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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author=Holly WebbMax Boucherat|title=The Story Last Life of GreenriverLori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Silken and SedgeWe meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, for all their differencesjust an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, have a lot in commonon her lonesome. Silken is What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a girl whose father is the Master Builder of what might be the finest beaver lodge on the Greenriver. Unfortunately blanket fort, she is also a kind of runt figurehas one main intention, and as a result that is patronised, and given the most tokenistic tasks when it comes to fetching wood and shoring the dam up. She also stands out for the unique artistic ability log on to sing. Otters like Sedge sing, but he tooVoxminer, as the son of the lady of the holtworld-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. But first Lori has pressure a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on him to be a bit less feckless her own, and then she finds something even more attentive spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to classenter shows signs of tampering. HeWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, after all, will eventually inherit the job of keeping the otters and her safe from place in the wolf that both animal species fear the mostgame has been doctored – well, and from dreaded events like where is a Dark Spring.girl to turn?|isbn=15101096250008666482
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{{Frontpage
|author=Anna Kemp Kieran Larwood and David WyattJoe Todd-Stanton|title=Into Goblyn WoodDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet HazelKit. For Like most of the last nine of her eleven years she has been stuck as a foundling people in a horridhis world, Victorian institutionit seems, generally peeling vegetables or acting as he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a servant. She'd arrived at the place at the same time as Peteteam of warrior, mage and they're inseparably good friends nowhealer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, until a chance for them both and race to escapethe exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and enter the outside worldpoints they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, does not go to plan. There had always been the idea only thing he's seen of a life idyllic in the nearby forestslatest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, Goblyn Woodeaten, and a tribe new trio of Wild Childrenquestors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, but none of that comes he has taken to pass, as Hazel finds herself in the care goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a professor at the Natural History Museumteam. But life with him is not anything like what she might What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have expected it to be – and Hazel is determined to return to the Woodsin actually managing that, restore her friendship with Pete – and how could he possibly hope to work out just what is going on in the forest, both the light and the shade, and the deathly dark...succeed?|isbn=13985038351839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Accidental StowawayPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Patch is Things have been a little girl who has bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been passed from one relation proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to another, until it seems do and other tasks that there is nobody left for her took time to go accomplish. Just as they were beginning to. Her father died when she was very young, get used to all this technological change and her mother ran away. The family lawyerstarting to think of other, after consultation with ‘someone’, arranges for her new ways to go to a school in Liverpoolspend time, but on her arrival there, she gets caught up in along came an adventure with a little boy called Turo who works on a steamshipawful pandemic. During a chase with him (when she is both trying to get her rollerskate back Life was pretty much shut down and running away from the police!) she winds up on the steamship hiding in a lifeboat, and before she knows along with it, all the ship has left the docks and she is an accidental stowaway!many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=05713631211736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorTom Percival|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for TroubleThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Alice EclairWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. A perfect eye He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and very careful hands doesn't have made her one enough money for even the most basic of Paristhings like food, and his dad can's best young cake makers t work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and decoratorsdad are separated, making sure her motherand Will's establishment is a classy affairlife seems bleak in every direction. Not bad for And yet, he still has a thirteen year oldtiny amount of hope. OhHe is good at art, and a perfect eye and a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she is a very competent young spy. Her first real mission will be clings to chase a traitor across the country – working behind the scenes on a posh sleeper train to the south moments of Francejoy when he is drawing, and hoping against hope that she can prevent documents allowing foreign agents to creep into feel like a light at the country from getting into nefarious hands. But while nobody would have her down as end of a spylong, can she possibly leave behind her rookie status and find the baddy?dark tunnel.|isbn=18399409561398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David Solomons1805141872|title=A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gavin is being followed''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, seemingly constantly, by but only Ben knows the new (very annoying) girl at school. Only this is not your typical boy meets girl story. Because in this instancetruth – his Maths teacher, the girl in question is NikiMiss Judson, and she is really a galactic princess (nosafecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, reallyMiss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...'' Goodness me, she that Miss Judson isa terror!) So what will Gavin do when he becomes embroiled in How on earth did a situation wherenice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, potentiallythe pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, Earth and everyone on it will the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be blown to smithereensas good as his father some day, all because of Niki?|isbn=0857639935and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex CotterChristopher Edge|title=The Mermaid CallBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Vivien knows Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that mermaids donhas the nickname of 'The Black Hole't exist. But she also knows All big movie fans, they have 're looking forward to exist – at least in the public eye. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without them. A hundred years lots of exciting films, and change agomany, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaidsmany snacks! However, but were forced to return to help out with as the Great War effort. They also showed female emancipationmovie starts, which helped create the town's tourism industrythey very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success storythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Alice, a girl who stumbles into Vivien's gran's tourist shop But as they lurch from one day, knows she certainly wants mermaids film genre to exist – she thinks her family's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful in her hunt. When the shy, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with the exuberant, gung-ho Alicenext, can they figure out what on earth – or perhaps in water – will is going on? Will they findever get back to the cinema, and to their real lives?|isbn=18399419011839942738
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alison HughesAdam Stower|title=FlyMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=This Murray is supposed to be a very impressive readhumble, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen tidy and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus friendly cat, one who is courtesy the first person narration from Flyable to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, a secondary school lad with cerebral palsywell, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a down-on-her-luck single mom nearing retirement from being a cleanerbad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a carer while at schoolhyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a bundle world of assumptions people lay on himfrightening adventure and whiffs. First they assume that with This time round it drops them into a broken body comes Viking land, where a broken mindtroll hunter is expected – well, then they decide one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's a maths savant – they even believe they can get away with calling him Fly, which isnturned up and he't his real name, but everybody just uses it.ll have to do…|isbn=15253058320008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= So. We're back to Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the Merge wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the first chapter evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the third volume of Darren Shanfamily. A few short years ago, Eli's saga of Archibald Loxparents were both lost to the titular race, a young man who can pick globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the locks of portals from our world to another, called in the ''Merge''company of a magical beast. Since his last adventure, Archie This has persuaded his foster parents into made the race anathema to the pair – but when a slightly uneasy truce on bad incident at the topic of his regular disappearances. They don't ask too many questions and Archie has settled into eatery leads to a fairly peaceful routine of visiting Winstonconfession from gran, Eli knows his lock-picking mentor in only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the ''Merge'' and showing Kojo, sole aim the young guardian, around our world prize of magic at the end – the Bornonly thing to possibly save his gran. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD0571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Helen Cooper|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildThe Taming of the Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was a hot summer day right at Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the beginning of mouse, up against Gorgonzola the summer holidays cat – and Clarice Bean was bored: in case you''Nothing ever happens except for sometimesre seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses... And only on rare Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-sh occasionstracised, which is hardly ever.for the way his habits don'' There are seven members of t match the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who other mice he lives on with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the ground floor because cheese for bedding – he's wobbly), Mum displays it as art and Dadmakes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, Clarice's older brother, Kurt when he feels all alone and younger brother, Minal Cricketcast out. ThereIt's also Marcie, almost as if there were another character from fable who's main claim had had to fame seems tell stories to be that she steals keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the batteries from Clarice's torchmouse community, though, which means that she can't read in as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the airing cupboardcat was distracted. Clarice would love to But will the story have someone who listened to her, rather than wanting to talk, but the only one who does successful sequel it needs when that is Granny and she lives in New York. The Bean family is ''different''.cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010
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{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona LongmuirLauren St John|title=Looking for EmilyFinding Wonder|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet LilyRoo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. She and her mother have just moved from a city to a tiny seaside town called Edge Her mum died when she was young, and everyone from said mother to her teacher are making demands of Lily that now she make new friends. It turns out that she doesn't have any say finds herself awoken in the matter, for while pretending when phoning home middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that she was with someone called Emily, she is unaware her neighbour, Sam, is just about dad has dropped dead on his way to the corner shop to make herself known, and in buy a big waylottery ticket. But where does Emily come from? Well When asked what other family she has, Lily used that she can only name because of what she'd just stumbled into – a mysterious collection of the most mundane objectsher aunt, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming doorJoni, in a place calling itself who she knows her dad didn'The Museum t think very highly of Emily'. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum' But she has no one else, tooand so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, leaving the two girls to make sure they as when she and Joni leave no stone unturned London in finding whatJoni's behind old campervan, it breaks down in the intrigue...middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=18399427540571376169
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800901232Adam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve ColeOscar's Lion|rating=53|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to be a fashion designerready for school. Life in the rural village where she lived with her family was happyBut when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, if not prosperouslooking sheepish, so when the smartly-dressed man and woman came admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to the village to offer Hahn having a job in Hanoi lion around – it was can be shown as an opportunity not unspoken threat to be missed. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on the mini-bus to Hanoibully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. OnlyAnd it can shapeshift, Hanh so he can take it to school and the other girls were not going to work in it can get him out of a shop, they were to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factoryproblem. You know those jeans you really wanted: And it's wonderful to have around the ones with intricate embroidery and beading on house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the legs? The ones with the artfully-placed rips rules, and distressed seams that felt so soft when you touched them? on. ItOK, it can's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made themt work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|isbn=0008596751
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{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0711266204Judith Eagle|title=The Secret Life of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=I have recently discovered a great pleasure: I sit and watch the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on a daily basis. An hour can pass without my noticing. I've established which species feed from the ground, which pop to the feeders for a quick snatch of some food and who settles in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeable. It would have been wonderful if, as a child, I'd had access to a book such as ''The Secret Life of Birds''. So – what is it?}}{{Frontpage|author=Jason Rohan|title=S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access DeniedStolen Songbird|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Arun Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and Sam have had little is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to do go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with DonnaGam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, a girl at their schoolshe feels frustrated and confused and worried. But things immediately change at the start of this extended sprint All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a novel, when halt whilst she insists Arunis stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house has become the attention of plain-clothes coppers and that they should bunk off school to find out why, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. And thus an unlikely trio But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of misfit young heroes is formed – Sam is really not Donnaa bird hidden away inside her mum's idea of companyold suitcase, but he is and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the computer buff, Donna seems painting somehow linked to know all the criminal ins and outs and survival skills, and Arungang? Well, it And what has happened to Caro's his lot to find out that all he based his family life on isn't true, and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is mother? Is she somehow involved in something quite unexpected. But how can this disparate trio hope to best MI6, kidnappers, people able to keep the truth about themselves secret for decades, and so much moremystery too?|isbn=18399433860571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lissa EvansTania Unsworth|title=WishedNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When things contrive to force Ed and his sister Roo (aka Lucy) to stay with the neighbourhood spinsterish old woman, Miss Filey, for a week of half-term, they're not looking forward to itMeet Gil. For one thingJust twelve, she thinks Wi-Fi he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a special brand of biscuithome for himself. They don't particularly take He is en route to Willard eitheryet another fosterer, the new kid next doorwhen he jumps into an anonymous car, who seems and lets it ride him to ebulliently take over everything and everywherehis future. But things soon change That future seems to be in jeopardy when they find some tiny old birthday candlessomeone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and manage definitely ignored enough to work out that these candles, provide for as long as their flames lastsafety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, make birthday wishes come truealbeit so much more successfully. How will things change for Over a second time when they realise thatfew weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, having used up three of them, these should really be used for the wishes of someone two generations older than them?or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=178845202X1804540080
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Richard SmithHelen Peters|title=Time Trap TwoFriends and Traitors|rating=43
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= ''Jamie and Todd England, WW2. Two young girls are horrified to learn that new at the Grand Plancountry pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, which they thought had been defeated, is about destined to be implemented in 1775service all her life it seems, Americalike the female generations before her. Hector and Catherine have to thwart Travis - an agent of the Grand Plan - who The other is hell bent on world domination. Jamie and Todd go with Hector and Catherine on a mission to 1775Sidney, to prevent a super gun girl from being used in the Battle of Bunker Hill, during the American War of Independence, but only have days to stop history a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from being alteredbomber flight-paths.'' The second book in the girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn''Time Trap'' seriest guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, as you can see, has an urgent a mission for our young heroes as the and first, which took place separately and then in combination they realise the smog of Victorian LondonLord Evesham must be a rum 'un. This time, Jamie and Todd Midnight deliveries are off to the grand landscapes received under cover of North America. Travissecrecy, an agent talk is made of the Grand Planmeetings with Germans, is attempting to take the Gatling gun back in time and change not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the outcome of the Battle of Bunker Hillgirls are wrong, a pivotal episode in and the American War of Independence.upper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=B094ZFF85P1788004647
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{{Frontpage
|author=Justyn EdwardsJamie Littler|title=The Great Fox IllusionArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The latest incoming reality TV show is a contest with a difference. No singingTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, no dancingborn fifteen minutes apart, this show are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is looking for magical children! Children who can understand how an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic tricks work, and who can attempt 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 win The Great Fox's magical legacy - become the secrets child in line to all inherit the power of his tricks! Flick is determined the Watcher, the closest to wina ruler the district has, but not because she wants to own and one of the tricksfive major victors in said earlier war. She is interested Being trained in just ''one'' trick, the trick magic that The Great Fox stole from her fatheronly five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. And she's hoping if she can find that trick then she will But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to bring gain some power of her missing father home.own – for good, or for very, very bad…|isbn=15295019460241586143
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Sarah Ann Juckes024162343X|title=The Hunt for the NightingaleStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=4.5|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Jasper is I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a little boy who has some struggles, and whilst we're never told why exactly, we can see that he has anxiety and panic attacks, and has difficulty dealing with change and big emotionsgod'. His big sister, Rosie, has been a huge support to him, talking him down when things were difficult, encouraging him, and writing a book with him, all about birds, that he can read when he gets scared to help him calm down. His parents seem completely caught up in their business Where was the proof? In history lessons, and so it is Rosie he always turns towas probably worse still. Even though she has gone away to University now Not too long after the end of WWII, she has promised him that she will still be there when he needs her. But now he canI didn't find Rosie. She hasnso much want to learn about the British army't come home when she said she would, s successes (and she isn't answering her phone. His parents won't speak to him or when they dooccasional failures, he doesnbut we didn't understand or take dwell on those) in what they're saying. Nothing seems came to be right, and called 'the only way he feels he can find any peace is if he can find Rosie, and if they can find the nightingale and listen to its song, colonies' as they do together every Spring.|isbn=1398510890}}{{Frontpage|author=Alastair Chisholm and Eric Deschamps|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas and Ironskin|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Tomas. Happy want to work with his father in the blacksmith's forge, he's almost of dispute what right the age army had to become a full apprentice, and help with be there in the new batch of dragonswords is certainly needed. Not that there are any dragons, of course – they vanished centuries ago. Except..first place. Strange signals from within the forge furnace, and a peculiar invite to become an apprentice clerk insteadLooking back, are things for Tom to puzzle over – until it all comes out in the wash, that yes dragons do I still exist in this world, and believe I was right - but I regret that Tom is rare in I lacked the ability maturity to summon them, share magical attributes, and ride with themapproach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''..|isbn=1839940026
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Louie StowellThiago de Moraes|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet LokiTrixie. The trickster god has got Forever getting into trouble againscrapes, so larks and adventures involving flooding the other gods have decided thereschool aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's only being told that by her one thing for it – he must be banished-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. And transformed Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – for Loki is spending a month both in exile and in power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the physical form of a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by a giant and a god in disguise as his parentsbut the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and Thor has come along as well, to be all that powers the more suaveInternet, more popular and more successful brother of the twojust for our convenience's sake). Loki Trixie, luckily, realises what has a month to redeem his reputation, and get his moral compass pointing happened – the ancient Gods have taken the right way again, or elsepower of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, and to prove gather all the people that can steal it he has to write back – namely the text we read characters from myth that have past form in a sentient notebookstealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, that is able to cry foul of his liesgiants, half-gods 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 on known as the park..tricksters.right?|isbn=1406399752178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Strange Hannah Gold and Pam SmyLevi Pinfold|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There is no mermaid in the millpond. That at least is what Bess is telling herself. Neither will there be [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a friend for her in amongst all the other kidslot further north than many people would venture, 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 and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship in with a hand-to-mouthpolar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, every man for himself kind of existence. But despite herself Bess does find things on the domestic and family front are a bit of a kindred spirit in the slight little Dotadvanced, and despite everything that life has taught but not perfect for her about betrayal , and how befriending people only leads to harm, there might so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a glimmer of companionship in the tiredbear doing very Bear-out mill workersy things has been shot and wounded. But surely that doesn Desperate to make sure he't mean there is any truth in the existence of the mermaid?|isbn=180090049X}}{{Frontpage|author=Christopher Edge|title=Escape Room|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|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 locations OK, she and have her father return to solve problems the Arctic and hope that 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 world of very white and four other tweenagersvery dangerous things, all new to each other she can find one specific white and booked into the game without any of their friends, are a team dangerous thing – starting out at and that the game's main offices, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changerfriendship can continue. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?|isbn=17880079640008582017
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeSimon Fox|title=FledglingDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=BavariaLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, 1900. Our scene is demanding he fetch something from a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit by bit over the decadessecret place, and now looking imperiously down join him on the village and woods belowrun. It's an eccentric house They get together, but barely begin to host eccentrics, so smell the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, whiff of Southern trains when the roof father is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through itarrested, and so leaving Archie on. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and a passion for the long-standing family hobby of taxidermylate express to Brighton, toting a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudlytin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the dying grandma to our heroine, Cassie, bearer of a young lass who has to do all the maintenance whole heap 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..questions.|isbn=183994188X1839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie BlackallCath Howe|title=The Beatryce ProphecyMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ren''Stories have joy and surprises s family home is destroyed in them''a fire. She, we are told here. And none more so than in this wondrous storyher parents, which feels an instant classic with the freshness and the agelessness it has in equal proportionher little brother lose everything. We start with a group She doesn't have any of monksher clothes, the Order or any of the Chronicles of Sorrowingher special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upendingnow she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, trampling on and biting or even eat the poor Brothersfoods they normally eat. Things change drastically when When she goes back to school she discovers that the beast takes class are doing a totally maternal approach special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a homeless girl, one who person. But Ren has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits nothing to put in a King in his castlebox, desperate and so she finds herself starting to find the girlsteal things. Small things, for it is prophesied things that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great changepeople might not really miss, not when they have so much already. Who foretold that revolution but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat what will happen to anyoneher if someone finds out what she is doing?|isbn=15295008931839942835
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithRob Keeley|title=The Great Dream RobberyBoy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Maya's father Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with 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 return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new friendtales, and discovers that the only way each as fun to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue one madcap action adventure story where dreams and reality collideread as his previous offerings...really...and there's everything from llamas and bananas, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offs, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!|isbn=024147051XB0BVW69N1G
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Keith GrayLaura Noakes|title=The ClimbersCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sully is Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the best tree climber home she lives in is for the village. He has what's known amongst girls to just be named by the kids as 'reach'. But what happens when a new kid shows up number they correspond to 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 threatenedledger, and not only thatthey're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that his chance Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to name be known about where she came from, as the finalfirst ever inmate, unnamed big tree and unique in having no known family in the park by being outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the first kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to conquer it, might be snatched from adopt all the girls for his handsInstitute. How can Sully stop Nottingham But why, and what does that body entail? And will could it cost him his best friend, or maybe even all of his friends, possibly bring Cos closer to do the past she has solittle link with?|isbn=17811299910008579059
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Nick Lake and Emily GravettAlice M Ross|title=Locked Out LilyThe Nowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lily At last there is, or was, or has been, very ill, new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and to give her parents relief mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she's been told to stay with her grandma for a few dayshas stolen it. The parents need the relief as Lily's baby sibling is just She also knows she should be free from worries about to be born – a child Lily swears being found out, because she hates already and wants nothing has the ability to do with. But on tracking back home for word of her parents (leave this world, and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra use an unworldly portal of her parentskaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the babe-in-armsbuildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, already installed. These devilish interlopers need can Elsbeth nab anything to be ousted to get actually generate custom at the family back intactshop? Well yes, even if it's not is the family Lily wants – and all she has to help her in answer, but the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake.fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=14711948331839943769
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Philip ReeveNatasha Farrant|title=Utterly Dark and the Face The Rescue of the DeepRavenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In a word, richThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. There Ravenwood is certainly an abundance old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of riches in this story set on a peculiar island called Wildseacomplex, British but way westextended family arrangement, beyond the Scillies. There are troll people on itas Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and sea-witchesRaffy is there with his mum, and legends of the Dark they are living together as a 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 They have grown up swimming in the Watchercove, Andreweroaming through the trees, who has to keep notes completely at one with all 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, nature around the house and Andrewe's foundling daughter, who washed up out loving every inch of the sea one day eleven years agoplace. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himselfnow the house is under threat, both as Leo is under pressure from his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into other two brothers to sell the world of protecting their island, like property to a developer as it or 's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying notonly about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=17884523720571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex FoulkesRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Rules for VampiresSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Eleonore Von Motteberg (or Jayden'Leo' for short) s nose is forever in a Vampire. She drinks bloodbook, she sleeps during which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the day, phoenixes and she can Grimwalk (turning into a flock unicorns of bats the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to travel aroundher new tablet, although not all where she can see videos of them remember to come back)anything that might be out there. Pretty cool stuff. Now The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, on exploring the night outside world of her hundredth birthnightHackney, she has to go out and hunt her first humanLondon. However But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, instead she ends up killing two humans by accident and burning down an orphanagewith a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. Oops! And to make things worse For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the ghosts of one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of the orphans and the evil master local footage. The crew of the orphanage come back to haunt her. Soboat, including a living gargoyle, not only does Leo have to team up are tasked with saving the friendly ghost Minna to stop rare critters – and the ghost of kids unknowingly have the Orphanmaster before he becomes unstoppably powerful, she has magical sight needed to do it all while hiding it from her familyjoin in. Did I mention vampires and ghosts hate each other? Yeah, there's a reason why there are rules for vampires…|isbn=147119955X}}{{Frontpage|author= Angharad Walker|title= The Ash House|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= A new boy arrives at The Ash House. He doesn't know his name Dare they side with Leila, or why he is there but he is used to the systemwoman on board, used to different places and different faces. He meets Dom her relative 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 lives as a hive figure 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 storya painting, lives will be changed forever and The Ash House will never be become saviours of the same again.unseen?|isbn=19126269770241573483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Emma CarrollB09XWSXSKY|title=The Week at Maestro Orpheus and the World's EndClock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=FirstFrederick (or Fred, the title. We're in World's End Closebut never Freddy, a mediocre set of houses, where Stevie (Vie to her friendsplease) finds fun only with the family dog and with the boy over the road. But we could also be at Worldcouldn's End, because something taking a great chunk of the fun away is the fact that the Cuban Missile Crisis is kicking offt sleep. The Soviet boats are getting blockaded as America tries to reduce the risk of nuclear missiles offshore A tune, and not much else is able to make rather like the news. That said, Vie has news ticking of her own – Anna, a secretive young woman hiding clock was playing over and over in their coal shedhis mind. Anna has, in no short It happened every time, taken a strong interest in the American airforce base behind the Close, said shehe came to visit his grandfather. He hadn'd locate something she t really wanted and leave, failed to leavecome; after all, he's ten now and implied her life was at riskall those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. But surely this bit of intrigue has got nothing to do with what the Cold War is doing miles away?|isbn=0571364438}}
And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Holly WebbNigel Baines|title=The Story A Tricky Kind of GreenriverMagic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=Silken and Sedge, for all their differences, have a lot in commonCooper loves to perform magic tricks. Silken is His father was a girl whose father is magician, and named Cooper after the Master Builder of what might be the finest beaver lodge on the Greenrivergreat Tommy Cooper. Unfortunately she is also a kind of runt figureBut sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and as a result is patronisednow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, and given the most tokenistic tasks when it comes or how to fetching wood and shoring the dam upbe. She also stands out for the unique artistic ability And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to sing. Otters like Sedge singhim, but he too, as the son of the lady of the holt, has pressure ''really'' doesn't know what's going on him to be a bit less feckless and more attentive to class. He, after all, will eventually inherit the job of keeping the otters safe from the wolf that both animal species fear the most, and from dreaded events like a Dark Spring.anymore!|isbn=15101096251444960261
}}
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