Newest Confident Readers Reviews
Confident readers
Fortune Cookie by Jean Ure
Fudge Cassidy and the Cupcake kid are best friends. If the names remind you of a certain film then you'd be spot on as that's where Fudge's father got the idea from. They're actually chalk and cheese – Fudge is loud mouthed and opinionated and Cupcake is quiet and thoughtful – but the combination works. They've just started at secondary school and Cupcake has rather a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this that her father couldn't cope with the problems and he now has another family. It's just Cupcake, Joey and her mother – and not a lot of money. Full review...
The Wild Things by Dave Eggers
Meet Max. When I say he sometimes gets the wrong end of the stick about adults, or dislikes his mother's new boyfriend, or gets a bit feisty when he feels the need for revenge, I am certainly understating the facts. He is a bit of a rascal to say the least. But all that might change when he finds himself travelling to a strange land of roisterous animals, and ends up installed as their king. Full review...
Christmas Chaos for the Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog by Jeremy Strong
Trevor's troublesome dog, Streaker, has had three puppies. They were fathered, according to local bully Charlie Smugg, by one of his Alsatians. Trevor would ideally like to keep them, at least until Christmas, but his parents have other ideas and put them up for sale. Charlie Smugg declares that he's entitled to half of the money from the sale of the puppies, but before they can be sold the three puppies go missing in the park and it's up to Trevor and his best friend Tina to try and track them down before Charlie demands his cash! Full review...
Violet by Annie Taylor
Violet is a very special hippo. She is extremely small but that does not make her adoptive parents Albert and Mavis love her any the less. However, they are slightly worried that Violet has a very unusual habit of turning pink without warning and for no explicable reason. Full review...
Tommy Storm and the Galactic Knights by A J Healy
Meet Tommy Storm. He's one of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to be a gang of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planet, or the solar system, or even the galaxy, but EVERYTHING. Nobody seems to know what's going to cause this destruction, or when, but he and his friends and their ship seem to be the only people proactively going about saving the day. So it's a pity that they start this book strung up by a nasty loony who's about to kill them. Full review...
The Battle of the Sun by Jeanette Winterson
London 1601. Elizabeth I is getting on in years. Her capital city is a busy, bustling place. Boats fill the river and people fill the streets. Jack is happy because it's his birthday and his present is his heart's desire: an excitable black puppy named Max, who's a licking and a running and a leaping and a jumping and a tummy in the air and a tail wagging and a barking, racing, braking, spinning energy dog of delight. Full review...
Love and Kisses by Jean Ure
Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. They'd been best friends since forever and were the good girls. Neither missed school, skipped her homework nor had boyfriends. Well, that is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going on to university. All that seemed to change when she met Alex. Well, when I say 'met' I should perhaps clarify and say that Alex pushed his wheelbarrow into her, from the building site where he worked. Oh, and did I mention that he was seventeen, Polish and spoke very little English? Full review...
Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy) by Neal Layton
Having successfully seen off the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumes, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar and Arabella have nothing much else to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods of Difficult Sums. They're supposed to be making presentations about what they did during the holidays too, but Oscar hasn't done any preparation and, frankly, he can't really remember what he actually did do with all that free time other than no Difficult Sums. Full review...
The Princess Who Had No Kingdom by Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb
The princess who has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very polite, friendly, and kind-hearted, but she feels like something is lacking because she doesn't have a kingdom of her own. The other royals she meets treat her nicely enough, but there's always a feeling that she's not quite as good as them because she isn't the princess of anywhere. Full review...
Shadow of Evil (Baker Street Mysteries) by Tim Pigott-Smith
If ever Victorian England needed the Baker Street Irregulars, it's now. The great Sherlock Holmes is dead - drowned at sea whilst attempting to foil one of Professor Moriarty's evil plans. More ships are likely to be sabotaged and the shipping owners are up in arms. To make matters worse, Queen Victoria's granddaughter has been kidnapped. Would-be clients are queuing up at 221b Baker Street, but Dr Watson is having to turn them away. And the more Sam Wiggins sees, the more he's convinced that all the various shenanigans are related to one another. If only Holmes were there to tell him exactly how. But he isn't, and the only people who are around are children. Full review...
Star Crazy Me by Jean Ure
This book is about Carmen, but to understand her you first need to know about her family. There's her mother, who is quite laid back when it comes to all things school, but rather obsessed with looks (despite being the kind of person to drive everywhere, and get winded walking up a flight of stairs). There's her Nan, who used to live with them and always encouraged Carmen's talent, perhaps to an embarrassing extent. Still, it's good to have support. And there's her father, who we don't know much about. But then, neither does Carmen. Full review...
Ghosts and Gadgets (Raven Mysteries) by Marcus Sedgwick
Edgar, raven and self-appointed guardian of Otherhand Castle, has reason to be worried. The second-eldest of the Otherhand offspring, Cudweed, ran into something in the forbidden south wing of the castle and was in shock for days. Upon recovery, he reports the culprit was a ghost. When more victims begin popping-up - maids, stable-boys and shoe-polishers, all quite literally scared-to-death – Edgar takes it upon himself to save the day. Full review...
Magical Princess Stories by Margaret Mayo, Geraldine McCaughrean, Rose Impey, Andrew Matthews, Jane Ray, Ian Beck, Angela Barrett, Emma Chichester Clark and Alan Snow
Most little girls would love a pretty pink book all about princesses, wouldn't they? This one has seven retellings of traditional fairy tales accompanied by beautiful illustrations and would make a lovely gift for a birthday or Christmas. Full review...
The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
Peter Augustus Duchene hovered outside the fortune-teller's tent in the market square. To go in and get an answer to the only question he had would cost all the money that he had – and he'd been given it to go out and buy the cheapest, poorest food that was available. But he had to have an answer to the question and when he asked he was told that, yes, his sister was alive and that the elephant would take him to her. But where in this chilly, northern clime would he find an elephant? Full review...
Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth by Chris Priestley
Young Robert is put on a train back to school by his stepmother. It's the first journey he's made on his own. It turns out to be more of a challenge than he could ever have imagined. The train stalls at the mouth of a tunnel and while the other passengers sleep through the wait, a mysterious woman in white tells him a series of stories - stories with a difference. Full review...
The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman and David Roberts
The vile Miss Breakbone hates kids and is forever shouting at her class. When the teacher confiscates the one-eared cat that Theodore (better known as Junkyard) is giving to his mum for her birthday, the Dunderheads hatch a plan to get it back, and teach Miss Breakbone a valuable lesson. What follows is an elaborate plot, weaving elements of the Bash Street Kids with Mission Impossible. Full review...
Toad Surprise by Morris Gleitzman
I was going to mention, at some time in this review, that you would be hard pushed to confuse this book with the same author's Holocaust stories, but as it begins with an apocalyptic massacre in a hit and run road crash, perhaps you might. Such is the lot of the humble cane toad. Always having to take the warty with the smooth. Or so you'd think, until Limpy identifies the next driver to pull up near their swamp as Santa. At last - his chance to improve human-cane toad relationships, by getting his species recognised as Santa's new little helpers. And so he hops on the truck with his best friend, the macho Goliath, and drives off with Santa. ...Or does he? Full review...
The Last Thing I Remember (Homelander) by Andrew Klavan
Charlie West - US Air Force hopeful and karate expert - remembers when his main concern was whether schoolmate Beth would go out with him. So why is he strapped to a chair in a windowless cell? Full review...
Bree McCready and the Half-heart Locket by Hazel Allan
If you want to keep your children quiet and busy for a while then this would be a good book to give them. Twelve year old Bree and her two friends, Sandy and Honey, find themselves running for their lives when a message on a heart locket necklace leads them to an old, magical book that has enormous powers. A monstrous enemy, Thalofedril, is trying to get his claws on this book so that he can continue to reek death and destruction in the world, and it is up to Bree, and her friends, to save us all... Full review...
The Last Ghost: A Belladonna Johnson Adventure by Helen Stringer
Belladonna Johnson can see and talk to ghosts and no one else can. In fact she lives with two; her dead parents. But something is happening – the ghosts are disappearing. Her mother vanishes and her father tells her he doesn't have much time either. The doors are closing, the doors to the Other Side and there is only one left, but just as he says this, he is gone too. Not wanting to lose her parents again, Belladonna sets out on a journey with the help of Steve, a boy from school. They need to find the entrance to the Land of the Dead, the door to where the last ghost, Elsie, waits, before it's too late… Full review...
The White Horse Trick by Kate Thompson
We last saw Jenny before she made the move to Tir na n'Og and before she knew she was a changeling. These days, she's happily ensconced in the land of the fairies, where there is no time and nothing much happens, but everyone feels a huge sense of lazy contentment. Her human foster parents JJ and Aisling Liddy have also made the move and they are equally happy, in a laid back kind of way. Full review...
The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean
I love it when I discover a new book that I just can't put down, and today, for me, it was the story of Pepper Roux. Our hero, Pepper, had his future foretold at his birth, when his Aunt Mireille had a vision from Saint Constance that Pepper would be dead on his fourteenth birthday. On hearing this news his parents take very little interest in him, and Pepper grows up fully aware of his impending doom thanks to his very religious Aunt who forces him to confession every day, and ensures he is fully versed in the terrors of hell. So, as you can probably guess, his fourteenth birthday comes around and yet somehow Pepper finds that he is still alive. Through a series of chance happenings he flees the ever present menace of death, skipping from one person's life to another, afraid at how he has somehow evaded Saint Constance and the angels of death and forever guilty at the lies he is forced to tell to cover up his escape from death. Full review...
The Far From Great Escape: Grubtown Tales by Philip Ardagh
When the Grubtown lighthouse is plunged into darkness because of the failure of its one massive lightbulb a ship called The Plucked Grape runs aground in the bay. It ploughs into The Rusty Dolphin where the locals are enjoying a Hot Chocolate and Bubble-Wrap Popping Night. As if this wasn't enough to contend with the local Police Department (all three of them) have to cope with a jail break when all six members of the Fox family make a bid for freedom. Their sentence only had another fortnight to go and when they're caught there'll be another trial and they'll be imprisoned for a much longer stretch. Full review...
The Devil and his Boy by Anthony Horowitz
Queen Elizabeth I met with her magician late one night and asked about the fate of a man she had known many years before. He was dead, but his son lived on. Meanwhile in the town of Framlingham Tom Falconer worked for the couple who had taken him in after his parents died. There was no love, or even affection, from them and when he was offered the chance of escape to London by a rich and aristocratic stranger he barely hesitated. Life was never going to be easy for the likes of Tom and before long he found himself alone in London trying to avoid Gamaliel Ratsey – the highwayman who would see him dead. Full review...
The Alchemaster's Apprentice by Walter Moers
Meet Echo the Crat. He is a rare example of his species, which is a cat that can speak every language known. His life among the miserable, permanently ill citizens of Malaisea is not great, which is why, when the strange scientist from the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed to three days' starving penury on the streets, the offer is accepted. Full review...
Wishing For Tomorrow by Hilary McKay
Wishing For Tomorrow picks up where A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett left off. Avert your eyes if you've not read the first book - and if you haven't, why not? Full review...
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Sara Crewe has started at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary For Young Ladies. She's so rich and well-behaved that she soon becomes known as the little princess. However, when her father dies shortly after going bankrupt, Sara's life is turned on its head. Full review...
Gus by Fiona Louise Bate
Gus is a beagle, who stands upright with his tail held high and in this delightful little book he tells us about his day. He shares his garden with a couple of tortoises called Dido and Hector, but only in summer as they disappear in winter. He's a dog who loves his comfort and we see him having his tummy tickled, snoozing, curled up in a chair and making artistic designs on a white duvet with his muddy paws. He's always alert though – and squirrel knows when it's best to make himself scarce, as do some plump pigeons. Full review...
Street Child by Berlie Doherty
When Jim's father dies, he and his mother and sisters are thrown out of their cottage. Their new home is a single room in an overcrowded tenement. Food is scarce since Jim's mother can't earn much of a wage on her own. And when she falls ill - a cholera epidemic is sweeping Victorian London - the money runs out altogether and they are evicted again. Despite being horribly ill, Jim's mother manages to give her two daughters a chance of a job by throwing herself on the mercy of an old friend. But she and Jim are destitute and are taken to the workhouse. Full review...
Syren (Septimus Heap) by Angie Sage
After four books and 2,000 pages of plot far to complicated to recoup here, we meet ExtraOrdinary Wizard-apprentice Septimus Heap again, this time ship... um, dragon-wrecked on a lonely island somewhere far out at sea. And his dragon has definitely wrecked. Its wings are badly wounded, making escape for Septimus and his friends, Beetle and Princess Jenna, impossible. To make matters worse, there's something strange about the island they've become stranded on. It's utterly deserted except for a girl and a cat-shaped lighthouse, and an eerie voice is calling to Septimus in his sleep... Full review...
Fangs 'n' Fire by Chris Mould
Fangs 'n' Fire is a compilation of ten short stories about dragons, some original to Chris Mould, and some are traditional ones that he's retold in his own words. The traditional ones include the tale of St George, a Greek myth called the Dragon's Teeth and the Chinese story of the eyeless dragons. The original ones vary in content from dragons taking over England to dragons being tiny and living in the spines of books, but they share one thing in common: they are all surprisingly anti-dragon. There's only one in which dragons are portrayed as noble or peaceful, and that's the ancient Chinese fable. I found this slightly odd, as the children who will want to read this book will be fans of, or at least interested in dragons. It also shows a lack of imagination as it's not mandatory for every dragon to be Smaug. Full review...
Beetle Power! (Bug Buddies) by Joe Miller
In the first book in the Bug Buddies series we met Zap, Buzz, Lurch and Crunch - insects living in Spinner's Wood. Five books later, they're still doing battle with the evil spider Spinner, and receiving wise advice from Gonzo. This time, everything's coming to a head as either Gonzo or Spinner will have to leave the wood for good. Full review...
Perfect Girl by Mary Hogan
Homework. Drinking your milk. Coming home on time. Keeping your mouth shut. These are the sort of rules you would associate with 14 year old Ruthie's mother. Her mother's glamorous sister, Aunt Marty (aka the Goddess of Love at a swish NYC-based magazine), on the other hand, is a different story. And when she swoops into town and sweeps Ruthie away in a whirlwind of silk underwear, virgin Cosmopolitans and a whole career's worth of advice on all things boy related, Ruthie has a feeling things will never be quite the same again. Full review...
Mariah Mundi and the Ship of Fools by G P Taylor
Mariah Mundi is leaving the famed Prince Regent Hotel of his past adventures and going out into the wider world. This time, his friend and mentor, Captain Charity, is bringing him along on board a luxury liner called the Triton, as it races another liner, the Ketos, across the Atlantic. Charity's mission is to protect the prize money that the Triton carries in its hold. But someone doesn't want the Triton to win. In fact, they don't even want to give it a chance. What they want is the prize money, preferably before they sink the Triton to the bottom of the sea. Full review...
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
You have to hand it to Scott Westerfeld. He writes a great page-turner and he has an enviable eye for a good angle on contemporary interests. In Leviathan, he's bringing steampunk to junior readers. If you're not a trainspotterish fan of the maze of sci-fi and fantasy sub-genres, you may not know what steampunk is, let alone whether you or your children will like it. Basically, steampunk fiction is set in a world in which steam is still the main source of power. Often, the world is an alternate history past, but it can be the future too. Westerfeld's chosen an alternate history for Leviathan - we're in 1914, the Archduke Ferdinand has just been assassinated and Europe is on the brink of WWI. Full review...
Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko
It's 1935 and Moose, the son of a prison guard, is living on Alcatraz Island. His most notorious neighbour is none other than Al Capone. And Capone has done Moose a favour - somehow, he's managed to get Natalie, Moose's autistic sister, into the Esther P Marinoff school, where she'll get specialist help. Nobody must ever find out though - Moose's father would get the sack and they'd be thrown off the island, at the mercy of the Great Depression. Full review...
Bad Kids: the Worst-Behaved Children in History by Tony Robinson
I'm starting to wonder about the type of person who would write such a horrible and terrifying book for children; it's as confusing as trying to work out an age category for this book. Bad Kids is a gruesome look through history using the ways children were punished through the ages as a central core. It runs right through history from ancient Iraq, where you could get your fingers chopped off for hitting your parents (they only recently abolished that one) to the modern day and the use of ASBOs. Full review...
The Betrayal (At the House of the Magician) by Mary Hooper
In this third Elizabethan adventure, our friend - and Dr John Dee's nursemaid - Lucy moves to London. Dr Dee wishes to follow the court as he is as in need of money as ever. Lucy is ecstatic. She's longed to see London and she loves being close to the court, not least because it means she's likely to see more of Tomas. And it's quite clear to Lucy that Tomas needs her eye upon him more than ever. The new lady-in-waiting, Juliette, seems to be taking up far too much of his attention. Full review...
The Enemy by Charlie Higson
HA! 28 Days Later and Shaun of the Dead meet Lord of the Flies in Charlie Higson's latest series. A mysterious disease has decimated the population, attacking everyone over fourteen. Most of the adults are dead but the ones that remain are shuffling zombies with just one thought in their addled brains - killing and feasting on children. The narrative focuses on London, where pockets of children are holed up in old supermarkets and tourist attractions. Rumour has it that there's a group in Buckingham Palace who are not only safe, but who are beginning to envisage ways of building a new life. Both the Waitrose and the Morrisons crew know that they can't last forever by scavenging, and so they decide to make the dangerous journey across London to the Palace. Full review...
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T S Eliot
In 1939, TS Eliot's cat poems for his godchildren were first published. Seventy years and an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical later, they're republished here, complete with illustrations by Axel Scheffler, best known for his work on The Gruffalo. Full review...
Tim The Tiny Horse At Large by Harry Hill
It's been a while since Tim and Fly's last adventures, and changes are afoot in Tim's tiny world: Fly is getting married to his girlfriend. Tim's a little worried because they've only known each other for a week. The marriage goes ahead, and Tim finds himself kicking his heels, so he gets a pet. And so the brief episodes in the life of a horse who lives in a matchbox continue. Full review...
