132,585
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanMax Boucherat|title=Archibald Lox and the Slides The Last Life of Bon Repell: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 2 of 3Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=INSERT FIRST PARAGRAPH OF YOUR REVIEWWe meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to turn?|isbn=B093J9TF730008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Maisie ChanKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=Danny Chung Does Not Do MathsDungeon Runners: Hero Trial|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Danny Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is eleven years an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and what he reallyrace to the exit, really loves to do is drawperhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. He creates fantastical comicsUnfortunately for Kit, whilst his best friend Ravi adds the words. Dannyonly thing he's dad, however, wants Danny to concentrate seen of the latest race on his maths, and forget about the drawinginn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, because he says nobody can make a living from drawing! At least Danny has his own roomeaten, where he can draw in secret and in peacea new trio of questors is needed. But then one day his parents tell him they have a surprise Possibly very unfortunately indeed for himKit, and this surprise turns out he has taken to be his grandmother who has come over the goading 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 token bully of his bunk bed! Danny is horrified! His Nai Nai (grandmother) speaks no English, world and Danny finds himself forced stumbled into being her babysitter, and showing her around the towndeclaring he'll enter as a team. Poor DannyWhat chance does this friendless, stuck on a maths project, frustrated with his bedroom situationmuscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and then how could he even has a falling out with Ravi...how on earth will things ever get betterpossibly hope to succeed?!|isbn=180078001X1839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanJames Sherwood Metts|title=Archibald Lox and the Forgotten Crypt: Archibald Lox series, Volume 2, book 1 of 3Planet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The second trilogy in Shan's ''Merge'' saga opens with our hero, Archie, back in London in Things have been a bit sticky for the world of the BornEarthlings. It's not AI and automation have been easyproceeding apace, explaining often replacing jobs they're paid to his foster parents where he's been, or slipping back into ordinary life do and forgetting about Inez other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and his starting to think of other friends in the Merge, but Archie has done his bestnew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic.... wellLife was pretty much shut down and, except for visiting veteran locksmith Winston in Big Ben's clock tower and except for fiddling along with that sneaky master lock in Seven Dials every time he can sneak awayit, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=B093H8DPQZ1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Gianna Pollero and Sarah HorneTom Percival|title=Monster DoughnutsThe Wrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=After their parents mysteriously disappearedWill's life is difficult, Grace and Danni have been left to run the family bakeryin a multitude of ways. But Grace needs He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the doughnuts wrong shoes because his dad can't work and sweet treats that Danni bakes doesn't have enough money for a rather unusual reason...even though shethe most basic of things like food, and his dad can's only ten years oldt work because he lost his job at the college, she is was working a monster hunter! Monsters have cash-in-hand job on a very sweet tooth, building site and Grace uses a number of methods to defeat them such as throwing baking powder on them, or tricking them had an accident. Throw into eating a sweet treat that willmix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, ultimatelyand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, be their demisehe still has a tiny amount of hope. One dayHe is good at art, thoughand clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, Grace finds herself facing that feel like a cyclops monster called Mr Harris, who has light at the end of a weakness for doughnuts but doesn't seem to explode as the other monsters dolong, and so things start to get very strange…dark tunnel.|isbn=18481294321398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=M G Leonard1805141872|title=TwitchThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Twitch is ''Seventeen banks and a boy who loves birdsjeweller’s have been raided. He keeps pigeons at homeThe police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and chickensher gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and even has swallows nesting in his bedroom! His time spent watching and helping birds is easy compared to that of his time in schoolBen go on the run. But things are about to change Al needs them for Twitch in all aspects of his life as there one last job...'' Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a dangerous bank robber terror! How on the runearth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, and it's possible that the missing bank haul pupil who discovers her terrible secret is hidden somewhere in Aves WoodBen, the place where Twitch son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his secret hide and that he knows like the back of his hand! Can Twitch solve the mysteryfather some day, and find the missing millions?|isbn=1406389374who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah PeckChristopher Edge|title=Kate on the CaseBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet KateLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, although I got the impression she'd rather be a Catherine – and one specific Catherine at place that. For Catherine Rodriguez is Kate's idol, and has the author nickname of our heroine's favourite possession, ''The Special Correspondent Manual'Black Hole'. Armed with a plucky fatherAll big movie fans, that bookthey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and her talking mouse called Rupertmany, she is all equipped to manage a train ride to the Arcticmany snacks! However, to see her scientist mother for as the first time in yonks. Howevermovie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is a train ride with a differencevery different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, for can they figure out what on board earth is a greedy-seeming harridan and her catgoing on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, 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...to their real lives?|isbn=184812970X1839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hayley WebsterAdam Stower|title=Luna Rae is Not AloneMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Luna Rae has just moved house. Moving house Murray is always trickysupposed to be a humble, but especially when you're ten years oldtidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and you miss your old home, eat and you sleep and your little sister have to start a new school but your mum seems to be out working all , well, whatever takes his fancy next of the timetwo. Then thereBut he's your dad, who doesn't seem like hea bad magician's coping so wellcat, and so there's no one to take care of things but you. Everything feels differenthis favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and strangethe catflap they both use can chuck them out, and mysteriousnot into the regular back garden, and so Luna finds but into a way world of coping is by watchingfrightening adventure and whiffs. She turns detectiveThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, and starts keeping an eye on her new neighbourhoodwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but it turns out shehe's not the only one keeping watch!turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=17880060460008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Francesca Simon Alex Bell and Steve MayTim McDonagh|title=Two Terrible VikingsThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=In Eli is a small Viking village there live two twinsbusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, Hack and Whack, who are eager to be in the evening a helper at the very worst Vikings ever! dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Nothing can stop their mad maraudingEli lives with his lovely gran, as they cause havoc at too – for there is a birthday partygeneration missing in the family. A few short years ago, chaos whilst tracking a trollEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, and undertake a grand journey globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to raid Bad Island with their friends! navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. They get up This has made the race anathema to all kinds of mischief and naughty behaviourthe pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, along with their wolf-cub Bitey-Bitey, and their crazy cast the sole aim the prize of friendsmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=05713494980571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Danny Wallace and Gemma CorrellHelen Cooper|title=The Day Taming of the Screens Went BlankCat|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Stella and her familyOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. TheyIn this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're just innocently trying to have seeing a Sunday evening connection, they live in together, watching a film – using three different screens cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to watch three different things, mind – when ''poof'' everything goes blankbe the names of cheeses. And it's not just their homeAnyway, but the entire south-western village of MouseholeBrie is shunned, scorned and not just that, eitherif you must, mous-tracised, but for the whole country, if not worldway his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. Suddenly people are constantly on their phones They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – hoping they're first to get a screen back, he displays it as art and not what they were constantly doing makes stories based on them before. Toasters can toast, but TVs cannot do the V part of their job, and no computer can show its computationsvisuals on it. You might think this is going to be a social comedy about people stuck And that story-telling will come in such a Luddite experience against their willhandy one night, but nowhen he feels all alone and cast out. For the family finally remember StellaIt's grandma, and see almost as if they can get across country there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to herkeep themselves alive. Hence this has This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to go down as a roadhalf-trip bookinch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But not just that, a slapstick road-trip comedy. And more than that, too – for will the story have the successful sequel it's a slapstick, high-drama, high-octane road-trip comedy with oodles of cuddly heart needs when that kids of all ages will love.cheese runs out?|isbn=14711968870571376010
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Hannah GoldLauren St John|title=The Last BearFinding Wonder|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=AprilRoo's father, a scientist, life has been given a job on a remote island called Bear Island, and he accepts the job deciding to take his daughter April with himbecome almost impossibly difficult. They live alone anyway, since April's mother Her mum died some time beforewhen she was young, and he feels it will be educational for now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to experience the island and all its natural beautycorner shop to buy a lottery ticket. April already When asked what other family she has an affinity with nature, and she's excited to travel with can only name her fatheraunt, thinking of all the fun things they will be able to experience together on the island. But when they get thereJoni, who she knows her father finds that his work monitoring and recording the temperatures just takes up too much dad didn't think very highly of his time, and so April is left to explore by herself. Her father had reassured her that there were But she has no longer any bears living on Bear Island, but one day April thinks she catches a glimpse of oneelse, and so off she sets out goes to find the Bearlive with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, and then as when she sees he is injuredand Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, to befriend it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and help him.then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=000841128X0571376169
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Emma Carroll Adam Baron and Kaja KajfezBenji Davies|title=The Ghost GardenOscar's Lion|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=FranWe start incredibly bluntly, the gardener's daughter at a posh country housewith Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is worriedmore likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. SheBut when he enters his parents's just cracked her garden fork through quite bedroom, all he sees is a grim discovery - a large bonemahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, buried under the potatoesand admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But she's even more worried when she learns there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that that event coincided with Leo, ruined a birthday party for Oscar the older child of the house, breaking his leg while playing cricket on the lawnother month. She is due And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get even more worried when she finds something else that also seems to foretell him out of a surpriseproblem. Tasked with shoving Leo And it's wonderful to have around the grounds in house – not limiting his bathchairbiscuit intake, she might have reason to be out of her mind with fearbeing much more lax about the rules, when she learns what he is seeking - a long-forgotten burial chamberand so on. But surely that wonOK, it can't act as work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a premonition to anything - not here in the sultry, summery days of 1914?wonderful time.|isbn=17811290020008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob WintersJudith Eagle|title=His Name Was WrenThe Stolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In September 1944 something came down in Oban WoodsCaro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, near the village is having to go up North to take care of Hurstwickher sister who is unwell. It came down hardSo who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, taking the spire she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of the village church building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with itan orphan boy, destroying a stone shackAlbie, who is living there too. and leaving But she soon finds herself caught up in a wide trail through the woodmystery, but no trace as she discovers a painting of what it actually was. German secret weapon was the local gossipa bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, but there should have been an explosion and all across London a crater, fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and there were neither of those thingsterrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=B08KGVNVNB0571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex WheatleTania Unsworth|title=The Humiliations of Welton BlakeNowhere Island|rating=24.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We meet Welton Blake at Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the worst of times care system – only they should be the best of timessystem that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a home for himself. He should be getting a text from the most bae-worthy girl in school in regards is en route to a cinema dateyet another fosterer, but his phone has packed upwhen he jumps into an anonymous car, he's chundered last night's meal and lets it ride him to his breakfast over another girl in class, who's duffed him up in response, and the wanna-bae future. That future seems to actually be with in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone else anyway. On a bigger scale he's living lives with his mother and not much income now that brother in a camp on an island between the dad has left the picture – yestwo directions of a motorway, things are so bad they're resorting a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to having cabbage provide for dinnertheir safety and seclusion. I knowThem, right? But surely this is just and a blip, mute girl also finding a day at school to forgethome there, and everything (like his vomit) will all come out in the wash? albeit so much more successfully. This Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can't be the start of a most nightmarish time for young Welton?combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=17811294951804540080
}}
{{Frontpage
|author= Katharine OrtonHelen Peters|title= GlassheartFriends and Traitors|rating= 43|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Nona and her Uncle Antoni have lived together ever since England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the Blitz claimed the lives of her familycountry pile called Stanbrook. Now One is Nancy, destined to be in the aftermath of the warservice all her life it seems, they travel all over like the countryfemale generations before her. The other is Sidney, replacing staineda girl from a hoity-glass windows in buildings destroyed by bombstoity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. Their latest job takes them out to the wilds of Dartmoor The girls are chalk and cheese, where Nona discovers and if we hadn't guessed that her world then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is full of ancient amiss, and first separately and powerful magicthen in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. She also discovers that a mysterious entity, known only as The Soldier Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is hell-bent on using Nona's innate magic for his own endsmade of meetings with Germans, and will not stop until he only that, a local Spitfire factory has her…been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=14063852391788004647
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Rob KeeleyJamie Littler|title=The Treasure in the TowerArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Rob Keeley is back! Hooray! We here at Bookbag Towers Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are always happy growing to read a new adventure be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from Rob - his stories combine fast pace and lots prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of actionArkspire, an easy perhaps even to become the child in line to read styleinherit the power of the Watcher, an unerring eye for children's friendships and rivalriesthe closest to a ruler the district has, and always a good dollop one of naughty humourthe five major victors in said earlier war. They're all present here, in ''The Treasure Being trained in the Tower''. The chance purchase magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of a book during a school trip sparks the whole adventurefamily. Who can follow the clues best and find the treasure? Jess But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her brother Mason and their friend Kessie through sheer persistence? Or spoiled brat Perdita with her money and tech gadgets and willingness to cheat?own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=18004613210241586143}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1849767009024162343X|title=It Isn't Rude to be NudeStolen History|author=Rosie HaineSathnam Sanghera
|rating=5
|genre=For SharingChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=This could have been one I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of those books which a 'preaches to the choirgod': . Where was the only people who'll buy proof? In history lessons, it are was probably worse still. Not too long after the people who know that nudity is OK and end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the ones who British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn'knowt dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' that it's shameful will avoid it like they avoid as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the hotfirst place. Looking back, I still believe I was right -and-bothered person in but I regret that I lacked the supermarket who is coughing fit maturity to bustapproach 'the problem' politely. ButI wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Thiago de Moraes|title=Old Gods New Tricks|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Trixie. Rosie Haines makes it Forever getting into something so much more than scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a book about not wearing clothesyoung goddess of nuisance. ItBut just when she's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a celebration power-out, even of bodies: bodies large electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and small and of every possible hueall that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Bodies with disabilities and markingsTrixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. They're fine. In factAnd so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, they're wonderfulhalf-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|isbn=178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Onjali Q RaufHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=The Night Bus HeroFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Hector is a bully. Egged on [[The Last Bear by his two 'friends'Hannah Gold|Last time]], he takes other children's sweetsApril had been on Bear Island, harasses and threatens, plays pranks at schoola lot further north than many people would venture, and gets into trouble at every turn. Yet he finds himself frustrated when something actually isn't his fault, finding a ridiculously unexpected but then he isn't believed as everyone expects him to be telling lies. Nothing seems fairdelightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. His parents are barely Back home, things on the domestic and seem to only care about his family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect sister for her, and his annoying little brother so can easily be ignored when they are, word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and his teachers have abandoned him as a lost causewounded. So what happens whenDesperate to make sure he's OK, in trying she and her father return to tell the truth & fight to be believedArctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, Hector finds himself embroiled with she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the police; first trying to accuse, and then trying to save a homeless man from his local park?friendship can continue.|isbn=15101067740008582017
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Carlie SorosiakSimon Fox|title=My Life as a CatDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This Late one night Graham Blake is the story of an alien who has come down to spend some time late back from his shift on earth living as a human. It's something that each member in the alien collective is allowed to doforce, for 1 monthand then suddenly rings Archie, once they reach demanding he fetch something from a certain agesecret place, and join him on the run. Leonard comes to earth They get together, but gets distracted en route, and so something goes wrong with his arrival and he finds that instead of landing in Yellowstone Park, ready barely begin to work as a park ranger, he is instead in the body of a cat on smell the other side whiff of Southern trains when the country! This is not what he had planned! Not only father is he in the wrong place and the wrong bodyarrested, he is also in leaving Archie on the middle of a stormlate express to Brighton, stuck in toting a tree! And so he meets Olivetin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the little girl who rows out in bearer of a boat to rescue him, and who names him Leonardwhole heap of questions.|isbn=17880060891839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Yara Evans Cath Howe|title=My Life on Fire|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Ren's family home is destroyed in a fire. She, her parents, and Luciana Bettiher little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=1839942835}}{{Frontpage|author= Rob Keeley|title=The Adventures of an Urban Fox: Maggie ArrivesBoy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Black Cat and Tabby Cat are minding their own business in their own house when Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a very alarming thing happens. A creature - a large, dog-like creature - appears in their house. Black Cat, always one return to take charge, challenges this fearsome creature with all the courage he can muster. Tabby Cat backs him.... from a rather safe distance. short story format! The creature is indignant - ''I'm not a dogBoy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings. I'm a fox!''|isbn=1511658649 B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanLaura Noakes|title=Archibald Lox and the Vote of Alignment Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This third Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and final book in they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first volume of Darren Shan's new ''Archibald Lox'' series sees Archie ever inmate, and Inez make it almost all unique in having no known family in the way outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the Cuckoo's Nestkitchen one afternoon, where she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the Vote of Alignment will be heldgirls for his Institute. But how will they get inwhy, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?|isbn=B086LLWP4V0008579059
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B086LLRZFHAlice M Ross|title=Archibald Lox and the Empress of SuanpanThe Nowhere Thief|author=Darren Shan|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Archie's second foray into 'At last there is new stock in the Merge' opens with impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a fantastic vistaseaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. All of She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the Born's most famous buildings ability to leave this world, and monuments - Big Benuse an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the Taj Mahal, sea levels are rising dramatically and the Eiffel Tower - buildings are collected together, joined by those clever Merge vines. But there's no time to waste in admiration: Archie is carrying an urgent cry generally empty of humans and ripe for help from Inez to a venerable locksmith called Winstonplunder.Winston is a darling but is afraid With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to help - what actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is to be done? Despite yearning to go home and worry for his foster parentsthe answer, Archie feels an obligation to take Winston's place. And so Archie embarks on but the fact a new, and even mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more dangerous, adventure....questions…|isbn=1839943769
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1776572858Natasha Farrant|title=How Do You Make a Baby?|author=Anna Fiske and Don Bartlett (translator)The Rescue of Ravenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Home and FamilyConfident Readers|summary=ItThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''s more than sixty years since I asked how babies were made. My mother was deeply embarrassed Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and told me that she'd get me a book about itRaffy have been living for most of their lives. A couple They are part of days later I was handed a pamphlet (which delivered nothing more than complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the basicstrees, in clinical language which had never been used in our completely at one with all of the nature around the house before) and loving every inch of the place. and I was told that it wouldn't be discussed any further But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it ''wasn't something which nice people talked about''s becoming more and more expensive to maintain. I The children find themselves worrying not only about where they''knew'' morere going to live, but was little if they''wiser''. Thankfullyll even be together, times have changedand if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=0571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Archibald Lox and the Bridge Between WorldsSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Time to catch you all up with some of my lockdown reading - IJayden've been doing so much s nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of it that I'm a bit late to the party with actual reviewingworld, for example. Oops! And where better Aisha is addicted to start than with the her new series from Bookbag favouritetablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, Darren Shan? Archie is very downthat they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. He But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's lost a dear friend recentlycousin, in they find a tragic accidentmagical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, and Archie blames himself. He canincluding the one Aisha thinks she't face school so he takes himself for s seen on a truanting wander around Londonbit of local footage. As he strolls across The crew of the boat, including a footbridgeliving gargoyle, he sees a girl who is being pursued by some murderous-looking men are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in white suits. He watches Dare they side with Leila, aghast. What is going the woman onboard, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|isbn=B086LKBHD60241573483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Antony WoottenB09XWSXSKY|title=Season of Maestro Orpheus and the Mammoth (BigShorts)World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Tannash Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and her brother Geb are waiting over in great excitement for his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the hunting party led by their uncle to returntime. They And time isn're hoping t good for a feast of mammoth meatanything... Geb longs for '' And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the day he can join his uncle Gagba and bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the other warriors on a hunting party clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and take part in their deeds of derringfind grandad -do. But their father, but where was he? And why had all the leader of the village, thinks that they also need an education; that knowledge is power.|isbn=1939269679clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthNigel Baines|title=The Time Traveller and the TigerA Tricky Kind of Magic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Emerging 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 Cooper loves to herperform magic tricks. 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 His father was 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 boymagician, and he has an enormous tiger rug on named Cooper after the floor of one of the roomsgreat Tommy Cooper. 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 But sadly Cooper's father died 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.|isbn=1788541707}}{{Frontpage|author=Natasha Farrant|title=Voyage of the Sparrowhawk|rating=5|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 donnow Cooper doesn't want quite know who to let go of their lastbe, tiny glimpses of hopeor how to be. Ben is living on a narrowboat on the canal, lying to the police about And when his brotherdad's imminent return from the battlefields prop rabbit starts talking to take care of him. Lotti, meanwhile, has been expelled from school and is back at home; ithe ''really'' doesn't know what'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 doggoing on anymore!) 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.|isbn=05713487691444960261
}}
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]