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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha Hastings and Alex T SmithMax Boucherat|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost Fair|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleep.'' And thus the Frost Fair could happen – people trading on the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery shop. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyes, more or less – in the four years since, either. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powers, and a willingness to help Thomasina. Not only can he introduce her to the fantastical Other Frost Fair, using the river surface at night for no end of mystical beasts and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its core.|isbn=0008496056}}{{Frontpage|author=Holly Webb|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
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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
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{{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)Stolen Songbird|rating=54|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=I have recently discovered Caro's mother, a great pleasure: I sit world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and watch the vast numbers is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of birds which visit our garden on a daily basisher sister who is unwell. An hour can pass without my noticingSo who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. IAll 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've established which species feed from the grounds house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, which pop to the feeders for a quick snatch of some food and who settles is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeable. It would have been wonderful ifmystery, as she discovers a painting of a childbird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, I'd had access to and all across London a book such as ''The Secret Life of Birds''fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. So – Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what is ithas happened to Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148
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{{Frontpage
|author=Jason RohanTania Unsworth|title=S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access DeniedNowhere Island|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Arun and Sam have had little Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to do with Donna, a girl at their school. But things immediately change at escape the start of this extended sprint of a novel, when she insists Arun's house has become care system – the attention of plain-clothes coppers system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and that they should bunk off school to find out whya home for himself. And thus an unlikely trio of misfit young heroes He is formed – Sam is really not Donna's idea of companyen route to yet another fosterer, but when he is the computer buffjumps into an anonymous car, Donna seems to know all the criminal ins and outs and survival skills, and Arun? Well, lets it's ride him to his lot future. That future seems to find out be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that all he based someone lives with his family life brother in a camp on isn't truean island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpecteddefinitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. But how can this disparate trio hope to best MI6Them, kidnappers, people able to keep the truth about themselves secret for decadesand a mute girl also finding a home there, and albeit so much more?successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=18399433861804540080
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lissa EvansHelen Peters|title=WishedFriends and Traitors|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When things contrive to force Ed and his sister Roo (aka Lucy) to stay with England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the neighbourhood spinsterish old womancountry pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, Miss Filey, for a week of half-term, they're not looking forward destined to be in service all her life itseems, like the female generations before her. For one thingThe other is Sidney, she thinks Wia girl from a hoity-Fi is a special brand of biscuittoity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. They donThe girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't particularly take to Willard either, the new kid next door, who seems to ebulliently take guessed that then their behaviour with each other over everything and everywheretheir first encounters would only prove it so. But things soon change when something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they find some tiny old birthday candlesrealise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and manage to work out not only that these candles, for as long as their flames last, make birthday wishes come truea local Spitfire factory has been attacked. How will things change for a second time when they realise thatBut surely the girls are wrong, having used up three of them, these should really and the upper class could never be used for the wishes of someone two generations older than themso underhand?|isbn=178845202X1788004647
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{{Frontpage
|author=Richard SmithJamie Littler|title=Time Trap TwoArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= ''Jamie Two sisters, Juniper and Todd are horrified to learn that the Grand PlanElodie, which they thought had been defeatedborn fifteen minutes apart, is about are growing to be implemented chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in 1775illicit magic, Americaincluding relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Hector and Catherine have to thwart Travis - an agent of the Grand Plan - who Elodie is hell bent intent on world domination. Jamie and Todd go with Hector and Catherine on a mission to 1775, getting closer to prevent a super gun from being used power in the Battle one of Bunker Hill, during the American War religious districts of IndependenceArkspire, but only have days perhaps even to stop history from being altered.'' The second book become the child in line to inherit the ''Time Trap'' series, as you can see, has an urgent a mission for our young heroes as power of the firstWatcher, which took place in the smog of Victorian London. This time, Jamie and Todd are off closest to a ruler the grand landscapes of North America. Travisdistrict has, an agent and one of the Grand Plan, is attempting to take five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the Gatling gun back in time and magic that only five people can use would definitely change the outcome status of the Battle whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of Bunker Hillher own – for good, or for very, a pivotal episode in the American War of Independence.very bad…|isbn=B094ZFF85P0241586143
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Justyn Edwards024162343X|title=The Great Fox IllusionStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=The latest incoming reality TV show 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 contest with a difference'god'. No singing Where was the proof? In history lessons, no dancingit was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWII, this show is looking for magical children! Children who can understand how magic tricks workI didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, and who can attempt but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to win The Great Foxbe called 's magical legacy - the secrets colonies' as want to all of his tricks! Flick is determined dispute what right the army had to winbe there in the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but not because she wants I regret that I lacked the maturity to own approach 'the tricksproblem' politely. She is interested in just I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's 'one'Stolen History' trick, the trick that The Great Fox stole from her father. And she's hoping if she can find that trick then she will be able to bring her missing father home.|isbn=1529501946
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{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Ann JuckesThiago de Moraes|title=The Hunt for the NightingaleOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jasper is a little boy who has some strugglesMeet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and whilst weadventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she're never s being told why exactly, we can see that he has anxiety and panic attacksby her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, and has difficulty dealing with change and big emotionsthe world changes. His big sister Suddenly, Rosie, has been practically everything electronic stops working – a huge support to himpower-out, talking him down when things were difficulteven of electric cars, encouraging himhits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and writing a book with him, all about birdsthat powers the Internet, that he can read when he gets scared to help him calm downjust for our convenience's sake). His parents seem completely caught up in their business Trixie, and so it is Rosie he always turns to. Even though she has gone away to University nowluckily, she realises what has promised him that she will still be there when he needs herhappened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. But now he can't find Rosie. She hasn't come home when she said she would, and And so she isn't answering begins her phone. His parents won't speak to him or when they doepic quest, he doesn't understand or take in what they're saying. Nothing seems to be right, and gather all the only way he feels he people that can find any peace is if he can find Rosiesteal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, and if they can find ie the nightingale semi-deities, giants, half-gods and listen to its song, so on known as they do together every Springthe tricksters.|isbn=1398510890178845295X
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{{Frontpage
|author=Alastair Chisholm Hannah Gold and Eric DeschampsLevi Pinfold|title=Dragon Storm: Tomas and IronskinFinding Bear|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Tomas. Happy to work with his father in the blacksmith's forge[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, he's almost of the age to become a full apprenticelot further north than many people would venture, and help finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with the new batch of dragonswords is certainly needed. Not a polar bear – that there are any dragons, of course – they vanished centuries ago. Except..she called Bear. Strange signals from within Back home, things on the forge furnacedomestic and family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a peculiar invite bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to become an apprentice clerk insteadmake sure he's OK, are things for Tom she and her father return to puzzle over – until it all comes out in the wash, Arctic and hope that yes dragons do still exist in this a worldof very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that Tom is rare in the ability to summon them, share magical attributes, and ride with them..friendship can continue.|isbn=18399400260008582017
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{{Frontpage
|author=Louie StowellSimon Fox|title=Loki: A Bad God's Guide to Being GoodDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Loki. The trickster god has got into trouble again, so the other gods have decided there's only Late one thing for it – he must be banished. And transformed – for Loki night Graham Blake is spending a month both in exile and in late back from his shift on the physical form of a middle-school kid here on Earth. He's guarded by a giant force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a god in disguise as his parentssecret place, and Thor has come along as welljoin him on the run. They get together, but barely begin to be smell the more suave, more popular and more successful brother whiff of Southern trains when the two. Loki has a month to redeem his reputationfather is arrested, and get his moral compass pointing leaving Archie on the right way againlate express to Brighton, or else, and to prove it he has to write the text we read in toting a sentient notebook, that is able tin his father was determined to cry foul of keep away from his liescolleagues, and judge his progress. But Loki is the kind bearer of god who insists he can do anything, so surviving a bit more virtuously for a month is going to be a walk in the park..whole heap of questions.right?|isbn=14063997521839944420
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy Strange and Pam SmyCath Howe|title=The Mermaid in the MillpondMy Life on Fire|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There Ren's family home is no mermaid destroyed in the millponda fire. That at least is what Bess is telling herself She, her parents, and her little brother lose everything. Neither will there be a friend for She doesn't have any of her in amongst all the other kidsclothes, who have had their entire childhoods sold to the millor any of her special little knick-owners by 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 London workhouse foods they used normally eat. When she goes back to call home. Bess knows there is no time for friendship in school she discovers that the class are doing a hand-to-mouthspecial art project, every man for himself kind creating boxes of existencetheir lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But despite herself Bess does find a bit of Ren has nothing to put in a kindred spirit in the slight little Dotbox, and despite everything so she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, things that life has taught her about betrayal and how befriending people only leads to harmmight not really miss, there might be a glimmer of companionship in the tired-out mill workersnot when they have so much already. But surely that doesn't mean there what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is any truth in the existence of the mermaiddoing?|isbn=180090049X1839942835
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{{Frontpage
|author=Christopher EdgeRob Keeley|title=Escape RoomThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating=34
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I've seen junior variants of Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' short story format cover escape rooms – the process by which a character or characters start by being trapped in a specific location, and have ! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to solve problems in order to get their way out. What I've not done (alongside experience one for myself – for that would require actual friends) is seen a prose book describing people in such an adventureeleven new tales, with the regular second person narrative replaced by the first. Here, Ami and four other tweenagers, all new each as fun to each other and booked into the game without any of their friends, are a team – starting out at the game's main offices, where they're told they and their quest for The Answer are a world-changerread as his previous offerings. But could watching people engage with such a pastime, despite the ramped-up threat levels, change much in the world of literature?|isbn=1788007964B0BVW69N1G
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{{Frontpage
|author=Lucy HopeLaura Noakes|title=FledglingCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=BavariaMeet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, 1900just Cos to her friends. Our scene The practice in the home she lives in is a most peculiar hilltop house, built bit for the girls to just be named by bit over the decadesnumber they correspond to in the ledger, and now looking imperiously down on the village and woods below. Itthey's an eccentric housere 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 host eccentricsbe known about where she came from, so the library shelving system is not as we'd know it, the roof is retractable, there is a steam-powered, hand-operated lift system cut through itfirst ever inmate, and so onunique in having no known family in the outside world. At the moment it houses an ex-soldier with PTSD and During a passion for daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the long-standing family hobby of taxidermykitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a woman who does nothing but quibble, kvetch and sing opera loudly, and the dying grandma devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to our heroine, Cassie, a young lass who has want to do adopt all the maintenance of this bizarre machine-like abodegirls for his Institute. Oh but it's also going to house someone or something else But why, when crashing through Cassie's bedroom window one stormy day is a cherub. and what does that body entail? And if you think such a heavenly arrival is going could it possibly bring Cos closer to be a completely great and wonderful thing, think again...the past she has so little link with?|isbn=183994188X0008579059
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{{Frontpage
|author=Kate DiCamillo and Sophie BlackallAlice M Ross|title=The Beatryce ProphecyNowhere Thief|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Stories have joy At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and surprises her mother run in them'', we are told herea seaside town. And none more so than in Elsbeth knows this wondrous storybecause she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, which feels an instant classic with because she has the freshness ability to leave this world, and the agelessness it has in equal proportion. We start with a group use an unworldly portal of monkskaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the Order of sea levels are rising dramatically and the Chronicles buildings are generally empty of Sorrowing, humans and the demonic goat that loves nothing more than upending, trampling on and biting the poor Brothersripe for plunder. Things change drastically when the beast takes a totally maternal approach to a homeless girl With eviction imminent, one who has survived some trauma that has blocked her past from her memory. Elsewhere sits a King in his castle, desperate can Elsbeth nab anything to find actually generate custom at the girlshop? Well yes, for it is prophesied that a young child can unseat the throne and cause great change. Who foretold that revolution answer, but the Order of the Chronicles of Sorrowing? But how can fact a simple, amnesiac lass ever prove a threat to anyone?mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=15295008931839943769
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{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithNatasha Farrant|title=The Great Dream RobberyRescue of Ravenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=MayaThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''s father . Ravenwood is a professor who invented an amazing dream machine. But something went wrongold house, in the North of England, where Bea and now he can't wake up. Or at least, that's what Maya has Raffy have been toldliving for most of their lives. In They are part of a rather strange dream one night Maya makes 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 new friendfamily. They have grown up swimming in the cove, and discovers that roaming through the only way to save her dad may be by being asleep. Cue trees, completely at one madcap action adventure story where dreams with all of the nature around the house and reality collideloving every inch of the place...really...and there 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's everything from llamas becoming more and bananasmore expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, dream machines made from hairdresser cast-offsbut if they'll even be together, to a talking cat called Bin Bag!and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=024147051X0571348785
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{{Frontpage
|author=Keith GrayRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Secret Beast Club: The ClimbersUnicorns of Silver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sully Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the best tree climber in phoenixes and unicorns of the villageworld, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. He has what's known amongst the kids The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'reachout there'themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. But what happens when a new kid shows narrowboat turns up in town? A new kidcarrying a science-minded, educational purpose, called Nottinghamand with a past involving Jayden's cousin, who clambers up some they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage. The crew of the hardest trees with ease? Suddenly Sully is worried that his status is being threatenedboat, and not only thatincluding a living gargoyle, that his chance to name are tasked with saving the final, unnamed big tree in rare critters – and the park by being kids unknowingly have the first magical sight needed to conquer itjoin in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, might be snatched from his hands. How can Sully stop Nottingham? And will it cost him his best friendand her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, or maybe even all and become saviours of his friends, to do sothe unseen?|isbn=17811299910241573483
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{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=B09XWSXSKY|title=Nick Lake Maestro Orpheus and Emily Gravettthe World Clock|titleauthor=Locked Out LilyRobert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Lily is, Frederick (or wasFred, or has beenbut never Freddy, very illplease) couldn't sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to give her parents relief shevisit his grandfather. He hadn's been told t really wanted to stay with her grandma for a few days. The parents need the relief as Lilycome; after all, he's baby sibling is just about to be born – a child Lily swears she hates already ten now and wants nothing all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do withis tell the time. But on tracking back home And time isn't good for word of her parents (and her plush toy so she can sleep) she finds stony-eyed simulacra of her parents, and anything...'' And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the babe-in-arms, already installedbed. These devilish interlopers need to be ousted to get It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the family back intact, even if clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it's not the family Lily wants – but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all she has to help her in the task are some talking animals – Crow, Mole, Mouse and Snake.|isbn=1471194833clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?
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{{Frontpage
|author=Philip ReeveNigel Baines|title=Utterly Dark and the Face A Tricky Kind of the DeepMagic|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=In a word, richCooper loves to perform magic tricks. There is certainly an abundance of riches in this story set on His father was a peculiar island called Wildseamagician, British but way west, beyond and named Cooper after the Scilliesgreat Tommy Cooper. There are troll people on it But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and sea-witchesnow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, and legends of the Dark family that has or how to keep watch for magical islands and their monster approaching from even further west, where no ship dare sailbe. The current Darks are the Watcher, Andrewe, who has to keep notes of activity from the Hidden Lands, And when his brother Will who lives in London with too much science in his head dad's prop rabbit starts talking to worry about such local yokel superstitionshim, and Andrewehe ''really'' doesn't know what's foundling daughter, who washed up out of the sea one day eleven years ago. But when Andrewe Dark drowns himself, both his sullen brother and his curious ward are thrust into the world of protecting their island, like it or not.going on anymore!|isbn=17884523721444960261
}}
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