacteria; and it world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't – it's other bacteria againfind herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. If you think you have a lad (orWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, let's face it, a lass) interested and her safe place in learning such stuff, this book could well be the place to turn.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847156754</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Matt Stanton|title= Funny Kid for President|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary=Max Walburt game has been doctored – well, where is a real problem with his teacher and nothing seems girl to make it better. Running for class president seems like a good way out of his problems but inevitably it doesn't run smoothly.turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008220166</amazonuk>0008666482

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Kid NormalKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|authortitle=Greg James and Chris SmithDungeon Runners: Hero Trial

|summary=Murph Cooper Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is fed up. He an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and his mum have moved house. Again. This means another new home to get used race tothe exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. This means another new school to get used to. This means another set Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of friends left behind. And if the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that weren't enoughone team has been retired, eaten, this time he doesn't even have and a new school to go to. Everywhere trio of questors is fullneeded. Eventually Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, a place is found - at he has taken to the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he''The School'', a strange place hidden away in ll enter as a back streetteam. ''The School'' is a school unlike any other. It caters for children with superpowers. But Murph doesn't What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have any superpowers in actually managing that, and is soon consigned to the socially undesirable super zeroes gang. The kids with superpowers are not kind how could he possibly hope to the super zeroes...succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408884534</amazonuk>1839945184

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Max BrooksJames Sherwood Metts|title= Minecraft: The IslandPlanet Storyland|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Max Brooks perfectly captures Things have been a bit sticky for the experience of playing Minecraft without instructions or assistance from the random punching stage through Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to building towers do and other tasks that touch the skytook time to accomplish. Just as schools around the world are using Minecraft they were beginning to get used to teach computer science all this technological change and starting to think of other skills Brooks uses his novel , new ways to demonstrate how valuable life lessons can be learned from this online phenomenaspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178089774X</amazonuk>1736128426

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gillian Cross Tom Percival|title=The Demon Headmaster: Total Control Wrong Shoes|rating=45|genre=Confident Readers |summary= Lizzie and her younger brother Tyler aren't looking forward to returning to Hazelbrook Academy. However, when they arrive, they find everything has changed. And itWill's not for the better. Every pupil life is now perfectly behaved and suddenly everyone seems to have difficult, in a special talentmultitude of ways. Even He is bullied because he has 'the teachers are acting strangely. Andwrong shoes', if that isnhe has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enoughmoney for even the most basic of things like food, Lizzie inexplicably finds herself throwing food around the canteen and being accused of vandalising his dad can't work because he lost his job at the school. Lizzie is determined to find out what has caused the sudden change college, was working a cash-in everyone's behaviour but it's hard because no one seems to be able to talk about what's going -hand job ona building site and had an accident. It's almost as if Throw into that mix the Hazelbrook students fact that his mum and dad are no longer able to think separated, and act for themselvesWill's life seems bleak in every direction. Could it And yet, perhapshe still has a tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, be something and clings to do with the mysterious new headmaster? moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192745743</amazonuk>1398527122

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Laura Powell1805141872|title= The Last Duchess: a Silver Service MysteryTeacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Being a Lady's maid doesn't sound like Seventeen banks and a whole lot of funjeweller’s have been raided. Don't read novelsThe police are baffled, which will make you dissatisfied with your condition. Be observant and cheerful at all timesbut only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, and grateful for the benefits you receive from your employment - however difficult it may seemMiss Judson, it isreally a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, after all, far better than living in poverty Miss Judson and Ben go on the streetsrun. And never express your own opinion, even if your mistress asks But Al needs them for itone last job. These are the rules (among many..'' Goodness me, many others) used that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to train girls at Mrs Minchinget mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We's Academy of Domestic Servitudell find out. There are no rules Luckily for what goes on in Miss Judson, the privacy of your own head, however, and Patternpupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, generally considered the Academy's most gifted student, son of a famous magician who has plenty of opinions whichambitions to be as good as his father some day, if she said them aloud, would cause her teachers to faint in genteel horror.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509808906</amazonuk>and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robyn Swift and Sara Lynn CrambChristopher Edge|title=National Trust: Complete Night Explorer's KitBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=There is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a misfortune to the modern worldmovie marathon at their local cinema, in a place that we have killed off a common hobby from when I was a ladhas the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. Nowadays light pollution is so awful itAll big movie fans, they's certainly not uncommon for people re looking forward to hardly see any lots of the stars and to get to learn the constellationsexciting films, and while I only went out to go 'meteor hunting'many, it's patently obvious that the chance to lie down and stargaze is a dying one. many snacks! Elsewhere However, as the nocturnal youth can struggle to have much opportunity to explore the night-time nature as movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this book suggests – it begins with setting up a tent in your back gardennew film format is very different, and too many donthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even get that chance, for want of possession of oneimagine. YesBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, if this book can they figure out what on earth is only read once in going on? Will they ever get back to the daytime cinema, and never referred to again, due to lack of opportunity, it really will be a crying shame.their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857638777</amazonuk>1839942738

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=David Walliams and Tony RossAdam Stower|title=The World's Worst Children 2Murray and Bun

|summary=I sometimes wonder if David Walliams gets sick of Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the comparisons wondrous library we start by visiting with Roald Dahl that he getshim, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. It's such an easy comparison to make, howeverEli lives with his lovely gran, because both wrote very funny, and yet really very dark stories too – for childrenthere is a generation missing in the family. They donA few short years ago, Eli't shy away from s parents were both lost to the nastinesstitular race, and ugliness a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in life and instead face it head on, and flip it around, and make you laugh along the waycompany of a magical beast. This is has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a rollercoaster ride through bad incident at the eatery leads to a wide range of truly dreadful children who range confession from being a fussy eatergran, Eli knows his only hope is to a spoiled brat, dare to Harryenter what he most hates, who never, ever did his homework! Yes, their dark deeds vary in despicableness, and along with dreadfulness galore there are fabulous illustrations, a large variety the sole aim the prize of fonts, unusual page layouts and a Royal introduction from magic at the end – the Queen..only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008259623</amazonuk>0571382231

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeff Brown and Rob BiddulphHelen Cooper|title=Stanley and The Taming of the Magic Lamp (Flat Stanley)Cat

|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=It was far too recently that I picked Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up [[Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown against Gorgonzola the cat – and Rob Biddulph|Flat Stanley]] and met with in case you're seeing a character now fifty years old for the first timeconnection, they live in a cheese shop and found out how he got therefore all the names used here seem to be flat and what happened as a resultthe names of cheeses. BizarrelyAnyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, howevermous-tracised, despite for the success of that first book it was twenty full years before way his habits don't match the author picked other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the pen to give Stanley this sequelcheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. Or perhaps itIt's not such a surprise – without giving too much awayalmost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the character others had met with a certain change at the end of book one, and therefore wasn't exactly ready for more of chance to half-inch some cheese while the samecat was distracted. Well, over But will the decades there story have been six official books by Jeff Brown, and this was the first instance where I could find successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out for myself if '''I''' was ready for more of the same…?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140528806X</amazonuk>0571376010

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Ethan I Was BeforeLauren St John|authortitle=Ali StandishFinding Wonder

|summary=Ethan Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and his family are moving to a little town now she finds herself awoken in Georgia from the big city middle of Boston in a last ditch attempt the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to help Ethan get over the loss corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of best friend Kacey. And the move does give Ethan a great deal But she has no one else , and so off she goes to think aboutlive with her unreliable aunt. There's living Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Grandpa IkeJoni's dilapidated old house campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169}}{{Frontpage|author=Adam Baron and the uncommunicative Grandpa Ike himself. ThereBenji Davies|title=Oscar's a new school Lion|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a new pecking order couple of times before he has to navigatebe ready for school. There But when he enters his parents's bedroom, all he sees is a new friend in Coraleemahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, who has and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a great line in tall stories birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and who likes adventures almost as much as Kacey didit can get him out of a problem. But And it's hard wonderful to leave grief behindhave around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the rules, especially when you feel as guilty as Ethan does.and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408342928</amazonuk>0008596751

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Goldie Hawk and Rachael SaundersJudith Eagle|title=National Trust: Go Wild in the WoodsThe Stolen Songbird

|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=I am Caro's mother, a man world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who likes his creature comfortsis unwell. Always have beenSo who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, always will – she feels frustrated and creature comforts donconfused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady't involve snuggling down in a sleeping bags house, however comfortablealong with an orphan boy, to watch creaturesAlbie, as far as I'm concernedwho is living there too. LuckilyBut she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, however, many people are as she discovers a painting of another bent entirely – they find no problem in getting out and abouta bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, taking whatever weather and wildlife can throw at them, all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and spending time out of doors for the hell of itterrorising people. This book is Is the first stage painting somehow linked to that, and needs to be read in full before you step out your front door. the gang? And even if itwhat has happened to Caro's your ''only'' stage, it will still be pleasantly educational…mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>085763917X</amazonuk>0571363148

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul Stewart and Chris RidddellTania Unsworth|title=Free Lance and the Lake of SkullsNowhere Island

|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Our hero Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is a free lance so determined to escape the care system – one of the traditional self-employed men, going round the countrysystem that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself. He is en route to yet another fosterer, jousting when he canjumps into an anonymous car, doing fantastical errands and lets it ride him to his future. That future seems to be in jeopardy when they come up, all someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with no fixed employer. But his brother in a camp on an island between the lack two directions of fixed income hits home at timesa motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. And at those timesThem, those fantastical errandsand a mute girl also finding a home there, however nightmarish they albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can clearly becombine, get to be all the more appealing…or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178112714X</amazonuk>1804540080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy Strong and Scoular AndersonHelen Peters|title=The Ghost in the BathFriends and Traitors|rating=4.53|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Luke has got problems – and just about every school subject qualifies as one England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the momentcountry pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her. But none of those are The other is Sidney, a girl from a bigger problem than history – he's hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been tasked with a researchremoved there away from bomber flight-heavy project for homeworkpaths. The girls are chalk and cheese, but has no ideaand if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. So when he But something is having a brainstorm amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a bath and rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is interrupted by a ghostmade of meetings with Germans, of all thingsand not only that, it might just be the way for him to be connected with the pasta local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But that's ignoring surely the fact that girls are wrong, and the girl left as a ghost might upper class could never be wanting a connection of her own – and perhaps an end to an unusual problem she herself has…so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781127263</amazonuk>1788004647

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Giles Chapman and Us NowJamie Littler|title=The Story of the CarArkspire|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction Confident Readers|summary=Dinosaurs… farm machinery… science fiction… trains… carsTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. I can't think Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of many other subjects that inspired the young me Watcher, the closest to have a full non-fiction book about them on my juvenile shelvesruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Most Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of course I lost interest in with maturitythe whole family. But the young child these days won't in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be much different, able to gain some power of her own – for good , or badfor very, and so they will like as not want a book about broom-brooms for the shelf. And this is pretty much the go-to volume for such an interest.very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1526360268</amazonuk>0241586143

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Libby Walden024162343X|title=In Focus: CitiesStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=45

|summary=The [[In Focus: 101 Close Ups, Cross-Sections and Cutaways by Libby Walden|first book I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in this series]] promised 101 close-ups, cross sections and/or cutways, but here wereligious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god're restricted to just ten. WhyWhere was the proof? Because the subject matters are so much bigger – one is home to 37 million peopleIn history lessons, of all thingsit was probably worse still. YesNot too long after the end of WWII, weI didn're talking cities, and while this book tries t so much want to follow learn about the previous – different artist every pageBritish army's successes (and occasional failures, an exclusive inside look within the volume, and a self-deceiving page count – but we are definitely didn't dwell on those) in new territory. Wewhat came to be called 're seeking the trivial, colonies' as want to dispute what right the geographical and army had to be there in the culturalfirst place. Looking back, all so I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the inquisitive young student can find out maturity to approach 'the variety to be problem' politely. I wish I'd had in the worldSathnam Sanghera's metropolises''Stolen History''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848575912</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cornelia FunkeThiago de Moraes|title=Dragon RiderOld Gods New Tricks|rating=4.5

|summary=My daughter first read ''Dragon Rider'' when she discovered it in her school library aged about 8Meet Trixie. She loved itForever getting into scrapes, so much so that she borrowed it over larks and overadventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, reading and re-reading it, her head full she could almost be thought a young goddess of dragonsnuisance. I finally sat down to give it a read myselfBut just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, excited at the prospect of a good fantasy storyworld changes. Firedrake is the oneSuddenly, brave dragon from practically everything electronic stops working – a small dragon community whopower-out, when faced with the incoming humans who will destroy their homeeven of electric cars, decides to go out into hits not just the world to try to find town the Rim of Heaven, a hidden home for the dragons. Thereschool's a far-ranging, adventurous journeyin but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and there are fantasy creatures galoreall that powers the Internet, such as Firedrakejust for our convenience's brownie friendsake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, Sorrelto gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, a djinnie the semi-deities, a basiliskgiants, a sea serpent half-gods and so on known as the big baddie, Nettlebrandtricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1911077856</amazonuk>178845295X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jo Manton, Phyllis Bray Hannah Gold and David BuckmanLevi Pinfold|title=Titania and OberonFinding Bear

|summary=''Equus''[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, ''Waiting for Godot'' and ''A Mid-summer Night's Dream'' finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – three very distinctive playsthat she called Bear. Back home, things on the domestic and my favourite threefamily front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, out of which you won't often get me choosing just one. But were I to do and so, it might actually can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last, for the simple reason I would delight in playing any and all characters from itleft on. Yes, I know Hermia and Helena look For a bit implausible now – but I put it to you stranger bear doing very Bear-y things happen on stage… has been shot and wounded. Some of the strangest things involve a player himself, a lowly actor who gets given an assDesperate to make sure he's head OK, she and is forced her father return to be the enamoured of Arctic and hope that in a fairy queen. It's this section world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the play that this book concentrates on, in quite stunning formfriendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184365329X</amazonuk>0008582017

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael Morpurgo and Briony May SmithSimon Fox|title=The Giant's NecklaceDeadlock

|summary=On holiday in Cornwall Cherry found Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a length secret place, and join him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of fishing line and decided that she Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, toting a tin his father was going determined to make keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a giantwhole heap of questions.|isbn=1839944420}}{{Frontpage|author=Cath Howe|title=My Life on Fire|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Ren's necklace with cowrie shellsfamily home is destroyed in a fire. She's patient and painstaking - it takes , her weeks to gather the shellsparents, clean, polish and string them togetherher little brother lose everything. On the final day She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of the holiday she knows how many more she needs her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now sheis living at her grandmother's determined that shehouse where they can's not going to be beatent touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. The family head off for When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a day on special art project, creating boxes of their beach lives, to display things that are important to them and Cherry begs show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to stay on for put in a little longer box, and so that she can get the shells she needsfinds herself starting to steal things. Only she's Small things, things that people might not really miss, not ''quite'' careful enough and allows herself to be cut off by the tide when the weather takes a turn for the worsethey have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406373494</amazonuk>1839942835

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Derek LandyRob Keeley|title=ResurrectionThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories

|summary=Skulduggery Pleasant – the sharply dressed and wise-cracking skeleton – Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back and he needs help. A small group of disgruntled sorcerers have banded together and have plans to use their unique set of skills with a return to wage war on the mortal world. Others have tried this in the past but this particular group have a scheme that should guarantee their success: they're going short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to resurrect a terrifying evil. Despite his powerseleven new tales, Skulduggery can't defeat them alone. He successfully persuades each as fun to read as his former partner – Valkyrie Cain – to join him for just twenty-four hoursprevious offerings. But will she stay when the time runs out? Will they be able to save the world?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008169020</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Barry HutchisonLaura Noakes|title= Super Creepy Camp (Beaky Malone)Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary=First of allMeet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, I'd like just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to start off just be named by making a complaint the number they correspond to Barry Hutchison. His latest bookin the ledger, and they''Super Creepy Camp'' has been giving me sleepless nightsre all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. I've been kept awake by But Cosima bears the raucous laughter emanating from my son's bedroom tag as he reads it before bed. I'd just a surname because nothing else seems to be settling down and then it would start againknown about where she came from, bouncing off as the walls first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the dead of night and probably keeping the neighbours awake toooutside world. I'd stomp angrily across During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the landingkitchen one afternoon, open she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his doorInstitute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to find him helplessly rolling around on the bed in fits of giggles. So thanks, Barry. Thanks a lot.past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847158129</amazonuk>0008579059

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellAlice M Ross|title=The Misadventures of Max Crumbly 2: Middle School MayhemNowhere Thief|rating=24.5

|summary=Max At last there is new stock in the middle of impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a situation, and no mistakeseaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. [[The Misadventures of Max Crumbly: Locker Hero by Rachel Renee Russell|Last time]] he had to bust himself She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out of his own school locker, and found himself caught up in a right scrape suitable only for his own superhero aspirations, involving burglars at because she has the school, retrieving valuable comics, and so much more. Joining right back into the action with a literal ''splat'' ability to leave this time we face the thieves up front and personalworld, and at the same see Max trying use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to save what little friendship he has with enter other worlds, where the hot computer-loving girl at school, who can easily rank as his only friend there – sea levels are rising dramatically and whose clothes he happens to be wearing. Oh woe is he…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147114464X</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Rosemary Sutcliff|title= Black Ships Before Troy|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= This is the perfect book buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for those that want a taste of Homer's Iliad before attempting the full workplunder. Although aimed With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at a younger reading audiencethe shop? Well yes, Sutcliff's writing is concise and gripping; thusthe answer, this will be as equally beneficial to adults. This, when brought together with but the excellent artistic skills of Allan lee, makes for fact a lavish retelling of the Iliad. mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847809952</amazonuk>1839943769

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Judith KerrNatasha Farrant|title=When Hitler Stole Pink RabbitThe Rescue of Ravenwood

|summary=It's Germany, 1933 and nine year old Anna has a dream – she wants to be famous when she grows up. Unfortunately nearly all This story is another excellent adventure from the famous people she's heard author of have suffered from a ''difficult childhoodVoyage of the Sparrowhawk'' . Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Anna knows that's not herRaffy have been living for most of their lives. She has They are part of a loving complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with enough money. Her life is, howeverher Uncle Leo, turned upside down by Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Anna's told that she's Jewish (her parents aren't particularly religious so she was only dimly aware of this) and her dad Raffy is likely to be a target under a Nazi government. Anna there with his mum, and her family they are forced to flee Germany and build living together as a new life as refugees family. They have grown up swimming in Switzerlandthe cove, roaming through the trees, then France completely at one with all of the nature around the house and ultimately Englandloving every inch of the place. It's But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a hard life, especially when money worries settle in, but for Anna and her brother developer as it's also an adventurebecoming more and more expensive to maintain. It The children find themselves worrying not only about where they'sre going to live, thereforebut if they'll even be together, a long time before Anna realises that her experiences might actually count as a ''difficult childhood''and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007274777</amazonuk>0571348785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldo ValerioRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=My Book Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of BirdsSilver Street

|genre=Children's Non-Fiction Confident Readers|summary=I never really caught the bird-watching habitJayden's nose is forever in a book, even with which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the opportunity phoenixes and unicorns of growing up on the edge world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of a village in anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the middle outside world of nowhereHackney, London. It was in the familyBut when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, tooeducational purpose, but I resigned myself to and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never seeing much that was spectacularknew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, and once you've seen including the one blackbird youAisha thinks she've s seen them all, was my thinkingon a bit of local footage. If I'd had this book as The crew of the boat, including a youngsterliving gargoyle, who knows are tasked with saving the rare critters – I may and the kids unknowingly have come out of it differentlythe magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, having been shown the diversity of the bird world woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in snippets of texta painting, and some quite unusual illustrations…become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1526360004</amazonuk>0241573483

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Danna Smith and Bagram IbatoullineB09XWSXSKY|title= The Hawk of Maestro Orpheus and the Castle: A Story of Medieval FalconryWorld Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating=54|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse Confident Readers|summary=I donFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't know why I was surprised by this book – I've read enough volumes for the young audiences to know that as far as subject matter is concerned, pretty much anything goessleep. But this is about falconryA tune, of all things – rather like the use ticking of a once-wild clock was playing over and still pretty much free-spirited bird of prey over in his mind. It happened every time he came to hunt down animals, either for the heck of it or for the potvisit his grandfather. An attractive girl and her father get their hawk readyHe hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and leave the castle with all the equipment in tow – bells those old clocks don't appeal to hear him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the landed bird and what ittime. And time isn's captured, the hood to act as blinkers t good for it on anything...'' And that was why he was looking at the way there, clock beside the lure if necessarybed. The story concerns just one trip out, girl, father, hound – and hawkIt was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. But while that may surprise you as a subject matter of choice, There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the whole artistic approach that won me over here…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406376698</amazonuk>clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon Mayle and Nikalas CatlowNigel Baines|title=How Harry Riddles Made a Mega Amount A Tricky Kind of Money (Shoutykid, Book 5)Magic|rating=34.5|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=There is a child who likes his school. It just takes him Cooper loves to be fictional for that comment to be trueperform magic tricks. YesHis father was a magician, while and named Cooper after the building is way above his older sister in Harrygreat Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's estimationfather died suddenly, and while school is way below his enjoyment of playing zombie gamesnow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, he likes itor how to be. He likes it enough to worry about it being forced to close And when therehis dad's a heinous sum of £7prop rabbit starts talking to him,000 to be made up – but does he like anything profitable enough to make sure he can get the place saved?''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008158924</amazonuk>1444960261