134,727
edits
Changes
no edit summary
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author= Rob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= 1836282028|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other StoriesFighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= ''Would you like to adopt a ghost?'' ''Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a speciality.'' ''If interested, place outside your home three twigs, in the shape of an arrow, pointing to your front door...'' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back celebrating a decade of his wonderfully entertaining [[Rob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in Chronological Order|Spirits]] series with a return to the short story format! The Boy new adventure that is both a reboot and a continuation. Just like Doctor Who Disappeared treats us , Edward Fitzberranger, our incorrigible Victorian ghost boy, has some new companions. Ruby and Jayden respond to eleven new talesthis intriguing advertisement and Edward, each as fun to read who has broken the rules as usual and absconded from his previous offeringsmanor house home, is adopted by them and takes up residence in....|isbn= B0BVW69N1Ga wardrobe!
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Laura NoakesRob Keeley|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a StarChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Number OneAround here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. Or ratherHe's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, Cosima Unfortunate. Or ratherand he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, just Cos not to her friendslecture or hector. The practice in the home she lives in ''Childish Spirits'' series is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledgerone of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, and they're all Unfortunates – a stalwart young people girl who can cope with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears anything the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmatespirit world throws at her, and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoonEdward, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But why, spoiled lordling and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?first spirit Ellie encounters|isbn=00085790591783064617
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alice M RossMax Boucherat|title=The Nowhere ThiefLast Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=At last there is new stock We meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in the impoverished yet over, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-full antiques shop Elsbeth and breaking eleven year old, on her mother run lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a seaside townblanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. Elsbeth knows But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this because stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and then she has stolen itfinds something even more spooky. She also knows For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours able to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty shows signs of humans and ripe for plundertampering. With eviction imminentWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at and her safe place in the shop? Well yesgame has been doctored – well, where is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…girl to turn?|isbn=18399437690008666482
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha FarrantKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=The Rescue of RavenwoodDungeon Runners: Hero Trial|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage Meet Kit. Like most of the Sparrowhawk''. Ravenwood people in his world, it seems, he is an old house, in avid fan of Dungeon Running – the North sport where a team of Englandwarrior, where Bea mage and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of a complexhealer enter specially prepared, extended family arrangementcentury-old, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leomagical mazes, and Raffy is there race to the exit, perhaps bothering with his mum, the treasure or the big bad and the points they are living together as a familygrant you along the way. They have grown up swimming in the coveUnfortunately for Kit, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all only thing he's seen of the nature around latest race on the house inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and loving every inch a new trio of the placequestors is needed. But now Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure goading from the token bully of his other two brothers to sell the property to world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to maintainteam. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to liveWhat chance does this friendless, but if they'll even be togethermuscle-free-zone have in actually managing that, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.how could he possibly hope to succeed?|isbn=05713487851839945184
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robin Birch and Jobe AndersonJames Sherwood Metts|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver StreetPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Jayden's nose is forever in Things have been a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – bit sticky for the phoenixes Earthlings. AI and unicorns of the worldautomation have been proceeding apace, for example. Aisha is addicted often replacing jobs they're paid to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything do and other tasks that might be out theretook time to accomplish. The problem, Just as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselveswere beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, exploring the outside world of Hackneynew ways to spend time, Londonalong came an awful pandemic. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-mindedLife was pretty much shut down and, educational purpose, and along with a past involving Jayden's cousinit, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For all the many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen daily social interactions on a bit of local footage. The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join inwhich they depend so heavily. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|isbn=02415734831736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=B09XWSXSKYTom Percival|title=Maestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne GrodzinskiThe Wrong Shoes|rating=45
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldnWill't sleep. A tunes life is difficult, rather like the ticking in a multitude of a clock was playing over and over in his mindways. It happened every time He is bullied because he came to visit his grandfather. He hadnhas 'the wrong shoes't really wanted to come; after all, hehas the wrong shoes because his dad can's ten now t work and all those old clocks dondoesn't appeal to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell have enough money for even the time. And time isnmost basic of things like food, and his dad can't good for anything...'' And that was why work because he was looking lost his job at the clock beside the bedcollege, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. It was nearly twelve oThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will'clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six timess life seems bleak in every direction. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was And yet, he? still has a tiny amount of hope. And why had all He is good at art, and clings to the clocks stopped moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at twelve o'clock?the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Nigel Baines1805141872|title=A Tricky Kind of MagicThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=Cooper loves to perform magic tricks''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. His father was The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a magiciansafecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and named Cooper after Ben go on the great Tommy Cooperrun. But sadly CooperAl needs them for one last job...''s father died suddenly Goodness me, and now Cooper doesnthat 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't quite know ll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who to bediscovers her terrible secret is Ben, or how the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be. And when as good as his dad's prop rabbit starts talking to himfather some day, he ''really'' doesn't know what's going on anymore!|isbn=1444960261and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorChristopher Edge|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Spoonful of SpyingBlack Hole Cinema Club
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=[[Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe Lucas and his friends are all booked in for Trouble by Sarah Todd Taylor|Last time around]], Alice Eclair had to prove herself as a spy and as a master movie marathon at all things French and fancy and fondanttheir local cinema, as a place that has the only way to save the day involved being an expert baker and icer on the French railwaysnickname of 'The Black Hole'. HereAll big movie fans, we start on a bateau-mouche in Paris, and even though the espionage isnthey't a complete success it proves re looking forward to Alice lots of exciting films, and her handlers that things are afoot. many, many snacks! And there will never be more feet than at However, as the World's Fairmovie starts, reviving the huge expo they very quickly realise that gave the city the Eiffel Tower something about this new film format is very different, and this time showing all her interwar glories off to the worldthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Once again Alice will have But as they lurch from one film genre to present the front to the world of being a humble yet world-class cake decoratornext, while seeking can they figure out clues. At stakewhat on earth is going on? Pioneering flight technology that Will they ever get back to the enemy just cannot be allowed cinema, and to smuggle out…their real lives?|isbn=18399409721839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jeremy Dronfield and David Ziggy GreeneAdam Stower|title=Fritz Murray and KurtBun|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=We start with the pair of brothers Fritz and KurtMurray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and their muckersfriendly cat, doing things any Jewish lad in 1930s Vienna would want one who is able to do – kicking things around the empty market placesleep and eat and eat and sleep and, helping the neighbourswell, being dutiful when it comes to whatever takes his fancy next of the synagogue choir and at a vocational schooltwo. Kurt has to make sure the lamps are turned on at their very Orthodox neighboursBut he' each Friday night – the Sabbath preventing them for using anything nearly as mechanical and workmanlike as s a light switch. But this is the time just before the Austrian leader is going to cave to Hitlerbad magician's willcat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and instead of having a national vote to keep the Nazis catflap they both use can chuck them out, invite them in with open arms. ''Kristallnacht'' happened in Vienna just as much as in Germanynot into the regular back garden, as did all the round-ups but into a world of Jewsfrightening adventure and whiffs. These in their turn leave the younger Kurt at home with his mother and sisters anxious to hear word of an evacuation to Britain or the USThis time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, while Fritz and his father areone much bigger than Murray was, unknown initially to each otherbe honest, packed off on the same train but he's turned up and he'll have to Buchenwald and the stone quarry there. And us wondering how the titular event for the adult variant of all this could come about…do…|isbn=024156574X0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Robin StevensAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Ministry Glorious Race of Unladylike ActivityMagical Beasts|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=May Wong Eli is a long way from her family busy lad – by day an apprentice in Hong Kong. She’s stuck in her school, Deepdeanthe wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and desperate to get away, and do something useful to help end in the evening a helper at the war dessert cafe his gran owns and to get homeruns. She just knows that she would make the perfect spy! And when she finds herself turned away by the MinistryEli lives with his lovely gran, she takes matters into her own hands, along with too – for there is a boy she meets outside generation missing in the Ministry, Ericfamily. They A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both go undercover in lost to the titular race, a large country house, pretending globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to be evacuees, navigate the world in an attempt to prove that someone there is passing secrets to the Naziscompany of a magical beast. But there is This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a lot more going on in Elysium Hall than either them have imagined, and suddenly they find themselves in bad incident at the middle of eatery leads to a murder sceneconfession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with even more to try the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to unravel and solvepossibly save his gran.|isbn=02414298620571382231
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Greg James and Chris SmithHelen Cooper|title=Super GhostThe Taming of the Cat|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Paragon City has been lucky to have the great Doctor ExtraordinaryOnce again, their very own superhero taking care of themmice are pitched against cat. Whenever In this case, principally, we have Brie the evil Captain Chaos has come mouse, up with another cunning plan (usually involving against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a giant robot cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of some description) Doctor Extraordinary has been there to thwart her mischief cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and save , if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don't match the dayother mice he lives with. But one day They nibble up paper wrapping from the Doctor cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the Captain are trapped together inside a giant robot visuals on it. And that then explodesstory-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's 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 mouse community, though, as all the others had the hero and chance to half-inch some cheese while the villain are no morecat was distracted. Or are they…But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=02414705360571376010
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Natasha Hastings and Alex T SmithLauren St John|title=The Miraculous Sweetmakers: The Frost FairFinding Wonder|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Roo''The River Thames had frozen to death in its sleeps life has become almost impossibly difficult.'' And thus Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in the Frost Fair could happen – people trading middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to the completely iced-over river, like our heroine Thomasina's father with his gingerbread and confectionery corner shopto buy a lottery ticket. Thomasina will be working the Fair too – but her twin brother won't, as he dies in Chapter One. It was a tragedy When asked what other family she feels no small guilt for, and which has made her father a sullen, closed shop – and she can only name her bed-bound mother has spoken not a word – not even opened her eyesaunt, more or less – in the four years sinceJoni, eitherwho she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But into the dark, frosted London comes Inigo, with supreme magical powersshe has no one else, and a willingness so off she goes to help Thomasinalive with her unreliable aunt. Not only can he introduce her Things continue to the fantastical Other Frost Fairget worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, using it breaks down in the river surface at night for no end middle of mystical beasts nowhere and characters and their happenings, but he has a unique proposal for Thomasina, which will shake her world to its core.then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=00084960560571376169
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Holly WebbAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=The Story of GreenriverOscar's Lion|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Silken and SedgeWe start incredibly bluntly, for all their differenceswith Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, have a lot in common. Silken but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a girl whose father is the Master Builder couple of what might times before he has to be the finest beaver lodge on the Greenriverready for school. Unfortunately she But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is also a kind of runt figuremahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and as admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a result is patronised, and given the most tokenistic tasks when lion around – it comes can be shown as an unspoken threat to fetching wood and shoring the dam up. She also stands out bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the unique artistic ability to singother month. Otters like Sedge singAnd it can shapeshift, but so he too, as the son can take it to school and it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the lady of house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the holtrules, has pressure and so on him to be a bit less feckless and more attentive to class. HeOK, after all, will eventually inherit the job of keeping the otters safe from the wolf that both animal species fear the most, and from dreaded events like it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a Dark Springwonderful time.|isbn=15101096250008596751
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Anna Kemp and David WyattJudith Eagle|title=Into Goblyn WoodThe Stolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Hazel. For the last nine of her eleven years she has been stuck as a foundling in a horrid, Victorian institutionCaro's mother, generally peeling vegetables or acting as a servant. She'd arrived at the place at the same time as Peteworld-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and they're inseparably good friends is nowmissing. Her other mother, until a chance for them both Ronnie, is having to escape, and enter the outside world, does not go up North to plantake care of her sister who is unwell. There had always been the idea of a life idyllic in the nearby forests So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, Goblyn Woodsomeone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a tribe of Wild Childrenhalt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, but none of that comes to passAlbie, as Hazel who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in the care a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a professor at bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Natural History MuseumSnakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. But life with him is not anything like what she might have expected it to be – and Hazel is determined to return Is the painting somehow linked to the Woods, restore her friendship with Pete – and gang? And what has happened to work out just what is going on Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the forest, both the light and the shade, and the deathly dark...mystery too?|isbn=13985038350571363148
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Judith EagleTania Unsworth|title=The Accidental StowawayNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Patch Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is a little girl who has been passed from one relation so determined to another, until it seems escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that there is nobody left are not homes – and find a home for her to go tohimself. Her father died He is en route to yet another fosterer, when she was very younghe jumps into an anonymous car, and her mother ran awaylets it ride him to his future. The family lawyer, after consultation with ‘someone’, arranges for her to go That future seems to a school be in Liverpool, jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on her arrival there, she gets caught up in an adventure with island between the two directions of a little boy called Turo who works on motorway, a steamshipplace inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. During Them, and a chase with him (when she is both trying to get her rollerskate back and running away from the police!) she winds up on the steamship hiding in mute girl also finding a lifeboathome there, and before she knows italbeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, the ship has left the docks and she or if this is an accidental stowaway!one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|isbn=05713631211804540080
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Todd TaylorHelen Peters|title=Alice Eclair, Spy Extraordinaire! A Recipe for TroubleFriends and Traitors|rating=43
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Alice EclairEngland, WW2. A perfect eye and very careful hands have made Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her one of Paris's best young cake makers and decoratorslife it seems, making sure like the female generations before her mother's establishment . The other is Sidney, a classy affairgirl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. Not bad for a thirteen year oldThe girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. OhBut something is amiss, and a perfect eye first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a very careful handler and remote trainer have also made sure she is a very competent young spyrum 'un. Her first real mission will be to chase a traitor across the country – working behind the scenes on a posh sleeper train to the south Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of Francemeetings with Germans, and hoping against hope not only that she can prevent documents allowing foreign agents to creep into the country from getting into nefarious hands, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But while nobody would have her down as a spysurely the girls are wrong, can she possibly leave behind her rookie status and find the baddyupper class could never be so underhand?|isbn=18399409561788004647
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=David SolomonsJamie Littler|title=A Beginner's Guide to Ruling the GalaxyArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Gavin is being followedTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, seemingly constantlyborn fifteen minutes apart, by the new (very annoying) girl at schoolare growing to be chalk and cheese. Only this Juniper is not your typical boy meets girl storyan eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. Because Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in this instanceone of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the girl child in question is Nikiline to inherit the power of the Watcher, and she is the closest to a galactic princess (noruler the district has, really, she is!) and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the status of the whole family. So what will Gavin do when he becomes embroiled But in a situation wherefinding something oddly magical, potentially, Earth and everyone on it will Juniper might just be blown able to smithereensgain some power of her own – for good, or for very, all because of Niki?very bad…|isbn=08576399350241586143
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Alex Cotter024162343X|title=The Mermaid CallStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=3.5|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Vivien knows that mermaids don't existI was the bad company other people got into at school. But she also knows they have to exist – at least I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the public eyeexistence of a 'god'. For there would be nothing to Lake Splendour – a far northern English resort – without themWhere was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. A hundred years Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and change ago, two teenaged girls allegedly spent months with mermaidsoccasional failures, but were forced we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to return dispute what right the army had to help out with be there in the Great War effortfirst place. They also showed female emancipationLooking back, which helped create I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the townmaturity to approach 's tourism industry, now faded and falling apart but once a feminist success storythe problem' politely. Alice, a girl who stumbles into VivienI wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's gran's tourist shop one day, knows she certainly wants mermaids to exist – she thinks her family's black sheep died searching for them, or else was just too successful in her huntStolen History''. When the shy, doubting Thomasina that is Vivien collides with the exuberant, gung-ho Alice, what on earth – or perhaps in water – will they find?|isbn=1839941901
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alison HughesThiago de Moraes|title=FlyOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This is a very impressive readMeet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, as it does a lot of what mainstream teen larks and tween fiction still struggles with. Its focus is courtesy adventures involving flooding the first person narration from Fly, a secondary school lad aircon with cerebral palsyfart powder, she could almost be thought a downyoung goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that by her one-onlast-herchance-luck single mom nearing retirement from being giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a cleanerpower-out, even of electric cars, a carer while at hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and a bundle of assumptions people lay on him. First they assume all that with a broken body comes a broken mindpowers the Internet, then they decide hejust for our convenience's a maths savant sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – they even believe they the ancient Gods have taken the power of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the people that can get away with calling him Flysteal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, which isn't his real namegiants, but everybody just uses ithalf-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|isbn=1525305832178845295X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Darren ShanHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title= Archibald Lox and the Sinkhole to Hell: Archibald Lox series, book 7 Finding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= So. We're back to the Merge with the first chapter in the third volume of Darren Shan's saga of Archibald Lox[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a young man who can pick the locks of portals from our world to anotherlot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called the ''Merge''Bear. Since his last adventure Back home, Archie has persuaded his foster parents into a slightly uneasy truce things on the topic of his regular disappearances. They don't ask too many questions domestic and Archie has settled into family front are a fairly peaceful routine of visiting Winstonbit advanced, but not perfect for her, his lockand so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-picking mentor in the ''Merge'y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he' s OK, she and showing Kojo, her father return to the young guardian, around our Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the Bornfriendship can continue. |isbn= B09Z2MTCZD0008582017
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008541477Simon Fox|title=Clarice Bean: Scram!|author=Lauren ChildDeadlock
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It was a hot summer day right at the beginning of the summer holidays and Clarice Bean was bored: ''Nothing ever happens except for sometimes... And only on rare-sh occasions, which Late one night Graham Blake is hardly ever.'' There are seven members of the Bean family living in the house: Grandad (who lives late back from his shift on the ground floor because he's wobbly)force, Mum and Dadthen suddenly rings Archie, Clarice's older brotherdemanding he fetch something from a secret place, Kurt and younger brother, Minal Cricketjoin him on the run. There's also MarcieThey get together, who's main claim but barely begin to fame seems to be that she steals smell the whiff of Southern trains when the batteries from Clarice's torchfather is arrested, which means that she can't read in leaving Archie on the airing cupboard. Clarice would love late express to have someone who listened to herBrighton, rather than wanting toting a tin his father was determined to talkkeep away from his colleagues, but and the only one who does that is Granny and she lives in New York. The Bean family is ''different''bearer of a whole heap of questions.|isbn=1839944420
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Fiona LongmuirCath Howe|title=Looking for EmilyMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet LilyRen's family home is destroyed in a fire. She and , her mother have just moved from a city to a tiny seaside town called Edgeparents, and everyone from said mother to her teacher are making demands of Lily that she make new friendslittle brother lose everything. It turns out that she She doesn't have any say in the matterof her clothes, for while pretending when phoning home that she was with someone called Emilyor any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is unaware living at her neighbourgrandmother's house where they can't touch anything, Samor do anything, is just about or even eat the foods they normally eat. When she goes back to make herself knownschool she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to put in a big waybox, and so she finds herself starting to steal things. But where does Emily come from? Well Small things, Lily used things that name because of people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she'd just stumbled into – is doing?|isbn=1839942835}}{{Frontpage|author= Rob Keeley|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a mysterious collection of return to the most mundane objects, in some converted houses behind a most unassuming door, in a place calling itself 'short story format! The Museum of Emily'. Sam is completely unaware of this 'museum', tooBoy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, leaving the two girls each as fun to make sure they leave no stone unturned in finding what's behind the intrigue..read as his previous offerings.|isbn=1839942754B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1800901232Laura Noakes|title=Stitched Up|author=Steve ColeCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star|rating=54|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Twelve-year-old Hanh wanted Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to be a fashion designerher friends. Life The practice in the rural village where home she lived with her family was happy, if not prosperous, so when lives in is for the smartly-dressed man and woman came girls to just be named by the village number they correspond to offer Hahn a job in Hanoi it was an opportunity not to be missedthe ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. Some money changed hands and Hanh was on But Cosima bears the mini-bus tag as a surname because nothing else seems to Hanoi. Onlybe known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, Hanh and unique in having no known family in the other girls were not going outside world. During a daring escapade to work in steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a shop, they were devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to work in virtual slavery in an illegal garment factoryadopt all the girls for his Institute. You know those jeans you really wanted: the ones with intricate embroidery But why, and beading on the legswhat does that body entail? The ones with And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the artfully-placed rips and distressed seams that felt past she has so soft when you touched themlittle link with? It's quite possible that Hanh and her co-workers made them.|isbn=0008579059
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0711266204Alice M Ross|title=The Secret Life of Birds|author=Moira Butterfield and Vivian Mineker (illustrator)Nowhere Thief|rating=4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=I have recently discovered a great pleasure: I sit At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and watch the vast numbers of birds which visit our garden on her mother run in a daily basisseaside town. An hour can pass without my noticingElsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. I've established which species feed She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the groundability to leave this world, which pop and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the feeders for a quick snatch buildings are generally empty of some food humans and who settles in ripe for a good munch but I wish I was more knowledgeableplunder. It would have been wonderful ifWith eviction imminent, as a child, I'd had access can Elsbeth nab anything to a book such as ''The Secret Life of Birds''. actually generate custom at the shop? So – what Well yes, is it?the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=1839943769
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Jason RohanNatasha Farrant|title=S.T.E.A.L.T.H.: Access DeniedThe Rescue of Ravenwood|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Arun and Sam have had little to do with Donna, a girl at their school. But things immediately change at This story is another excellent adventure from the start author of this extended sprint ''Voyage of a novel, when she insists Arunthe Sparrowhawk''s . Ravenwood is an old house has become , in the attention North of plain-clothes coppers England, where Bea and that they should bunk off school to find out whyRaffy have been living for most of their lives. And thus an unlikely trio They are part of misfit young heroes a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is formed – Sam there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is really not Donna's idea of companythere with his mum, and they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, but he is roaming through the computer bufftrees, Donna seems to know completely at one with all of the criminal ins nature around the house and outs and survival skills, and Arun? Wellloving every inch of the place. But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a developer as it's his lot becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find out that all he based his family life on isnthemselves worrying not only about where they't true, and that his father – kidnapped that very morning – is involved in something quite unexpected. But how can this disparate trio hope re going to best MI6live, kidnappers, people able to keep the truth about themselves secret for decadesbut if they'll even be together, and so much more?if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=18399433860571348785
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Lissa EvansRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=WishedSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When things contrive to force Ed Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and his sister Roo (aka Lucy) unicorns of the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to stay with her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the neighbourhood spinsterish old womanoutside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, Miss Fileyeducational purpose, for and with a week of half-termpast involving Jayden's cousin, they're not looking forward to itfind a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one thing, Aisha thinks she thinks Wi-Fi is 's seen on a special brand bit of biscuitlocal footage. They don't particularly take to Willard eitherThe crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the new kid next door, who seems magical sight needed to ebulliently take over everything and everywherejoin in. But things soon change when Dare they find some tiny old birthday candlesside with Leila, the woman on board, and manage to work out that these candles, for her relative who lives as long as their flames last, make birthday wishes come true. How will things change for a second time when they realise thatfigure in a painting, having used up three and become saviours of them, these should really be used for the wishes of someone two generations older than themunseen?|isbn=178845202X0241573483
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Richard SmithB09XWSXSKY|title=Time Trap TwoMaestro Orpheus and the World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Frederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn''Jamie t sleep. A tune, rather like the ticking of a clock was playing over and Todd are horrified to learn that the Grand Plan, which they thought had been defeated, is about to be implemented over in 1775, Americahis mind. Hector and Catherine have It happened every time he came to thwart Travis - an agent of the Grand Plan - who is hell bent on world dominationvisit his grandfather. Jamie and Todd go with Hector and Catherine on a mission He hadn't really wanted to 1775come; after all, he's ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to prevent a super gun from being used in him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the Battle of Bunker Hill, during the American War of Independence, but only have days to stop history from being alteredtime. And time isn't good for anything...''
}}
Move on to [[Newest Cookery Reviews]]