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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]==Confident readers==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michelle LovricMax Boucherat|title=The Mourning EmporiumLast Life of Lori Mills|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Two years ago We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in 1898, Teodorababysitter poorly, the Undrowned Child of prophecymother at work, saved Venice from its resurrected traitorjust an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, Bajamonte Tiepoloon her lonesome. Since then What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and her partner-in-prophecy Lorenzothat is to log on to Voxminer, the Studious Sonworld-building, have led critter-collecting game that is a fairly uneventful existencehit in Lori's world. But nowfirst Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, Venice is in peril once and then she finds something even morespooky. Ice creeps through its lagoon, vampire eels encased menacingly within it, For the server she and her bestie and black cormorants have returned nobody else should be able to spy enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on the city in their great, black clouds. Teodora knows baddened magic when she sees ither phone screen, and her heart sinks at safe place in the awful realisation - il Traditore game has been doctored – well, where is back... a girl to turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842557017</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthony BrowneKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=Play The Shape GameDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=You might have already played the shape gameMeet Kit. It involves doing a squiggle on a piece Like most of paperthe people in his world, then either you or someone else has to turn that squiggle into a full picture. Anthony Browne played it lots when seems, he was littleis an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and now he's playing it race to the exit, perhaps bothering with 45 celebrities and you. Proceeds from the book treasure or the big bad and the auction of points they grant you along the artwork are going to [http://wwwway.rainbowtrust.org.uk The Rainbow Trust Children Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's Charity]seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, who provide emotional and practical support a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to families who have the goading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a child with a life threatening or terminal illness. A fantastic causeteam. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406331317</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine McCaughreanJames Sherwood Metts|title=Stop the TrainPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Cissy and her family Things have come to set up been a grocery store in the brand new town of Florence, Oklahoma, near bit sticky for the railroadEarthlings. She quickly makes friends with a very chattyAI and automation have been proceeding apace, kind boy called Kookie, short for Habbakuk. Other people come often replacing jobs they're paid to stake their claim on plots of land, do and open up businessesother tasks that took time to accomplish. It is Just as they were beginning to get used to all very exciting but the settlers this technological change and starting to think of this other, new town soon discover they have a serious problem. The railroad company wanted the land the town is being built on, and when everyone turns down the cash they are offered ways to give up their claimsspend time, the railroad boss announces his trains will not stop in Florencealong came an awful pandemic. The railroad is the reason for the town's existenceLife was pretty much shut down and, and without along with it Florence will collapse before it is properly started, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192718819</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine McCaughreanTom Percival|title=Pull Out All The Stops!Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A diphtheria epidemic Will's life is difficult, in town and has already claimed several victims including pupils at schoola multitude of ways. The school He is closed bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and all doesn't have enough money for even the remaining children sent out most basic of town to stay with relatives things like food, and friends until his dad can't work because he lost his job at the danger is overcollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Cissy Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and two of her classmates dad are sent away to stay with their former teacherseparated, Miss Loucienand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, now part he still has a tiny amount of a touring theatre company with her new actor husbandhope. Their new teacher He is good at art, Miss May Marchand clings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, comes along as that feel like a chaperone on light at the train journeyend of a long, motivated by a sense of duty and concern for her charges' welfaredark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192789953</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1805141872
|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much
|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...''
Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anne-Marie ConwayChristopher Edge|title=Phoebe Finds Her Voice (Star Makers Black Hole Cinema Club)
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a sweet story in which Anne-Marie Conway makes good use place that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the current obsession with all-singingmovie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, all-dancing showsand they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Her lead character, PhoebeBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is painfully shy. going on? She never used Will they ever get back to be thoughthe cinema, and always loved singing to their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Adam Stower|title=Murray and dancing before, but since she moved up Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to the big schoolbe a humble, tidy and things started friendly cat, one who is able to go wrong at homesleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, she has lost her confidencewhatever takes his fancy next of the two. Against all her inner fears she somehow ends up joining But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the local drama clubregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whilst she tries whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to find ways be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to deal with her crippling stage fright she also begins fighting to get her parents back together again.do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409516512</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nick GreenAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Cat KinGlorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A group of misfit children find themselves Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the local sports centre having arrived to take various different classes but find they're all part of dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a group being run by generation missing in the strange Mrs Powell who teaches them about Pashkifamily. Pashki shows them how to 'find their inner catA few short years ago, Eli' as it s parents were (I know - bear with me, it does get better!) and utilise their new skills both lost to move quietlythe titular race, stealthily and even supera globe-humanly across fences, tree branches, skipping from pole trotting adventure where all entrants have to pole and even from one bus rooftop to another navigate the world in an exciting chase sequencethe company of a magical beast. Ben and Tiffany both have their own sets of troubles This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at homethe eatery leads to a confession from gran, and so Pashki becomes an escape for them both. HoweverEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, they soon find their new skills get them into more trouble than they could ever have imaginedwith the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905537166</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tony Bradman and Tony RossHelen Cooper|title=The Orchard Book Taming of Swords, Sorcerers and Superheroesthe Cat|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jason and Once again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the Argonautsmouse, King Arthurup against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, Aladdinthey live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, William TellBrie is shunned, Herculesscorned and, Sinbadif you must, St Georgemous-tracised, Ali Baba, Theseus and Robin Hoodfor the way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. If you love myths and legends as much They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as [[Top Ten Retellings of Myths, Legends art and Fairy Tales|we do]] then those ten heroes makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will have got your juices flowingcome in handy one night, when he feels all alone and youcast out. It'll be desperate s almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to dive keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to this collection of adventureshalf-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. It's fantastic. You'll love But will the story have the successful sequel it!needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408309211</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If thereRoo's one thing that we've learnt from the previous five Grubtown Tales, it's that Jilly Cheeter and Mango Claptrap are never separated. Whatever extraordinary circumstance of life turns up, they'll always work togetherhas become almost impossibly difficult. So why is MangoHer mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in his shortest the middle of short trousers as usual, sat the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on top of his way to the corner shop to buy a floating mayorlottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, in shark-infested seasshe can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and why is Jilly only taking so off she goes to live with her poorly dog unreliable aunt. Things continue to the vetget worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's? old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! And what sort of help can we expect from a back story involving some liberated lab rats?Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571253490</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael Rosen|title=Michael Rosen's Big Book of Bad Things|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse|summary=When he was little, Michael Rosen's dad remembered all the bad things he'd done Adam Baron and reminded him of them when appropriate, so Michael imagined he'd written them all down in a Big Book of Bad Things. Here he presents the eponymous poem, as well as many many other tales of childhood, from the horrors of being a second late 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141324511</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Simon PackhamBenji Davies|title=comin 2 gt u|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=Sam Tennant is reasonably happy at school, generally gets on alright with people, and doesn't have much to worry about – until heOscar'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 Smelcer|title=The Edge of NowhereLion|rating=43
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Could you survive in the wilds of Alaska if you were washed overboard from a fishing boat during a storm and somehowWe start incredibly bluntly, amazinglywith Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, managed to make it to dry land? This but mother is the challenge facing Seth and more likely – read him his loyal dog, Tuckervery favourite book a couple of times before he has to be ready for school. They are out on SethBut when he enters his parents's father's fishing boat during bedroom, all he sees is a terrible storm mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and neither Sethadmitting that he won's dad or his friend realise that the boy and dog have been washed overboard until they reach home and t be hungry for another two days. But there are found benefits to having a lion around – it can be missing from shown as an unspoken threat to the boat. A search bully that ruined a birthday party is sent out, but Seth is assumed drownedfor Oscar the other month. LuckilyAnd it can shapeshift, Seth so he can take it to school and his dog manage to it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to one of have around the tiny islands that run along house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the coast of Alaskarules, and after realising that no one is coming to help them they slowly make their way hundreds of miles over many monthsso on. Will they starve to deathOK, or freeze, or be eaten by bears before they manage to make it home?can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849391963</amazonuk>0008596751
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Teresa FlavinJudith Eagle|title=The Blackhope Enigma|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 UnderStolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If youCaro'd ever wondered where speed and agilitys mother, and a huge appetite for going where he shouldn't world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and eating what he oughtn't can get a dogis now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, you only have is having to turn go up North to this book for evidencetake care of her sister who is unwell. I won't let on how a tiny dog manages So who is going to get himself look after Caro? Sent to Australia unaidedstay with Gam, but he does - leaving his human owners back in Englandsomeone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and young Tim Malt especially desperate for his returnworried. All 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 house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, 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 dog called Grk is about to find out how dangerous Snakes are thieving artworks and nasty Australians can be..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>1842709313</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julia JarmanTania Unsworth|title=The Time-travelling Cat and the Great Victorian StinkNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Consider catsMeet Gil. Normally they like Just twelve, he is so determined to leave you things like poop, and dead animals, generally in escape the middle of care system – the kitchen floor. Topher's cat leaves himself system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a stone statue version of home for himself when he decides to time travel to some past time of history. I know - odd. I can also introduce you He is en route to a very different Topheryet another fosterer, one just escaped from the workhouse in Victorian London - if only when he could escape the stench of the open sewers in Londonjumps into an anonymous car, and the hunger in lets it ride him to his stomach just as easilyfuture. Well, I could - That future seems to be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but actually they are the same person, just that someone lives with his brother in a completely different mind. When our Topher travels through time as well - camp on an island between the back two directions of a bird - he finds himself in the person of the secondmotorway, historical lada place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Will that homework project about Victorian history be enough to help him outThem, and perhaps prevent a nasty crime mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or two?if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849390193</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Candy GourlayHelen Peters|title=Tall StoryFriends and Traitors|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Andi is a England, WW2. Two young teenager in girls are new at the UKcountry pile called Stanbrook. She's not very tallOne is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, but she is brilliant at basketballlike the female generations before her. And she The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has finally been chosen to play for her school team. Bernardo is an extremely tall teenager in the Philippinesremoved there away from bomber flight-paths. He lives with his aunt The girls are chalk and unclecheese, and keeps on growingif we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. He But something is surrounded by superstitionamiss, since his name is and first separately and then in combination they realise the same as that of Lord Evesham must be a legendary giant who supposedly protected his village during a major earthquakerum 'un. Oddly enoughMidnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, there have and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been any earthquakes for some years... ever since Bernardo had his first dramatic growth spurtattacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385618948</amazonuk>1788004647
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Pippa FunnellJamie Littler|title=Tilly's Pony Tails: Neptune the Heroic HorseArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tilly has recently been reunited with her brother – they know nothing of their birth mother Two sisters, Juniper and were adopted by different families – and she's just been invited Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to go on holiday to Cornwall with him be chalk and his familycheese. It will mean leaving the horses Juniper is an eager hunter and ponies at trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the local stables but she's sure that they'll all manage without her for a weekBadlands. Once Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in Cornwall she's delighted line to inherit the power of the Watcher, the closest to find that there's a riding stable nearby ruler the district has, and she soon makes friends, particularly with a horse called Neptuneone of the five major victors in said earlier war. She also meets a girl called Megan who loves swimming, but Being trained in the magic that only five people can't understand why Megan is frightened use would definitely change the status of horses and doesn't want the whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to learn to ridegain some power of her own – for good, or for very, despite the encouragement she gets from her parents.very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444000829</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=024162343X|title=Stolen History|author=Ceci JenkinsonSathnam Sanghera|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|titlesummary=Doctor Doom: Oli 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 Skipjackoccasional 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 Tales of Trouble''Stolen History''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Thiago de Moraes|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ElevenMeet 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 being told that by her one-yearlast-old Skipjack is in serious trouble: his team lost a cricket match because he fell asleepchance-giving headteacher, and now Slugger Stubbins is after himthe world changes. Slugger has two things in mind: to bash Skipjack Suddenly, and to squeeze practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out , even of him electric cars, hits not just the ten pounds he lost betting on town the school's in but the match. Skipjackentire planet (apart from mobile phones, thereforeand all that powers the Internet, spends a large part of this wonderfully silly book hiding from his nemesis using a variety of fancy dress costumes from his friend Doctor Hamish Levityjust for our convenience's shopsake). Oli Trixie, on the other handluckily, realises what has weightier matters to deal with: he has discovered an International Criminal Mastermindhappened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And because he has always dreamed of being a secret agentso she begins her epic quest, this promises to be gather all the perfect opportunity to try out people that can steal it back – namely the practical tips on espionage contained characters from myth that have past form in ''The Good Spy's Handbook''stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, giants, which he has recently been givenhalf-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571249701</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephanie BurgisHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=A Most Improper MagickFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[The very first sentence of this charming Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and funny book sets the tonefinding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Twelve-year-old Kat is setting off Back home, dressed as things on the domestic and family front are a boybit advanced, to earn but not perfect for her fortune, pay back her brotherand so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's gambling debtsOK, she and save her two sisters from having to marry rich old men. Fortunately for Kat, she is stopped before she gets father return to the end Arctic and hope that in a world of the front garden. All the trappings of Regency romance are here: fainting heroines, evil stepmothers, handsome young men with no prospectsvery white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and even a highwayman. But in this, that the first book of a trilogy, there is something extra: Kat's late mother was a witchfriendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848770073</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=There's a land under threat Late one night Graham Blake is late back from an evil man leading a well-drilledhis shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, lethal army. And there's demanding he fetch something from a boysecret place, and his companionjoin him on the run. They get together, and his destiny is but barely begin to save smell the land from whiff of Southern trains when the evil manfather is arrested, who will only get more evil if he gets what he wantsleaving Archie on the late express to Brighton, which is currently in four pieces. If this sounds like toting a well-worn template, don't blame me. [[:Category:Adam Blade|Adam Blade]] writes as if by committeetin his father was determined to keep away from his colleagues, and that's because he is one - it's a pseudonym for the bearer of a cabal of pre-teen fantasy churners. But enough of him - we should be talking whole heap of Tanner, the lad in this bookquestions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408307472</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Margaret MahyCath Howe|title=Organ MusicMy Life on Fire|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=David and Harley are out later than they should beRen's family home is destroyed in a fire. David is getting anxious: he knows his mother will be worrying already She, her parents, and heher little brother lose everything. She doesn's not the type to break rules t have any of her clothes, or get into trouble any of any kind. But Harleyher special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's feeling rebellious; hehouse where they can's having t touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a tough time at home at the momentspecial art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and he's up for pushing at some boundariesshow who they are as a person. So they wander along Forbes Street, But Ren has nothing to put in a down-at-heel area of townbox, looking for a bit of adventureand so she finds herself starting to steal things. And surely enough Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they find it in a car left with its keys temptingly in the ignitionhave so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1877467472</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellRob Keeley|title=Dork Diaries: Party Time|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=This is the second in the series of [[Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney|'Wimpy Kid' for girls]] books, full as usual of comic cutaways to cartoon strips, illustrations, OMGs, BTWs, BFFs, smileys and over-used exclamation marks!!!!! It's October, and Nikki is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The place is the school's Halloween Ball, ideally with Brandon, the crush of her life for this term at middle school. The rock is as usual the evil Mackenzie, the Cruella de Vil of snobbish, bullyish school bitches. Can Nikki resolve her dilemma - just for the fortnight this diary spans, and get her beau to the ball - especially when she double-books herself?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184738742X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Garlick and Nick Maland|title=Aunt Severe Boy Who Disappeared and the DragonsOther Stories
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Daniel Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a little boy whose parents have gone away exploring. They telephone him every day, but then one day return to the phone calls stop and so Daniel has short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to go eleven new tales, each as fun to live with his Aunt Severe. She takes read as his toys away, feeds him spinach sandwiches, wakes him every day at four-thirty and gets him helping with her rather strange rubbish-collecting activities. Things get more interesting for Daniel when he discovers four little lost dragons hiding in Aunt Severe's garden. He tries to help them, but before he can do anything three of the dragons are captured and locked up in a zooprevious offerings. Daniel is left to rescue them with only the fourth dragon, Dud's, help and, as you can imagine, he's called 'Dud' for a reason!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184939055X</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Garen EwingLaura Noakes|title=The Rainbow Orchid: Adventures of Julius Chancer 2Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Oh Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be popular - and named by the rainbow orchid certainly is. If, number they correspond to in factthe ledger, it exists at and they're allUnfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. A collecting challenge for rare plants might hinge on its recoveryBut Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, imperial British explorers would like to know as the truth about it - first ever inmate, and its presence on some mysterious ancient carved tablets hints at some mystical part it may once have played unique in having no known family in a superweaponthe outside world. HenceDuring a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, where this book starts, everyone - from she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a film starlet, devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to a dashing explorer's assistant, want to a plucky aviatoradopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, to and what does that body entail? an evil henchwoman of an overweight industrialist - is after And could it.possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140525047X</amazonuk>0008579059
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Laura has been At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in foster care since she was born, but Social Services have recently discovered that a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has an unclestolen it. So, at the beginning of this adventure mystery She also knows she finds herself moving to a house by the beach in Cornwall to live with Calvin Redfernshould be free from worries about being found out, a man because she has never met before. Laura's experiences have taught her the ability to question everythingleave this world, to be independent and to stand on her own two feet, so having use an uncle who trusts her unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to be sensibleenter other worlds, rather than lay down a list where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of rules, seems ideal. But Uncle Calvin humans and his house are shrouded in secretsripe for plunder. Why does he work such strange hours? Where does he go late With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at nightthe shop? And why are there no signs of his past in Well yes, is the answer, but the house?fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444000209</amazonuk>1839943769
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue MongredienNatasha Farrant|title=Penguin Peril (The Secret Mermaid)|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 and needing help. There's a secret between Molly and her Gran though: Gran used to be a secret mermaid and now Molly is too. During the day Molly is an ordinary schoolgirl, but at night with the help Rescue of her magical shell necklace she becomes a mermaid and returns to the deeps to help the other mermaids when there's a problem. This tim it's the penguins who have mysteriously disappeared from the icy seas and the mermaids are concerned that the Dark Queen might be behind the troubles.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1409506347</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Elen Caldecott|title=How Ali Ferguson Saved HoudiniRavenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Elen Caldecott has done it again! Hard to believe sheThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''s managed another book as amusing . Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and insightful Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as [[How Kirsty Jenkins Stole the Elephant by Elen Caldecott|How Kirsty Jenkins Stole the Elephant]]Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, but here it and Raffy is! Ali Ferguson has just moved into a new flat there with his mum, and they are living together as a family. He loves her very much They have grown up swimming in the cove, but he also misses his dadroaming through the trees, who left them two years before. He desperately hopes his dad will come back to them completely at one day from his travels in Asia: his mum is sure that will never happenwith all of the nature around the house and loving every inch of the place. But Ali now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a cheerful boy with a positive outlook on life, developer as it's becoming more and he sees moving more expensive to their new home as an adventuremaintain. And it isn The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they't long before he finds himself in a real-life mysteryll even be together, every bit as engrossing and dangerous as the ones he loves to imagineif Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>140880574X</amazonuk>0571348785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Monica DickensRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=FollyfootSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Follyfoot Farm Jayden's nose is the home of the Colonelforever in a book, his wife and her daughter Callie which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – along with the stable hands phoenixes and rather a lot unicorns of unwantedthe world, neglected or elderly horsesfor example. Some people paid for their horses Aisha is addicted to retire her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there but . The problem, as their mothers see it, is that was unusual they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and everyone lead with a hand-to-mouth existence to give past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the horses the best life possibleone Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local footage. Not everyone feels The crew of the same way about boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the horses though rare critters – or about and the people who live and work at kids unknowingly have the farm – and along magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with looking after Leila, the horses the stable hands have to find out what's going woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and why.become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849391300</amazonuk>0241573483
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Frank EnglishB09XWSXSKY|title=Magic Parcel: The Awakening|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Jimmy Scoggins is an ordinary boy of nine, who lives with his mother and his brother. He loves to visit his uncle Reuben, believing the old man must have special powers because he always knows exactly what type of ice cream Jimmy would like to eat that day. Reuben tells Jimmy thrilling tales, and at the beginning of this book actually sends his nephew into another world, called Omnia, for an adventure. Jimmy is not the first boy to go to there: 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 return, Maestro Orpheus and Tommy has to cross the barrier between worlds to find him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956236855</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWorld Clock|author=Shannon Hale|title=Forest BornRobert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Rinna is the youngest of seven childrenFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, and the only girlplease) couldn't sleep. As a child she lives an idyllic existence in A tune, rather like the forest with her beloved Ma and ticking of a huge, loving family. But Rinna has gifts which she does not understand, clock was playing over and which frighten her because she senses over in herself a terrible potential for evilhis mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. She loves her home deeply, but when the trees which once made her feel so peaceful appear He hadn't really wanted to reject hercome; after all, she is confused he's ten now and unhappy to such a degree that she decides all those old clocks don't appeal to leave the forest and join her favourite brother Razo at court in the city. This leads her into a cracking adventure full of magic, betrayal and terrifying perilhim anymore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408808617</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gareth P JonesNigel Baines|title=The Space Crime ConspiracyA Tricky Kind of Magic
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=Thirteen-year-old Stanley Bound is an ordinary boy from south London who lives above Cooper loves to perform magic tricks. His father was a pub with his bad-tempered half-brother Doug. He is bullied at schoolmagician, and named Cooper after the situation only gets worse when he discovers that the popular new boy Lance has been both lying and stealinggreat Tommy Cooper. Lance gets his revenge by framing Stanley But sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, and now no one trusts himCooper doesn't quite know who to be, even or how to be. And when his grumpy brother. Little wonderdad's prop rabbit starts talking to him, then, that our sad and lonely hero dreams of travelling to distant places to escape his miserable life. But as we all he ''really'' doesn't know, that is a dangerous desire: Stanley should have remembered that people who get what they wish for often regret it. By the end of the book he has travelled the universe, been accused of murder, and met more bizarre characters than even his wildest dreams could have created.'s going on anymore!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747599815</amazonuk>1444960261
}}
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