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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]==Confident readers==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip ArdaghMax Boucherat|title=Grubtown Tales: Splash, Crash and Loads The Last Life of CashLori Mills|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If thereWe meet Lori on the first evening she's one thing that we've learnt from got the previous five Grubtown Taleshouse to herself – no neighbour to pop in, it's that Jilly Cheeter and Mango Claptrap are never separated. Whatever extraordinary circumstance of life turns upbabysitter poorly, they'll always mother at work together, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. So why is Mango, What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in his shortest of short trousers as usual, sat on top of a floating mayorblanket fort, in shark-infested seasshe has one main intention, and why that is Jilly only taking her poorly dog to log on to Voxminer, the vetworld-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's? world. And what sort of help can we expect from But first Lori has a back story involving some liberated lab rats?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571253490</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Rosen|title=Michael Rosentiny inkling that this stormy night doesn's Big Book t find herself entirely on her own, and then she finds something even more spooky. For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of Bad Things|rating=4tampering.5|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse|summary= When he was littlemalevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, Michael Rosen's dad remembered all the bad things he'd done and reminded him of them when appropriate, so Michael imagined he'd written them all down her safe place in a Big Book of Bad Things. Here he presents the eponymous poem, as game has been doctored – well as many many other tales of childhood, from the horrors of being where is a second late girl to school, to making a raft, to going to a café. Some bad, some sad, some quirky, some funny, some touching, some light-hearted, all wonderful.turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141324511</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon Packham|title=comin 2 gt u|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Sam Tennant is reasonably happy at school, generally gets on alright with people, Kieran Larwood and doesn't have much to worry about – until he's murdered in the first chapter of this novel. Oh, not '''really''' murdered – his character in a game he plays online is killed. But then, the two who kill him refer to him by his real name instead of his computer persona, and he realises that virtual life has just become very nasty indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848120958</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John E SmelcerJoe Todd-Stanton|title=The Edge of NowhereDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Could you survive Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the wilds sport where a team of Alaska if you were washed overboard from a fishing boat during a storm warrior, mage and somehowhealer enter specially prepared, century-old, amazinglymagical mazes, managed to make it and race to dry land? This is the challenge facing Seth and his loyal dogexit, Tucker. They are out on Seth's father's fishing boat during a terrible storm and neither Seth's dad perhaps bothering with the treasure or his friend realise that the boy big bad and dog have been washed overboard until the points they reach home and are found to be missing from grant you along the boatway. A search party Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is sent outthat one team has been retired, eaten, but Seth and a new trio of questors is assumed drownedneeded. LuckilyPossibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, Seth and his dog manage he has taken to get to one of the tiny islands that run along goading from the coast token bully of Alaska, his world and after realising that no one is coming to help them they slowly make their way hundreds of miles over many monthsstumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. Will they starve to deathWhat chance does this friendless, or freezemuscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, or be eaten by bears before they manage and how could he possibly hope to make it homesucceed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849391963</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Teresa FlavinJames Sherwood Metts|title=The Blackhope EnigmaPlanet Storyland|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=14-year old Sunni finds it bad enough that when she's trying to do some research on a famous Fausto Corvo painting in Blackhope Tower's Mariner's Chamber, she gets lumbered with her annoying stepbrother to look after. Add to that the presence of her classmate Blaise, a boy who's better at art than she is, and her day is looking depressing – and that's '''before''' Dean mysteriously vanishing when walking around the chamber's labyrinth.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848770340</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joshua Doder|title=Grk Down Under|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you'd ever wondered where speed and agility, and Things have been a huge appetite bit sticky for going where he shouldn't the Earthlings. AI and eating what he oughtnautomation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they't can get a dog, you only have re paid to turn do and other tasks that took time to this book for evidenceaccomplish. I won't let on how a tiny dog manages Just as they were beginning to get himself used to Australia unaidedall this technological change and starting to think of other, but he does - leaving his human owners back in Englandnew ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and young Tim Malt especially desperate for his return. But , along with it, all the dog called Grk is about to find out how dangerous and nasty Australians can be..many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842709313</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia JarmanTom Percival|title=The Time-travelling Cat and the Great Victorian StinkWrong Shoes|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Consider cats. Normally they like to leave you things like poop, and dead animalsWill's life is difficult, generally in the middle a multitude of the kitchen floorways. TopherHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes's cat leaves himself a stone statue version of himself when , he decides to time travel to some past time has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of history. I know - odd. I things like food, and his dad can also introduce you to 't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a very different Topher, one just escaped from the workhouse cash-in Victorian London - if only he could escape hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the stench of the open sewers in Londonfact that his mum and dad are separated, and the hunger Will's life seems bleak in his stomach just as easilyevery direction. WellAnd yet, I could - but actually they are the same person, just with he still has a completely different mindtiny amount of hope. When our Topher travels through time as well - on He is good at art, and clings to the back moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a bird - he finds himself in light at the person end of the seconda long, historical laddark tunnel. Will that homework project about Victorian history be enough to help him out, and perhaps prevent a nasty crime or two?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849390193</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Candy Gourlay1805141872|title=Tall StoryThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Andi is ''Seventeen banks and a young teenager in the UKjeweller’s have been raided. She's not very tallThe police are baffled, but she only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is brilliant at basketballreally a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. And she has finally been chosen to play But Al needs them for her school teamone last job... ''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pippa FunnellChristopher Edge|title=Tilly's Pony Tails: Neptune the Heroic HorseBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tilly has recently been reunited with her brother – they know nothing of their birth mother and were adopted by different families – and she's just been invited to go on holiday to Cornwall with him Lucas and his family. It will mean leaving the horses and ponies friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the local stables but shenickname of 's sure that theyThe Black Hole'll all manage without her for a week. Once in Cornwall sheAll big movie fans, they's delighted re looking forward to find that there's a riding stable nearby lots of exciting films, and she soon makes friendsmany, particularly with a horse called Neptune. many snacks! She also meets a girl called Megan who loves swimmingHowever, as the movie starts, but can't understand why Megan they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is frightened of horses very different, and doesnthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't want even imagine. But as they lurch from one film genre to learn the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to ridethe cinema, despite the encouragement she gets from her parents.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444000829</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ceci JenkinsonAdam Stower|title=Doctor Doom: Oli Murray and Skipjack's Tales of TroubleBun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Eleven-year-old Skipjack Murray is in serious trouble: his team lost supposed to be a cricket match because he fell asleephumble, tidy and now Slugger Stubbins friendly cat, one who is after him. Slugger has two things in mind: able to bash Skipjacksleep and eat and eat and sleep and, and to squeeze out well, whatever takes his fancy next of him the ten pounds two. But he lost betting on 's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the match. Skipjackcatflap they both use can chuck them out, thereforenot into the regular back garden, spends but into a large part world of this wonderfully silly book hiding from his nemesis using frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a variety of fancy dress costumes from his friend Doctor Hamish Levity's shop. OliViking land, on the other handwhere a troll hunter is expected – well, has weightier matters to deal with: he has discovered an International Criminal Mastermind. And because he has always dreamed of being a secret agentone much bigger than Murray was, this promises to be the perfect opportunity to try out the practical tips on espionage contained in ''The Good Spyhonest, but he's Handbookturned up and he'', which he has recently been given.ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571249701</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephanie BurgisAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=A Most Improper MagickThe Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The very first sentence of this charming Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and funny book sets in the toneevening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Twelve-year-old Kat Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is setting off, dressed as a boygeneration missing in the family. A few short years ago, to earn her fortune, pay back her brotherEli's gambling debts, and save her two sisters from having parents were both lost to marry rich old men. Fortunately for Katthe titular race, she is stopped before she gets a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the end company of a magical beast. This has made the front garden. All race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the trappings of Regency romance are here: fainting heroineseatery leads to a confession from gran, evil stepmothersEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, handsome young men with no prospects, and even a highwayman. But in this, the first book sole aim the prize of a trilogy, there is something extra: Kat's late mother was a witchmagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848770073</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eoin ColferHelen Cooper|title=Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Artemis Fowl is trying to save the world. No wonder Holly Short and Foaly think he's not himself. He might stand to make another huge fortune, but he's thinking about global warming, and technological cures for it. But he's also thinking about a lot of other things - in particular, the patterns The Taming of the number five. His mind seems stuck making him tap things in multiples of five times, and use sentences with five words in. But when his demonstration in Iceland goes wrong with a four-engined fairy space probe crashing, he certainly becomes something other than himself.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141328029</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Adam Blade|title=First Hero (The Chronicles Of Avantia)Cat
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There's a land under threat from an evil man leading a well-drilledOnce again, lethal armymice are pitched against cat. And there In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you's re seeing a boyconnection, they live in a cheese shop and his companiontherefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and his destiny is to save the land from the evil man, who will only get more evil if he gets what he wantsyou must, which is currently in four pieces. If this sounds like a wellmous-worn templatetracised, for the way his habits don't blame mematch the other mice he lives with. [[:Category:Adam Blade|Adam Blade]] writes They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as if by committee, art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that's because story-telling will come in handy one night, when he is one - itfeels all alone and cast out. It's a pseudonym for a cabal of prealmost 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 others had the chance to half-teen fantasy churnersinch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But enough of him - we should be talking of Tanner, will the story have the lad in this book.successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408307472</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret MahyLauren St John|title=Organ MusicFinding Wonder
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=David and Harley are out later than they should beRoo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. David is getting anxious: he knows his mother will be worrying already Her mum died when she was young, and he's not now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the type corner shop to break rules or get into trouble buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of any kind. But Harley's feeling rebellious; he's having a tough time at home at the momentshe has no one else, and he's up so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for pushing at some boundaries. So they wander along Forbes StreetRoo, as when she and Joni leave London in a down-at-heel area of townJoni's old campervan, looking for a bit of adventure. And surely enough, they find it in a car left with its keys temptingly breaks down in the ignition. middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1877467472</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Dork Diaries: Party TimeOscar's Lion|rating=43
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is the second in the series of [[Diary of more likely – read him his very favourite book a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney|'Wimpy Kid' for girls]] books, full as usual couple of comic cutaways times before he has to cartoon stripsbe ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, illustrationsall he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, OMGslooking sheepish, BTWs, BFFs, smileys and over-used exclamation marks!!!!! admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. It's October, and Nikki is stuck between But there are benefits to having a rock and lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a hard placebirthday party for Oscar the other month. The place is the And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school's Halloween Ball, ideally with Brandon, the crush and it can get him out of her life for this term at middle schoola problem. The rock is as usual And it's wonderful to have around the evil Mackenziehouse – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the Cruella de Vil of snobbishrules, bullyish school bitchesand so on. Can Nikki resolve her dilemma - just for the fortnight this diary spansOK, and get her beau to the ball - especially when she double-books herself?it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184738742X</amazonuk>0008596751
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick Garlick and Nick MalandJudith Eagle|title=Aunt Severe and the DragonsThe Stolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Daniel Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is a little boy whose parents have gone away exploringnow missing. They telephone him every dayHer other mother, but then one day the phone calls stop and so Daniel has Ronnie, is having to go up North to live with his Aunt Severetake care of her sister who is unwell. She takes his toys awaySo who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, feeds him spinach sandwichessomeone Caro has heard her mother despises, wakes him every day at four-thirty she feels frustrated and confused and gets him helping with her rather strange rubbish-collecting activitiesworried. Things get more interesting for Daniel when he discovers four little lost dragons hiding in Aunt SevereAll 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's gardenhouse, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. He tries to help themBut she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, but before he can do anything three as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the dragons Snakes are captured thieving artworks and locked up in a zooterrorising people. Daniel is left Is the painting somehow linked to rescue them with only the fourth dragon, Dudgang? And what has happened to Caro's, help and, as you can imagine, he's called 'Dud' for a reason!mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184939055X</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Garen EwingTania Unsworth|title=The Rainbow Orchid: Adventures of Julius Chancer 2Nowhere Island|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Oh Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to be popular - escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and the rainbow orchid certainly isfind a home for himself. IfHe is en route to yet another fosterer, in factwhen he jumps into an anonymous car, and lets it exists at allride him to his future. A collecting challenge for rare plants might hinge That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on its recoveryan island between the two directions of a motorway, imperial British explorers would like a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to know the truth about it - provide for their safety and its presence on some mysterious ancient carved tablets hints at some mystical part it may once have played in a superweaponseclusion. HenceThem, where this book starts, everyone - from and a film starlet, to mute girl also finding a dashing explorer's assistanthome there, to albeit so much more successfully. Over a plucky aviatorfew weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, to an evil henchwoman of an overweight industrialist - or if this is after one place where life as we would want it.just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140525047X</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Vanessa CurtisHelen Peters|title=Zelah Green: One More Little Problem|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=We first met Zelah when her OCD got so bad she was sent off to a live-in centre for treatment. She's at home now, with the OCD still around but not totally debilitating. She's still jumping on the stairs - but not so many jumps Friends and not so often. She's still scrubbing her face, but it isn't quite red raw. You'd call her overly fastidious rather than ill. And her therapist is pleased with her progress. But then... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405240547</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lauren St John|title=Laura Marlin Mysteries: Dead Man's CoveTraitors|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Laura has been in foster care since she was bornEngland, but Social Services have recently discovered that she has an uncleWW2. So, Two young girls are new at the beginning of this adventure mystery she finds herself moving to a house by the beach in Cornwall to live with Calvin Redfern, a man she has never met beforecountry pile called Stanbrook. Laura's experiences have taught her to question everything One is Nancy, destined to be independent and to stand on in service all her own two feetlife it seems, so having an uncle who trusts like the female generations before her to be sensible. The other is Sidney, rather than lay down a list of rulesgirl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, seems idealand if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But Uncle Calvin something is amiss, and first separately and his house are shrouded then in secretscombination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Why does he work such strange hours? Where does he go late at night? And why Midnight deliveries are there no signs received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of his past in meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the houseupper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444000209</amazonuk>1788004647
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue MongredienJamie Littler|title=Penguin Peril (The Secret Mermaid)Arkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Molly originally moved to the seaside so that her parents could live with her Gran who was getting old Two sisters, Juniper and needing help. There's a secret between Molly and her Gran though: Gran used Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be a secret mermaid chalk and now Molly is toocheese. During the day Molly Juniper is an ordinary schoolgirleager hunter and trader in illicit magic, but at night with including relics from prior major wars left out in the help Badlands. Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of her magical shell necklace she becomes a mermaid and returns Arkspire, perhaps even to become the deeps child in line to help inherit the power of the Watcher, the other mermaids when there's closest to a problemruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. This tim it's Being trained in the penguins who have mysteriously disappeared from magic that only five people can use would definitely change the icy seas and status of the mermaids are concerned that the Dark Queen whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be behind the troubles.able to gain some power of her own – for good, or for very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409506347</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Elen Caldecott024162343X|title=How Ali Ferguson Saved HoudiniStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=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 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Elen Caldecott has done it again! Hard to believe Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's managed another book as amusing and insightful as [[How Kirsty Jenkins Stole the Elephant being told that by Elen Caldecott|How Kirsty Jenkins Stole her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the Elephant]]world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but here it is! Ali Ferguson has the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and all that powers the Internet, just moved into a new flat with his mumfor our convenience's sake). He loves her very much Trixie, but he also misses his dadluckily, who left them two years before. He desperately hopes his dad will come back to them one day realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from his travels in Asia: his mum is sure that will never happenus. But Ali is a cheerful boy with a positive outlook on life And so she begins her epic quest, and he sees moving to their new home as an adventure. And gather all the people that can steal it isn't long before he finds himself back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in a realstealing from the Gods, ie the semi-life mysterydeities, every bit as engrossing giants, half-gods and dangerous so on known as the ones he loves to imaginetricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880574X</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Monica DickensHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=FollyfootFinding Bear|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Follyfoot Farm is the home of the Colonel[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, his wife and her daughter Callie finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – along with that she called Bear. Back home, things on the stable hands domestic and rather family front are a lot of unwantedbit advanced, but not perfect for her, neglected or elderly horsesand so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. Some people paid for their horses to retire there but that was unusual and everyone lead For a handbear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to-mouth existence make sure he's OK, she and her father return to give the horses the best life possible. Not everyone feels the same way about the horses though – or about the people who live Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and work at the farm dangerous thing – and along with looking after that the horses the stable hands have to find out what's going on and whyfriendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849391300</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frank EnglishSimon Fox|title=Magic Parcel: The AwakeningDeadlock|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jimmy Scoggins Late one night Graham Blake is an ordinary boy of ninelate back from his shift on the force, who lives with his mother and his brother. He loves to visit his uncle Reubenthen suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, believing and join him on the old man must have special powers because he always knows exactly what type of ice cream Jimmy would like to eat that dayrun. Reuben tells Jimmy thrilling tales They get together, and at but barely begin to smell the beginning whiff of this book actually sends his nephew into another worldSouthern trains when the father is arrested, called Omnia, for an adventure. Jimmy is not leaving Archie on the first boy late express to go Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to there: keep away from his brother Tommy used to go too, but now he is thirteen he has stopped, feeling it is all rather babyish. But something has gone wrong this time: Jimmy does not returncolleagues, and Tommy has to cross the barrier between worlds to find himbearer of a whole heap of questions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956236855</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shannon HaleCath Howe|title=Forest BornMy Life on Fire|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Rinna Ren's family home is the youngest of seven children, and the only girl. As a child she lives an idyllic existence destroyed in the forest with her beloved Ma and a hugefire. She, loving family. But Rinna has gifts which she does not understandher parents, and which frighten her because she senses in herself a terrible potential for evillittle brother lose everything. She loves doesn't have any of her home deeplyclothes, but when the trees which once made or any of her feel so peaceful appear to reject special little knick-knacks from hercupboard, and now she is confused and unhappy living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to such school she discovers that the class are doing a degree special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that she decides are important to leave the forest them and join her favourite brother Razo at court show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in the city. This leads her into a cracking adventure full of magicbox, betrayal and terrifying perilso she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408808617</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul DowswellRob Keeley|title=The Cabinet of CuriositiesBoy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Lukas Declercq begins work as an apprentice to his uncle, Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a court physician return to the Holy Roman Emperor in Pragueshort story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, it's only after an absolutely hair-raising journey. Robbed at knifepoint and left naked and penniless, he fell in with a much more streetwise child, Etienne, who helped him blag each as fun to read as his way across the countryprevious offerings. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800462</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sally GrindleyLaura Noakes|title=Bitter ChocolateCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Pascal and Kojo are best Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends in a place where friendship is scarce. The boys work on a cocoa plantation practice in the home she lives in West Africa, far from their families. It's brutal work overseen is for the girls to just be named by brutal men and the boys labour from dawn 'til dusk, rewarded by beatings, a wooden pallet number they correspond to sleep onin the ledger, and a bowl of corn paste. Theythey're always hungry and tiredall Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. Kojo tries But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to keep up his spiritsbe known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, looking forward and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the day he can take his wages home and make kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a difference devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his familyInstitute. But Pascal isn't so optimistic. He knows they'll never be paidwhy, and he suspects they'll never be allowed what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to leave. He's probably right. the past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>074759502X</amazonuk>0008579059
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gareth P JonesAlice M Ross|title=The Space Crime ConspiracyNowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ThirteenAt last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-year-old Stanley Bound is an ordinary boy from south London who lives above full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a pub with his bad-tempered half-brother Dougseaside town. He is bullied at school, and the situation only gets worse when he discovers that the popular new boy Lance Elsbeth knows this because she has been both lying and stealingstolen it. Lance gets his revenge by framing Stanley She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, and now no one trusts himbecause she has the ability to leave this world, even his grumpy brother. Little wonder, then, that our sad and lonely hero dreams use an unworldly portal of travelling to distant places kaleidoscope colours to escape his miserable life. But as we all knowenter other worlds, that is a dangerous desire: Stanley should have remembered that people who get what they wish where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for often regret itplunder. By With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the end of shop? Well yes, is the book he has travelled answer, but the universe, been accused of murder, and met fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more bizarre characters than even his wildest dreams could have created.questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747599815</amazonuk>1839943769
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jessie LittleNatasha Farrant|title=The Hoozles: My Magical TeddyRescue of Ravenwood|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Willow This story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and her brother Freddie Raffy have gone to stay in Summertown with been living for most of their Aunt Suzy whilst their parents are away for the summerlives. Aunt Suzy owns They are part of a toy shop in towncomplex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and she makes her own special Hoozle soft toysthey are living together as a family. Willow and Freddie each They have a Hoozle grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of their own that their Aunt made for them - Willow has Toby the teddy bear nature around the house and Freddie has Wobbly loving every inch of the Lionplace. Willow loves Toby dearlyBut now the house is under threat, but it isn't until she as Leo is staying with her aunt that she discovers that Toby can come under pressure from his other two brothers to life and talk sell the property to her a developer as it's becoming more and she can talk more expensive to him! maintain. And so begins a summer full of magical adventures for Willow The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, and the Hoozlesif Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571247911</amazonuk>0571348785
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jamie RixRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Secret Beast Club: The Incredible Luck Unicorns of Alfie PluckSilver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Poor Alfie PluckJayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. He lives with his two aunts who Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are grotesquely disgustingnever 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and who call him their Household Drudgewith a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. They reminded me For many of some of Roald Dahlthose mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's most appalling creationsseen on a bit of local footage. Compared to Alfie's auntsThe crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, Harry Potter's Dursley relatives are warm tasked with saving the rare critters – and friendlythe kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Alfie is decidedly down Dare they side with Leila, the woman on luck.board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444001019</amazonuk>0241573483
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna DaleB09XWSXSKY|title=Magical MischiefMaestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Mr Hardbattle runs a dusty old bookshop where magic has moved inFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. Its smell puts customers off and it regularly causes chaos such as A tune, rather like the books rearranging themselves ticking of their own accord. But this bookseller is a nice man who doesn’t want to disturb the magic too much by getting out the vacuum cleaner, clock was playing over and on the whole they get used over in his mind. It happened every time he came to each othervisit his grandfather. Now though He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he is facing a huge rent increase. Enter two customers, young Arthur 's ten now and Miss Quint, who agree all those old clocks don't appeal to help him find a nice new home for the magic, and to help look after the shop while Mr Hardbattle travels to visit some people who have answered an advert offering the magic a new homeanymore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408800438</amazonuk>}}
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=This heart-warming book tells the wonderful true story of a cat called DeweyCooper loves to perform magic tricks. His beginnings were very humble and his life could quite probably have been quite short if it had not been for father was a fortuitous event that occurred one cold winter morning. Vicki Myronmagician, and named Cooper after the chief librarian at Spencer Library in Iowa, heard some very strange noises coming from the book drop box that borrowers used in order to return their books when the library was closedgreat Tommy Cooper. On opening the box she discovered a small But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, dirty, shivering kitten and her heart melted. As a consequence, the kittennow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, which was soon or how to be named Dewey. And when his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, was adopted and became the official library cat. he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847388442</amazonuk>1444960261
}}