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[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]==Confident readers==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Adele Geras, Anne Fine, Henrietta Branford, Jacqueline Wilson, Malorie Blackman, Philip Pullman, Tony Mitton, Alan Garner, Berlie Doherty, Gillian Cross, Kit Wright, Michael Morpurgo, Susan Gates and Linda Newbery |title=Magic Beans|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=I was attracted to this book because it features stories from [[:Category:Jacqueline Wilson|Jacqueline Wilson]], [[:Category:Philip Pullman|Philip Pullman]], [[:Category:Michael Morpurgo|Michael Morpurgo]], [[:Category:Alan Garner|Alan Garner]] and many other prominent children's writers. I thought it might make a great Christmas or birthday present (and it would). There's a selection of stories from traditional sources such as Hans Christian Andersen, and Aesop, and I imagine that the authors were inveigled into writing for publisher David Fickling with a free choice of original stories. So don't expect a collection or compendium, but rather an anthology of tales that have entranced and inspired these writers in their own childhoods – magic beans indeed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857560433</amazonuk!-- Remove -->}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steve BackshallMax Boucherat|title=PredatorsThe Last Life of Lori Mills|rating=4|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Many readers would probably know that on the simple count of humans they helped to dispatch, mosquitoes may be the most deadly animals ever. But did you know that if you take into account the success rate of hunts, diversity and spread, ladybirds are more successful predators than tigers? |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444004174</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicola Pierce|title=Spirit of the Titanic|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Samuel Joseph Scott was fifteen years old when he landed a job in We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the Belfast shipyards. But when Sam plunges house to herself – no neighbour to his death while working on construction of the magnificent Titanicpop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, he doesn't leave her behind. Sam becomes a spirit on boardjust an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, realising his dream of sailing away with his beloved Titanic on her firstlonesome... and What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, of course final voyage. Sam roams freely throughout the shipshe has one main intention, from the luxurious first class all the way down and that is to the engine room. He observes the lives of the people log on board, become privy to their hopesVoxminer, dreams and fears. Sam takes particular interest in one thirdthe world-class familybuilding, Jim, Isobel and their children, as they sail away to their new and better life critter-collecting game that is a hit in AmericaLori's world. But when disaster threatens the lives of all first Lori has a tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on boardher own, can Sam find a way to lead and then she finds something even more spooky. For the family server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to safety? And what will become enter shows signs of Sam as tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the Titanic sinks game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to the ocean's bedturn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847171907</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Garrett CarrKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=Deep Deep DownDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ewan can see monsters, wherever he isMeet Kit. That's not because he has any special abilities - unlike Like most of the people in his friend Mayworld, it seems, who can telepathically talk to he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the animalssport where a team of warrior, or Andrewmage and healer enter specially prepared, who starts this book a subcentury-humanold, magical mazes, with a Hellboy-type mutated and very mighty armrace to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and demons writhing inside him sending him berserkthe points they grant you along the way. NoUnfortunately for Kit, Ewan can see monsters everywhere the only thing he looks because life 's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is like that - especially adults. So when May decides one team has been retired, eaten, and a fabled pool new trio of magical water questors is what can cure Andrewneeded. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, they go and find an idyllic place he has taken to the goading from the token bully of long life, peace his world and Utopiastumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. And still Ewan can see monsters. But which side is of more danger What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to the othersucceed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847386008</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cat ClarkeJames Sherwood Metts|title=TornPlanet Storyland|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=A week in the Scottish Wilderness doesn't exactly sound fun, not to Alice King, but that's what she's about to embark on. Her and her classmates are off on an activity holiday together – walking, climbing, caving. Alice is fortunately put in a cabin with her best friend Cass, so things can't be too bad. But, then Tara Chambers, the popular girl, gets put in their cabin too - things definitely just got worse. Tara, though beautiful is powerful, mean and likes nothing more than putting people down.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857382055</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mary Norton|title=The Borrowers: The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most people will be aware of the story of Things have been a bit sticky for the BorrowersEarthlings. First published in 1952, it has AI and automation have been dramatised several timesproceeding apace, most recently often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as Arriettythey were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, the beautiful Studio Ghibli animated film. A little girl called Kate is told a story by along came an elderly lady, Mrs May, who lodges with her parentsawful pandemic. Her brother Life was sent as a small boy to stay pretty much shut down and, along with an elderly great-aunt in a large house near Leighton Buzzardit, a market town in the Home Counties. He is recovering from a serious illness. The house is an ideal place for all the Clock family, tiny people who survive by 'borrowing' from humans (even their names - Pod, Homily and Arrietty - sound as though many daily social interactions on which they're repurposed from human names. However, the boy spots Arrietty, and this leads to disaster for the Borrowersdepend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444005812</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cathy MacPhailTom Percival|title=Out of the DepthsThe Wrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It must be cool to have some superpowerWill's life is difficult, right? Be able to flyin a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', or hold your breath for an hour underwater, or see dead people? Hmm . . . not so much. Tyler isnhe has the wrong shoes because his dad can't at all impressed when she suddenly starts to see people who really shouldnwork and doesn't be therehave enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and neither are her classmates. In fact, they think shehis dad can's either lying to get attentiont work because he lost his job at the college, or she's insane. And Tyler is beginning to wonder if they're right.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747599092</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Barnardo|title=Dragonolia|rating=4|genre=Children's Nonwas working a cash-in-Fiction|summary=This book is, first of all, hand job on a rather beautiful book to beholdbuilding site and had an accident. The red cloth hardback cover with Throw into that mix the curled-up golden dragon on the front immediately make you want to pick it up fact that his mum and dad are separated, and look inside! ItWill's also a rather unusual booklife seems bleak in every direction. And yet, being he still has a mix tiny amount of both fiction and non-fiction, so when you begin it you're initially not quite sure what you're looking athope. As you read on you discover that there's a story running throughout by Sir Richard Barons, a famous dragon hunterHe is good at art, and with each story clings to the moments of joy when he tells there is also drawing, that feel like a craft project light at the end of something related to make!a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1904967248</amazonuk>1398527122
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joan Aiken and Jan Pienkowski1805141872|title=The Kingdom Under the SeaTeacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I do like ''Seventeen banks and a good collection of fairytalesjeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, and by that I mean but only Ben knows the rather more menacingtruth – his Maths teacher, edgy versionsMiss Judson, rather than the sanitised re-tellings that we often see. Here Joan Aiken is retelling some European fairytales really a safecracker! With police and they are full of dragons her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and mermaids and goblins and witchesBen go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job... It's exactly the sort of more unusual collection of stories ' Goodness me, that would have kept me happy and quiet Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a dullbad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, rainy afternoon as the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a child and it famous magician who has the added attraction of many atmospheric ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and beautiful illustrations by Pienkowski. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857550098</amazonuk>who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian BeckChristopher Edge|title=The Haunting of Charity DelafieldBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Charity Delafield has grown up Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a very solitary way. Rattling around in Stone Green Hallmovie marathon at their local cinema, her father's ancestral home, she a place that has been isolated from the outside world by her strict and forbidding father because nickname of a "condition" she has apparently suffered from since birth'The Black Hole'. With only her governess All big movie fans, Rosethey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and her catmany, Mr Tompkinsmany snacks! However, for companyas the movie starts, Charity they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is a lonely childvery different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. 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 to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370332105</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Melvin BurgessAdam Stower|title=The Cry of the WolfMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers|summary=hought Murray is supposed to have been extinct in Britain for centuriesbe a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, there are actually 70 English wolves left when Ben meets whatever takes his fancy next of the Huntertwo. Burning with mortification at being mocked for poor shooting skills But he's a bad magician's cat, Ben lets so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the carefully-guarded secret slip to this awfulcatflap they both use can chuck them out, vile man. And over not into the next three yearsregular back garden, the Hunter makes it his business to find but into a world of frightening adventure and kill these beautiful, rare creatureswhiffs. Eventually This time round it drops them into a Viking land, there where a troll hunter is only expected – well, one family left much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and Silver and Conna will do anything he'll have to protect their cub, the last of his kind... do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849393753</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Amy IgnatowAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Popularity PapersGlorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The RRP of this book Eli is a whole £4 more than busy lad – by day an apprentice in the average [[Dork Diaries wondrous library we start by Rachel Renee Russell|Dork Diary]]visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. What do you get Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for that extra outlay, and why do I even point this out? there is a generation missing in the family. WellA few short years ago, Eli's parents were both this series and that are designed as if they were created by lost to the titular race, a member globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the target audience - an American tweenage girl with pair – but when a lot bad incident at the eatery leads to say about herselfa confession from gran, her school life and how, once you've avoided your parents embarrassing youEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the popular girls at school being condescending and rude prize of magic at the best of times, everything in life will still work its damnedest end – the only thing to heap ignominy and embarrassment on youpossibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1419700634</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Antony WoottenHelen Cooper|title=A Tiger Too ManyThe Taming of the Cat
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=JillOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you's brotherre seeing a connection, Pete, was they live in a keeper at London Zoo cheese shop and when her mother was at work she would go therefore all the names used here seem to be the zoo with himnames of cheeses. She became very attached to an elderly tiger by Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the name of Ronny but other mice he lives with the outbreak of war tough decisions had to be made. What would happen if poisonous snakes escaped during a bombing raid? What about They nibble up paper wrapping from the elderly cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and dangerous animals? makes stories based on the visuals on it. Jill is heartAnd that story-broken telling will come in handy one night, when Ronny is shot but therehe feels all alone and cast out. It's consolation almost 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 form of a tiger cubmouse community, the runt of a litter rejected by his motherthough, who would need as all Jill's care if he the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was to survivedistracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0953712311</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sian PattendenLauren St John|title=The Peppers and the International Magic GuysFinding Wonder|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Esme Roo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and Monty are now she finds herself awoken in the Pepper twins, and whilst their hippie parents are away middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on holiday 'reconnecting with nature' his way to the twins are left with Uncle Potty corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who is a member she knows her dad didn't think very highly of the International Magic Guys club. Unfortunately the club is threatened But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with closureher unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and the more nervous Uncle Potty becomes about the clubJoni leave London in Joni's future old campervan, it breaks down in the more disastrous his tricks aremiddle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Will he ever be able to perform in the show that must save the club?Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007430019</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine McCaughreanAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=George and the Dragon and a World of Other StoriesOscar's Lion|rating=53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Some people may wonder if we really need yet another collection We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of stories: after times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, allhe sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, many of the tales in this book are already well-knownlooking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But that would there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to miss the pointbully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. What is distinctive about this book is the fact that And it is written by the multi-award-winning Geraldine McCaughreancan shapeshift, one so he can take it to school and it can get him out of our most skilful, respected and prolific authorsa problem. Each of And it's wonderful to have around the stories here is like a gem made of words: beautifully toldhouse – not limiting his biscuit intake, using description which ranges from the lyrical to being much more lax about the comicrules, and both parents and children will derive so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a huge amount of pleasure from themwonderful time. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444002384</amazonuk>0008596751
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jamie ThomsonJudith Eagle|title=Dark Lord: The Teenage YearsStolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What would you thinkCaro's mother, if you met a thirteenworld-year-old boy who turned famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up out North to take care of the blue and insistedher sister who is unwell. So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, loudly she feels frustrated and colourfully, that he was an evil demon confused and that he intended worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to smite you dead or submit you practise her gymnastics are brought to a thousand terrible torments? Or both? Yup – the kidhalt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's nuttier than house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a fruit cake. Got mystery, as she discovers a screw loose. Several sandwiches short painting of a picnic. And hebird hidden away inside her mum's clearly played way too many computer games in his short life. Soold suitcase, despite his threats and protestations, he's got to go into foster care until his real family is found: after all, he can't be left sitting in across London a car park forever, can hefearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And once you realise there is no sign of a relative anywhere, well, therewhat has happened to Caro's his education to consider.mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408315114</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris d'LaceyTania Unsworth|title=Fire WorldNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=David Rain Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is an impressionable, imaginative boy who can ''imagineer'' (so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that is, visualise objects are not homes – and make them solid)find a home for himself. He is a threat en route to the highly organised society of Co:pern:icayet another fosterer, when he jumps into an anonymous car, particularly and lets it ride him to his future. 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 an island between the terrifying Aunts who control society on behalf two directions of the Highera motorway, a place inaccessible and his parents are blamed definitely ignored enough to provide for their own faulty emotions, thoughts safety and abilitiesseclusion. Them, and punished. David is sent to the librarium, the repository for obsolete books, where he meets a mysterious mute girl called Rosaalso finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. She will play Over a partfew weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, along with the beautiful but threatening firebirds and unexpected members of David's own family, in discovering the secrets of the ancient tapestry of the librarium and confronting threatening forces from Co:pern:ica and beyond.or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408309599</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Francesca SimonHelen Peters|title=The Sleeping ArmyFriends and Traitors|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Francesca Simon was invited to write about anything she likedEngland, she decided to put the Lewis chessmen WW2. Two young girls are new at the centre of an adventurecountry pile called Stanbrook. They have long fascinated One is Nancy, destined to be in service all herlife it seems, and she has always wondered why they look so glum and worriedlike the female generations before her. Add to this the fact (which she admitted in The other is Sidney, a girl from a recent interview for the Guardian) hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if she were left alone we hadn'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 realise the British Museum she would want to touch everythingLord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, pick up everything and generally run amok (rather like not only that naughty Loki , a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the Trickstergirls are wrong, not to mention an equally horrid young boy called Henry . . .) and the seeds of her story were sown. upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846682789</amazonuk>1788004647
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Laura Owen and Korky PaulJamie Littler|title=The Misadventures of Winnie the WitchArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Have you met Winnie Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Witch yet? I do hope soBadlands. She's really quite bonkersElodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, often rather disgustingperhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the Watcher, and she the closest to a ruler the district has a fat, long-suffering cat called Wilburand one of the five major victors in said earlier war. She's a bit Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of a favourite the whole family. But in our housefinding something oddly magical, so we were eager Juniper might just be able to sit down and read gain some power of her newest stories together!own – for good, or for very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192732145</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Bond024162343X|title=The Tales of Olga Da PolgaStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Meet Olga, a proud, loveable and loving guinea pigI was the bad company other people got into at school. We see her first, as does a girl called Karen, living I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a pet shop with some friends'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, and it was probably worse still. Not too long after a cycle of short stories she will the end by living with friends of very different kinds. In between she has WWII, I didn't so much want to experience life with humans learn about the British army's successes (or sawdust peopleand occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) and survive scrapes in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the wilder worldfirst place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but still has time I regret that I lacked the maturity to explain where guinea pigsapproach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History'' tails went and how they got their squeak.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192731939</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan MeresThiago de Moraes|title=May Contain Nuts (The World of Norm)Old Gods New Tricks|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=NothingMeet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, but nothinglarks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, is Norm's faultshe could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. If he virtually sleepwalks into weeing in his parentBut just when she's wardrobe it's because they've downsized to a newbeing told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, smaller homethe world changes. If his best friend crashes NormSuddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's own bikein but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, it's his brotherand all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's faultsake). If his parents Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have had it up taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, to there with him gather all the people that can steal it's up to them to really state their mind and not be obtuse. When everything happens back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi- liesdeities, deceitgiants, unhappiness half-gods and dog poo so on known as the carpet - it's the world's fault for being so unfairtricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408313030</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jayne WoodhouseHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=And Rocky TooFinding Bear|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We [[The Stephensons' Rocket Last Bear by Jayne WoodhouseHannah Gold|first met RockyLast time]] when Anna's father, the feckless PeteApril had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, brought him and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home as , things on the latest in his many money-making schemes which inevitably cost 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 family dearislands Bear was last left on. This one was to have For a longerbear doing very Bear-lasting effect than most though – through his affection for Rockyy things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the retired racing greyhound, Pete realised Arctic and hope that he had to support his family and Anna's brother Darren made in a friend world of another boy. Even Wilfvery white and very dangerous things, the pensioner who lived next door found hidden talents she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and it looked as though that the family was set fair, right?friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0954925696</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon PackhamFox|title=The Bex FactorDeadlock|rating=34.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Reality TV, especially the kind of talent competition where the backstory of the contestants Late one night Graham Blake is as much a part of late back from his shift on the programme as their performance on stageforce, and then suddenly rings Archie, is demanding he fetch something from a part of most young people's livessecret place, and join him on the run. A whole culture has grown up which dangles big breaks They get together, lucrative contracts and happiness-ever-after but barely begin to those talented few who can sing or dance, or, better still, do both at once. Fourteen-year-old Bex dreams smell the whiff of singing her way to stardom via Southern trains when the latest TV showfather is arrested, called 'The Tingle Factor'. All she needs leaving Archie on the late express to do is persuade geeky Year Ten Matthew Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to accompany her on keep away from his colleagues, and the guitarbearer of a whole heap of questions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848121636</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=J R R TolkienCath Howe|title=Mr BlissMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you wanted to produce a classic of childrenRen's literature, it would probably look family home is destroyed in a lot like thisfire. It would be written by a famous name as a private exercise for their childrenShe, with the author's own illustrations. It would feature a title characterher parents, with a typical Edwardian headstrong attitude, yet with an ability to create slapstickand her little brother lose everything. It may well have fairytale characters as youShe doesn've never seen them before. And it would be presented in a deluxe, pristine heritage edition such as this.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000743619X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David Borgenicht|title=WCS Ultimate Adventure: Mars! (Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure)|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=How many endings do you prefer your books to t have? This claims 24, is the reason I ask. I can't be sure that the original Fighting Fantasy books any of old didn't have a lot moreher clothes, as well as the combat process, but in this style or any of chooseher special little knick-your-own-adventure franchiseknacks from her cupboard, two dozen isn't too bad and now she is living at all. Ither grandmother's a younger-styled decision-making read, for the under-thirteens, and follows Borgenichthouse where they can's seeming lifelong plan to get all sorts of survival infot touch anything, either vital or trivialdo anything, into as many books as possibleor even eat the foods they normally eat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>081187124X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sarah Gibb|title=Best-loved Classics: Rapunzel|rating=5|genre=For Sharing|summary=Educators When she goes back to school she discovers that the class aredoing a special art project, apparently, concerned at the moment at the number creating boxes of children starting school who don't know any of the old traditional fairy talestheir lives, so it's nice to see display things that are important to them and show who they are as a new version of Rapunzel that is based on the original story by The Brothers Grimmperson. This is But Ren has nothing to put in a lovely book to share box, and stays closer so she finds herself starting to the original story than Disney's 'Tangled' filmsteal things.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007364806</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joanna Nadin|title=Penny Dreadful is a Complete Catastrophe|rating=4|genre=For Sharing|summary=Penny is Small things, things that people might not really Penny Dreadful. She is Penny Jonesmiss, not when they have so much already. But when her encounters with a rat called Rooney, a cat called Barry and her cousin Georgia May, and what will happen to her testing of a patent burglar trap and digging for buried treasure all end in catastrophes, is it surprising that if someone finds out what she is known as a Disaster Magnetdoing? |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1409536076</amazonuk>1839942835
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angie SageRob Keeley|title=Septimus Heap: DarkeThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The seventh son of a seventh son has magical powers, as we all know. And Septimus Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is that son, although it took quite back with a time for him to find it out. Now he's apprenticed return to Extraordinary Wizard Marcia Overstrand, she of the short temper and fabulous shoesstory format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, and he's about each as fun to embark on a horrendously dangerous part of read as his training, called Darke Week. For this exercise he has chosen to rescue Alther, a ghost who was accidentally Banished (a lot of words start with capital letters in these books) by Marcia, but once again the baddies have other ideasprevious offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408806282</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean Clemens LoftusLaura Noakes|title=Ruby Rocksparkle: Her Wildly Incredible Adventure Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Ruby Rocksparkle and Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her thirteen - yes! thirteen! - siblings are all named after gemstonesfriends. Ruby's father is a peasant farmer The practice in the happy little kingdom of Felicitania. Felicitania home she lives in is ruled for the girls to just be named by the kingly King Flavian number they correspond to in the ledger, and his beautiful second wifethey're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, Queen Morganauncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. His son But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, Prince Alano, is busily preparing for as the day when he must rulefirst ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the time for him outside world. During a daring escapade to find steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a wife is fast approachingdevilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. Ruby But why, a vivid, read-headed beauty, dreams of marrying Prince Alano. If only he could ever marry a commoner - but even Ruby knows and what does that body entail? And could never be. it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1452059780</amazonuk>0008579059
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcus SedgwickAlice M Ross|title=The Raven Mysteries: Diamonds and DoomNowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Edgar At last there is on holiday. Well, according to him, it's a conference where ravens meet to discuss all manner of important things, new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and where they occasionally have her mother run in a bit too much to eat and drinkseaside town. Whatever Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. The point is She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, he's not there when because she has the last gold piece is taken from the treasury and spent, and Castle Otherhand is put up for sale. The adults don't seem ability to be doing anything constructive about the situationleave this world, so with Edgar away enjoying his birdly junketings, our favourite Goth Solstice and her ever-hungry brother Cudweed decide use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to sort things out by themselves. And if you've ever read a Raven Mysteries book beforeenter other worlds, you will know right away that that means by where the time Edgar flutters home, chaos, mayhem sea levels are rising dramatically and disaster will be the order buildings are generally empty of the dayhumans and ripe for plunder. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842556983</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Holly Webb|title=Lily|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Magic has been banned by the Queen since a magician called Marius Grange killed the King thirty years before. All the old magical families have been exiled With eviction imminent, Lily's father has been sent can Elsbeth nab anything to prison on actually generate custom at the mainland for protesting against shop? Well yes, is the decreeanswer, and their servants have to be paid extra wages to stay on but the island where Lily, her sister Georgie and their mother now live.fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408313499</amazonuk>1839943769
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam GaytonNatasha Farrant|title=The Snow MerchantRescue of Ravenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Imagine if you had never seen snowThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. What would you feel as it whirled and floated across Ravenwood is an old house, in the airNorth of England, where Bea and landed on your outstretched hand Raffy have been living for the very first time? Look out most of their lives. They are part of the window a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and see how it has transformed they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the coldcove, muddy streetsroaming through the trees, how it has made completely at one with all of the nature around the ordinary beautiful house and loving every inch of the mundane astonishingplace. This But now the house is the delight which under threat, as Leo is presented under pressure from his other two brothers to twelve-year-old Lettie at sell the beginning of this charmingproperty to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, whimsical tale. But just as snow can disrupt or but if they'll even killbe together, danger and death seek Lettieif Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849393710</amazonuk>0571348785
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mackenzie CrookRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Secret Beast Club: The Windvale SpritesUnicorns of Silver Street|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The 'hurricaneJayden' s nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of 1987the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that Michael Fish famously dismissed while might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it was en route, brought a lot is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of destructionHackney, that we knowLondon. But what hasn't been known before now is that it also brought when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a dead body to Asa Brownpast involving Jayden's attention - the dead body of cousin, they find a fairymagical world they never knew existed. Looking into things at For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a bit of local library footage. The crew of the lad finds more and more clues that boat, including a local eccentricliving gargoyle, two hundred years previously, had been are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the only other person magical sight needed to know of the sprites' existencejoin in. But what Dare they side with Leila, the clue trail leads towoman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, Asa would never possibly suspect...and become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571240712</amazonuk>0241573483
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lois LowryB09XWSXSKY|title=Number the Stars|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Copenhagen, 1943, and everyone from schoolgirls like Annemarie up are suffering from shortages, fear and loathing - all caused by Nazi occupiers. But it's always been an open country, has Denmark, and no less than the King takes a daily horse ride, protected in plain view by every single loyal subject. But when, on the Jewish New Year, word gets out that Jews will have to be hidden more discretely, things kick into action. Annemarie Maestro Orpheus and her family take her best friend, Ellen, to the country for safety. But it seems death will even follow them there...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007395205</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWorld Clock|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross|title=Horrid Henry Robert Penee and the Zombie Vampire Joanne Grodzinski|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=HeFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn's the leader of the Purple Hand gangt sleep. A tune, rather like the eternal tormentor ticking of a clock was playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he came to visit his sickeningly goody two shoes brother, and the master of get-rick-quick schemesgrandfather. Hehadn's met the queent really wanted to come; after all, tricked the tooth fairy and fought off the bogey babysitter. Hehe's eternally misunderstood ten now and always in trouble. Heall those old clocks don's Horrid Henry and he is as charismatic and as hilarious as evert appeal to him anymore. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1842551353</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellNigel Baines|title=Dork Diaries: How to Dork Your DiaryA Tricky Kind of Magic|rating=34.5|genre=Confident Emerging Readers|summary=#The clue is in the titleCooper loves to perform magic tricks. This is volume 3 His father was a magician, and a half in named Cooper after the ongoing series of adventures for Nikki Maxwellgreat Tommy Cooper. Here she gets her knickers into a right twist because her diary, which of course contains three books of adventures lusting after the school hunkBut sadly Cooper's father died suddenly, hating the school bitch and copious amounts of embarrassmentnow Cooper doesn't quite know who to be, seems or how to have got lost at schoolbe. Her search for it takes her into places you wouldnAnd when his dad't expect, closer s prop rabbit starts talking to her BFFshim, and into a major discussion about the merits and style of creating your own diary.he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857073524</amazonuk>1444960261
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