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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]==Confident readers==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Joanne Dahme |title=Tombstone Tea|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Having recently moved to a new school, in a new town, Jessie is struggling to make friends and fit in. She is afraid to show these new people who she really is - in her old school she often found she had 'blank' moments, when she could hear voices and 'see' people who weren't really there. In desperation to become part of a 'group' she accepts the dare of a group of girls to spend the night in the Cemetery and collect some gravestone rubbings to prove she was there. Once there she bumps into Paul, the handsome caretaker, and finds herself in the middle of a strange evening when, Paul claims, local actors get together to rehearse for something called the 'Tombstone Tea', a play in which they portray those buried in the graveyard...there's something strange though about these actors and Jessie soon finds herself caught up in a chilling drama.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0762437189</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Miller|title=Sea Wolf|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Hanna, Ned and Jik. They're on an unlikely quest to recover the world's biggest and richest pearl, from the hiding place Jik alone knows of, when there's a problem in the shape of a tornado. They're thrown from the craft they're on, Ned disappears !- and then there were two. Hanna and Jik get rescued by the occupants of a horrid, piratical craft, engaged in very environmentally-unfriendly fishing. Jik gets overworked and underfed, and then there was one... Only one Remove - Hanna - with the spunk, brainpower and energy to keep her spirit together, and try and get one up on the Maestro who commands the boat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729020</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Katie DaviesMax Boucherat|title=The Great Hamster MassacreLast Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Anna. Rather than write We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the usual staid what-I-did-house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-my-holidays report for schoolbreaking eleven year old, she is taking the time to tell us about on her pet issues over the summerlonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, from recalling the Old Catshe has one main intention, and the horror that is the New Catto log on to Voxminer, to the New Rabbit down the roadworld-building, and 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 demands for a hamster or two, and then she finds something even more spooky. There are family secrets to For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be revealed relating able to hamsters enter shows signs of oldtampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, parents to argue withand her safe place in the game has been doctored – well, and finally where is a trip girl to the pet shop - and that's just the start of Anna's troubles.turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847385958</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Josh LaceyKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=Two Tigers on a StringDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ben's not too keen to be sharing Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his bedroom with his halfworld, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-brotherold, Frankmagical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. But you don't have to be Unfortunately for Kit, the hero of a detective adventure such as this book to know that as Frankonly thing he's mother has vanished from seen of the face of latest race on the Earthinn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, Ben will let it lie - for eaten, and a whilenew trio of questors is needed. Nor is it too surprising Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to see the four Misfitz togethergoading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, on another casemuscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, as they go on the hunt for the missing woman.and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407109782</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Patrick O'BrienJames Sherwood Metts|title=You Are The First Kid On MarsPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It is Things have been a sci-fi future of no danger whatsoever, with no technological breakdownbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and no fatal meteor strike, but other tasks that of course is only took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to be expected for all this market. I say it more technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to highlight how well the book has been illustratedspend time, along came an awful pandemic. Digital airbrush techniques Life was pretty much shut down and more have taken the antiseptic sheen off the whole experience, but have still allowed for a great detail in the machineryalong with it, and also a lovely warmth in all the face of the lad we're empathising withmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0399246347</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary NaylusTom Percival|title=The DresskeeperWrong Shoes|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Things are pretty grim for PickyWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. She He is thirteen years oldbullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', being bullied at schoolhe has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and has to spend her weekends helping her singlehis dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working mum to take care of her little brother a cash-in-hand job on a building site and her senile grandmotherhad an accident. One evening, at her Gran's house, she goes up Throw into that mix the attic fact that his mum and tries on an old dress that she finds inside an old chest. The dress turns out to be magicdad are separated, and she suddenly finds herself back Will's life seems bleak in 17th Century Londonevery direction. And yet, struggling with he still has a strange man who tiny amount of hope. He is calling her 'Amelia' good at art, and is trying clings to kill her. Picky ends up embroiled in Amelia's 17th century life as she tries to find out the truth moments of who joy when he is attempting to murder herdrawing, that feel like a light at the same time as trying to avoid arousing suspicion with her strange behaviour whenever she returns to the present dayend of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956122280</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Abbott Nez 1805141872|title=Cromwell Dixon's Sky-Cycle|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Meet Cromwell Dixon. He's a real tinkerer, forever in a barn or somewhere building something manically unusual. Luckily - although his long-suffering mother may disagree with that word - he's around at the birth of powered flight. Will his plans for a pedalled air machine work?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0399250417</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Jeff Kinney|title=Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog DaysRob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that school summer holidays are only enjoyable if you want to enjoy summer. Greg here doesn't want to notice it, 'Seventeen banks and would prefer to spend his days curtains drawn, face glued to late night TV or a computer game, hand either clicking away at a controller or shovelling in snacksjeweller’s have been raided. The last thing he needspolice are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, thenMiss Judson, is his mother, really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on a ''family togetherness'' triptheir trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on a budget, with bad ideas of what Greg should be doing insteadthe run. But Al needs them for one last job...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141327650</amazonuk>}}''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Matt and DaveChristopher Edge|title=Yuck's Robotic BottomBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's concerned me Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a while that it's relatively easy to pick up early readers for girls – princesses, magic soft toysmovie marathon at their local cinema, mermaids and pets abound – but there's a much smaller choice for boys. It's important too with early readers place that has the content is nickname of 'The Black Hole'interesting'. All big movie fans, they' re looking forward to lots of exciting films, and reading becomes more than just many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something which you ''have'' to do at school about this new film format is very different, and moves they are swept up into being funan adventure they couldn't even imagine. Matt But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, and Dave have found the answer in Yuck.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847382991</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael Morpurgo and Emma Chichester ClarkAdam Stower|title=The Best of TimesMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Most children enjoy Murray is supposed to be a good traditional tale humble, tidy and this lovely book by Michael Morpurgo seems friendly cat, one who is able to have all sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the right ingredients – two. But he's a handsome prince and bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a beautiful princess who fall in lovehyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, get married and live happily ever after. Or do the catflap they? Sadlyboth use can chuck them out, not long after Prince Frederico marries into the lovely Princess Serafinaregular back garden, she becomes very sadbut into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. Nobody knows what has caused such great sadness This time round it drops them into a Viking land, but poor Prince Frederico where a troll hunter is desperate expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to find a cure for his wifebe honest, but he's misery. He tries everything in his power turned up and eventually decides to offer his kingdom he'll have to anyone who can make her happy again before she dies of a broken heart. Lots of people come to the palace to try and help but in the end the solution is a simple one provided by some very kind travellers.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405232552</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon WestonAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Nelson to the RescueThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Nelson used to pull Mike Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the Milk's milk floatwondrous library we start by visiting with him, but he has now retired. He lives and in the stable evening a helper at the back of the dairy along dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with a couple of tricky rats, Rhodri and Rhyshis lovely gran, too – for there is a pigeon who has no sense of directiongeneration missing in the family. A few short years ago, a frog who thinks heEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a secret agent spy and an old racehorse who spends most globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of his time sleepinga magical beast. Rhodri and Rhys find This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a mysterious message on Mike's fridge and bad incident at the animals believe that Mike has been invited eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to Buckingham Palace dare to receive an MBE. Somehow our heroenter what he most hates, Nelson, finds himself travelling down with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to London, pulling a ceremonial coach for Prince Charles as well as giving a TV interview about possibly save his experiencegran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848510454</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jon BerkeleyHelen Cooper|title=The Lightning Key (Circus Trilogy)Taming of the Cat|rating=43.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I shall start with a word of adviceOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. When In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're being hounded by seeing a circus masterconnection, they live in a cheese shop and a magician, for therefore all the soul of a tiger that's contained in a tiger's egg that's contained in names used here seem to be the brain names of your teddy bearcheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and your best friend , if you must, mous- a fallen angel - is trying her best to make sure tracised, for the way his habits don't match the other angels do not turn mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on you in a big way - then you're probably living the third book in a fantasy trilogyvisuals on it. Still And that story- never mindtelling will come in handy one night, the angelwhen he feels all alone and cast out. It's efforts will involve you entering a dream world of flight and cloud citiesalmost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the chase after your enemies will take you across others had the world chance to desert oases and back, and friends new and old half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will be on board to help.the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847384447</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andy StantonLauren St John|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?Finding Wonder|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her backRoo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and leaves now she finds herself awoken in the town middle of Lamonic Bibber for a day at the seaside, Mr Gum falls out with night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his best friend, causing carnivorous carnage all over way to the placecorner shop to buy a lottery ticket. Meat is getting thrown around like itWhen asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn's going out t think very highly of fashion. But she has no one else, and we have so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to doubt whether Polly get worse for Roo, as when she and her companions can ever utilise Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the power middle of love nowhere and put things to rights. then bursts into flames! Especially as this book does not contain a magic unicorn called Elizabeth.Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Fortune CookieOscar's Lion|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friendsWe 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 ready for school. If the names remind you of But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a certain film then you'd be spot mahoosive male lion on as their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting thathe won's where Fudge's father got the idea fromt be hungry for another two days. They're actually chalk and cheese But there are benefits to having a lion around – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the combination worksother month. They've just started at secondary And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and Cupcake has rather it can get him out of a lot on her plateproblem. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and And it's wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his problems are becoming biscuit intake, being much more obvious. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with lax about the problems rules, and he now has another familyso on. ItOK, it can's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not t work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a lot of moneywonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>0008596751
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave EggersJudith Eagle|title=The Wild ThingsStolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Violet Caro'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, is a very special hippohaving to go up North to take care of her sister who is unwell. She So who is extremely small but that does not make going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her adoptive parents Albert mother despises, she feels frustrated and Mavis love confused and worried. All her any the lesssummer 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's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. However But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, they are slightly worried that Violet has as she discovers a very unusual habit painting of turning pink without warning a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and for no explicable reasonall across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906847371</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boringMeet Gil. They'd been best friends since forever and were the good girls. Neither missed schoolJust twelve, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that he is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been determined to escape the care system – the boffin head system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to universityfind a home for himself. All that seemed He is en route to change yet another fosterer, when she met Alexhe jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future. Well, That future seems to be in jeopardy when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that Alex pushed someone lives with his wheelbarrow into herbrother in a camp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, from the building site where he workeda place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. OhThem, and did I mention that he was seventeena mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, Polish and spoke very little English?or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal LaytonHelen Peters|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)Friends and Traitors|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Having successfully seen off England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the rather unpleasant humans country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in earlier volumesservice all her life it seems, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart like the female generations before her. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods of Difficult Sumsbomber flight-paths. They The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn're supposed to be making presentations about what t guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they did during realise the holidays too, but Oscar hasnLord Evesham must be a rum 't done any preparation andun. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, franklytalk is made of meetings with Germans, he can't really remember what he actually did do with all and not only that free time other than no Difficult Sums, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>1788004647
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ursula Jones and Sarah GibbJamie Littler|title=The Princess Who Had No KingdomArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very politeTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, friendlyborn fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and kind-heartedtrader in illicit magic, but she feels like something including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Elodie is lacking because she doesn't have intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to a kingdom ruler the district has, and one of her ownthe five major victors in said earlier war. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but there's always a feeling Being trained in the magic that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't only five people can use would definitely change the princess status of anywherethe whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Pigott-Smith024162343X|title=Shadow of Evil (Baker Street Mysteries)Stolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=If ever Victorian England needed I was the Baker Street Irregularsbad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it's nowwas probably worse still. The great Sherlock Holmes is dead - drowned at sea whilst attempting to foil one Not too long after the end of Professor MoriartyWWII, I didn's evil plans. More ships are likely t so much want to be sabotaged and learn about the shipping owners are up in arms. To make matters worse, Queen VictoriaBritish army's granddaughter has been kidnapped. Would-be clients are queuing up at 221b Baker Streetsuccesses (and occasional failures, but Dr Watson is having we didn't dwell on those) in what came to turn them away. And be called 'the more Sam Wiggins sees, the more hecolonies's convinced that all as want to dispute what right the various shenanigans are related army had to one anotherbe there in the first place. If only Holmes were there Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to tell him exactly howapproach 'the problem' politely. But he isn I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''t, and the only people who are around are children. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034096006X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean Ure Thiago de Moraes|title=Star Crazy MeOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This book is about Carmen, but to understand her you first need to know about her familyMeet Trixie. There's her mother Forever getting into scrapes, who is quite laid back when it comes to all things larks and adventures involving flooding the school, but rather obsessed aircon with looks (despite being the kind of person to drive everywherefart powder, and get winded walking up she could almost be thought a flight young goddess of stairs)nuisance. There But just when she's being told that by her Nanone-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, who used to live with them and always encouraged Carmenhits not just the town the school's talentin but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, perhaps to an embarrassing extent. Stilland all that powers the Internet, itjust for our convenience's good to have supportsake). And there's her father Trixie, who we don't know much about. But thenluckily, neither does Carmenrealises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224613</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marcus Sedgwick |title=Ghosts and Gadgets (Raven Mysteries)|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=EdgarAnd so she begins her epic quest, raven and self-appointed guardian of Otherhand Castle, has reason to be worried. The second-eldest of gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the Otherhand offspring, Cudweed, ran into something characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the forbidden south wing of the castle and was in shock for days. Upon recoveryGods, he reports ie the culprit was a ghost. When more victims begin poppingsemi-up - maidsdeities, giants, stablehalf-boys gods and shoe-polishers, all quite literally scared-to-death – Edgar takes it upon himself to save so on known as the daytricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842556940</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret Mayo, Geraldine McCaughrean, Rose Impey, Andrew Matthews, Jane Ray, Ian Beck, Angela Barrett, Emma Chichester Clark Hannah Gold and Alan SnowLevi Pinfold|title=Magical Princess StoriesFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most little girls [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would love venture, and finding a pretty pink book all about princessesridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, wouldn't they? things on the domestic 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. This one For a bear doing very Bear-y things has seven retellings of traditional fairy tales accompanied by beautiful illustrations been shot and would wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a lovely gift for a birthday or Christmasworld of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140830516X</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young Robert Late one night Graham Blake is put on a train late back to school by from his stepmother. It's shift on the first journey force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he's made fetch something from a secret place, and join him on his ownthe run. It turns out They get together, but barely begin to be more of a challenge than he could ever have imagined. The train stalls at smell the mouth whiff of a tunnel and while Southern trains when the other passengers sleep through father is arrested, leaving Archie on the waitlate express to Brighton, toting a mysterious woman in white tells him tin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a series whole heap of stories - stories with a differencequestions. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800144</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I was going to mention, at some time in this review, that you would be hard pushed to confuse this book with the same authorRen's [[Once by Morris Gleitzman|Holocaust stories]], but as it begins with an apocalyptic massacre family home is destroyed in a hit fire. She, her parents, and run road crash, perhaps you mighther little brother lose everything. Such 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 lot of the humble cane toadfoods they normally eat. Always having When she goes back to take school she discovers that the warty with the smooth. Or so you'd thinkclass are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, until Limpy identifies the next driver to pull up near their swamp display things that are important to them and show who they are as Santaa person. At last - his chance But Ren has nothing to improve human-cane toad relationshipsput in a box, by getting his species recognised as Santa's new little helpersand so she finds herself starting to steal things. And so he hops on the truck with his best friendSmall things, the macho Goliaththings that people might not really miss, and drives off with Santanot when they have so much already. ...Or does heBut what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141326948</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew Klavan Rob Keeley|title=The Last Thing I Remember (Homelander)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Charlie West - US Air Force hopeful and karate expert - remembers when his main concern was whether schoolmate Beth would go out with him. So why is he strapped to a chair in a windowless cell?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755352998</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hazel Allan |title=Bree McCready Boy Who Disappeared and the Half-heart LocketOther Stories|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you want to keep your children quiet and busy for a while then this would be Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a good book return to give them. Twelve year old Bree and her two friends, Sandy and Honey, find themselves running for their lives when a message on a heart locket necklace leads them the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to an old, magical book that has enormous powers. A monstrous enemyeleven new tales, Thalofedril, is trying each as fun to get read as his claws on this book so that he can continue to reek death and destruction in the world, and it is up to Bree, and her friends, to save us all..previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905537115</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen Stringer Laura Noakes|title=The Last Ghost: A Belladonna Johnson AdventureCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Belladonna Johnson can see and talk Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to ghosts and no one else canher friends. In fact The practice in the home she lives with two; her dead parents. But something in is happening – for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ghosts are disappearing. Her mother vanishes ledger, and her father tells her he doesnthey't have much time eitherre all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. The doors are closing, But Cosima bears the doors tag as a surname because nothing else seems to the Other Side and there is only one leftbe known about where she came from, but just as he says thisthe first ever inmate, he is gone tooand unique in having no known family in the outside world. Not wanting During a daring escapade to lose her parents againsteal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, Belladonna sets out on she discovers a journey with the help of Steve, plan involving said outside world – a boy from school. They need devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to find the entrance want to adopt all the Land of the Deadgirls for his Institute. But why, the door and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to where the last ghost, Elsie, waits, before it's too late… past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230715044</amazonuk>0008579059
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate ThompsonAlice M Ross|title=The White Horse TrickNowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We At last saw Jenny before she made there is new stock in the move to Tir na n'Og impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and before her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she knew has stolen it. She also knows she was a changeling. These daysshould be free from worries about being found out, because she's happily ensconced in has the land ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of the fairieskaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where there is no time the sea levels are rising dramatically and nothing much happens, but everyone feels a huge sense the buildings are generally empty of lazy contentmenthumans and ripe for plunder. Her human foster parents JJ and Aisling Liddy have also made With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the move and they are equally happyanswer, in but the fact a laid back kind of way. mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370329929</amazonuk>1839943769
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine McCaughrean Natasha Farrant|title=The Death Defying Pepper RouxRescue of Ravenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I love it when I discover a new book that I just canThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''t put down. Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and today, Raffy have been living for me, it was the story most of Pepper Rouxtheir lives. Our heroThey are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, Pepperas Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, had and Raffy is there with his future foretold at his birthmum, when his Aunt Mireille had and they are living together as a vision from Saint Constance that Pepper would be dead on his fourteenth birthdayfamily. On hearing this news his parents take very little interest They have grown up swimming in himthe cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and Pepper grows up fully aware loving every inch of his impending doom thanks to his very religious Aunt who forces him to confession every day, and ensures he is fully versed in the terrors of hellplace. SoBut now the house is under threat, as you can probably guess, Leo is under pressure from his fourteenth birthday comes around other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and yet somehow Pepper finds that he is still alivemore expensive to maintain. Through a series of chance happenings he flees the ever present menace of deathThe children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, skipping from one personbut if they's life to anotherll even be together, afraid at how he has somehow evaded Saint Constance and the angels of death and forever guilty at the lies he is forced to tell to cover up his escape from deathif Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192756028</amazonuk>0571348785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip Ardagh Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Secret Beast Club: The Far From Great Escape: Grubtown TalesUnicorns of Silver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the Grubtown lighthouse is plunged into darkness because phoenixes and unicorns of the failure world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of its one massive lightbulb a ship called ''anything that might be out there. The Plucked Grapeproblem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' runs aground in themselves, exploring the bayoutside world of Hackney, London. It ploughs into But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, 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 Rusty Dolphin'' where crew of the locals boat, including a living gargoyle, are enjoying a Hot Chocolate tasked with saving the rare critters – and Bubble-Wrap Popping Night. As if this wasn't enough to contend with the local Police Department (all three of them) kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to cope with a jail break when all six members of the Fox family make a bid for freedomjoin in. Their sentence only had another fortnight to go and when Dare they're caught there'll be another trial side with Leila, the woman on board, and they'll be imprisoned for her relative who lives as a figure in a much longer stretch.painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571242340</amazonuk>0241573483
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Horowitz B09XWSXSKY|title=The Devil Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and his BoyJoanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Queen Elizabeth I met with her magician late one night and asked about the fate of a man she had known many years before. He was deadFrederick (or Fred, but his son lived onnever Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. Meanwhile in the town of Framlingham Tom Falconer worked for the couple who had taken him in after his parents died. There was no love, or even affectionA tune, from them and when he was offered rather like the chance ticking of escape to London by a rich and aristocratic stranger he barely hesitated. Life clock was never going to be easy for the likes of Tom playing over and before long he found himself alone over in London trying to avoid Gamaliel Ratsey – the highwayman who would see him dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406305693</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Walter Moers |title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Meet Echo the Crathis mind. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak It happened every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before time he kills Echo, as opposed came to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is acceptedvisit his grandfather.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hilary McKay|title=Wishing For Tomorrow|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''Wishing For Tomorrow'' picks up where [[A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett]] left off. Avert your eyes if you've not read the first book - and if you haven He hadn'treally wanted to come; after all, why not?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340956534</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frances Hodgson Burnett|title=A Little Princess|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Sara Crewe has started at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary For Young Ladies. Shehe's so rich ten now and well-behaved that she soon becomes known as the little princess. However, when her father dies shortly after going bankrupt, Saraall those old clocks don's life is turned on its headt appeal to him anymore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340997397</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angie Sage Nigel Baines|title=Syren (Septimus Heap)A Tricky Kind of Magic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=After four books and 2,000 pages of plot far to complicated Cooper loves to recoup here, we meet ExtraOrdinary Wizard-apprentice Septimus Heap again, this time ship..perform magic tricks. um, ''dragon''-wrecked on His father was a lonely island somewhere far out at sea. And his dragon has definitely wrecked. Its wings are badly woundedmagician, making escape for Septimus and his friendsnamed Cooper after the great Tommy Cooper. But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, Beetle and Princess Jennanow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, impossibleor how to be. To make matters worse And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, therehe ''really''s something strange about the island theydoesn've become stranded on. Itt know what's utterly deserted except for a girl and a cat-shaped lighthouse, and an eerie voice is calling to Septimus in his sleep... going on anymore!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747594155</amazonuk>1444960261
}}
