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Newest Confident Readers Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]]==Confident readers==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Andy Stanton1836285493|title=What's For Dinner, Mr Gum?The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=As soon as heroine Polly turns her backWill is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and leaves the town a supportive friend. But most of Lamonic Bibber for a day all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at the seasidehis school, Mr Gum falls out with his best friendMarlowe Park, causing carnivorous carnage all over the placeand one at which he excels. Meat is getting thrown around like itThis hasn's going out of fashiont gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and we have she has suggested to doubt whether Polly Will and her companions can ever utilise the power his mum that he spends a couple of love and put things to rights. Especially as this book does not contain afternoons a week at a magic unicorn called Elizabethdifferent school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405248246</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jean Ure1836282028|title=Fortune CookieThe Fighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=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 Would you like to adopt a lot on her plate. Her brother Joey has muscular dystrophy and his problems are becoming more obvious. Add to this that her father couldnghost?'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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007224621</amazonuk>}}
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=A J HealyRob Keeley|title=Tommy Storm and the Galactic KnightsChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Tommy StormAround here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's one of five teenagers snapped up from around the universe to be a gang ball of heroic detectives charged with rescuing EVERYTHING from destruction. Not just the planethappy positivity, or the solar systemhe understands children, or even the galaxyand he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, but EVERYTHING. Nobody seems to know what's going not to cause this destruction, lecture 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 themhector.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247555</amazonuk>}}
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreMax Boucherat|title=Love and KissesThe Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Tamsin and Katie were just thirteen and worried that they were boring. TheyWe meet Lori on the first evening she'd been best friends since forever and were s got the good girls. Neither missed schoolhouse to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, skipped on her homework nor had boyfriendslonesome. WellWhat could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that is, not so far. Up until then Tamsin had been the boffin head – consistently strong academically and looking forward to going log 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 herVoxminer, from the world-building site where he worked, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. Oh, and did I mention But first Lori has a tiny inkling that he was seventeenthis stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, Polish and spoke very little English?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007281722</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neal Layton|title=Surf's Up (Mammoth Academy)|rating=3then she finds something even more spooky.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Having successfully seen off For the rather unpleasant humans in earlier volumes, our favourite junior mammoths Oscar server she and her bestie and Arabella have nothing much nobody else should be able to do apart from return to Mammoth Academy for lots more double periods enter shows signs of Difficult Sumstampering. They're supposed to be making presentations about what they did during the holidays too When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, 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. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>034098967X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ursula Jones and Sarah Gibb|title=The Princess Who Had No Kingdom|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=The princess who her safe place in the game has no kingdom wanders around in a cart pulled by her horse Pretty. She's very politebeen doctored – well, friendly, and kind-hearted, but she feels like something where 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.girl to turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846160421</amazonuk>0008666482
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tim PigottKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-SmithStanton|title=Shadow of Evil (Baker Street Mysteries)Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If ever Victorian England needed Meet Kit. Like most of the Baker Street Irregularspeople in his world, it's now. The great Sherlock Holmes seems, he is dead an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century- drowned at sea whilst attempting old, magical mazes, and race to foil one of Professor Moriarty's evil plans. More ships are likely to be sabotaged the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the shipping owners are up in armspoints they grant you along the way. To make matters worse Unfortunately for Kit, Queen Victoriathe only thing he's granddaughter seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been kidnappedretired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Would-be clients are queuing up at 221b Baker Street Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, but Dr Watson is having he has taken to turn them away. And the more Sam Wiggins sees, goading from the more token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he's convinced ll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that all the various shenanigans are related to one another. If only Holmes were there to tell him exactly , and how. But could he isn't, and the only people who are around are children. possibly hope to succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>034096006X</amazonuk>1839945184
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean Ure James Sherwood Metts|title=Star Crazy MePlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=This book is about CarmenThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, but often replacing jobs they're paid to understand her you first need do and other tasks that took time to know about her familyaccomplish. There's her mother, who is quite laid back when it comes Just as they were beginning to get used to all things school, but rather obsessed with looks (despite being the kind of person this technological change and starting to drive everywhere, and get winded walking up a flight think of stairs). There's her Nanother, who used new ways to live with them and always encouraged Carmen's talentspend time, perhaps to along came an embarrassing extentawful pandemic. StillLife was pretty much shut down and, along with it's good to have support. And there's her father, who we don't know much about. But then, neither does Carmenall the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007224613</amazonuk>1736128426
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Marcus Sedgwick Tom Percival|title=Ghosts and Gadgets (Raven Mysteries)The Wrong Shoes|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=EdgarWill's life is difficult, raven and self-appointed guardian in a multitude of Otherhand Castleways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has reason to be worried. The second-eldest the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the Otherhand offspringcollege, Cudweed, ran was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into something in that mix the forbidden south wing of the castle fact that his mum and dad are separated, and was Will's life seems bleak in shock for daysevery direction. Upon recovery And yet, he reports the culprit was still has a ghosttiny amount of hope. When more victims begin popping-up - maids He is good at art, stable-boys and shoe-polishersclings to the moments of joy when he is drawing, all quite literally scared-to-death – Edgar takes it upon himself to save that feel like a light at the dayend of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1842556940</amazonuk>1398527122
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret Mayo, Geraldine McCaughrean, Rose Impey, Andrew Matthews, Jane Ray, Ian Beck, Angela Barrett, Emma Chichester Clark and Alan Snow1805141872|title=Magical Princess StoriesThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Most little girls would love ''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a pretty pink book all about princessessafecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, wouldnMiss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...'t they' Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? This one We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has seven retellings of traditional fairy tales accompanied by beautiful illustrations ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and would make a lovely gift for a birthday or Christmas.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140830516X</amazonuk>who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate DiCamillo Christopher Edge|title=The Magician's ElephantBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Peter Augustus Duchene hovered outside Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the fortune-tellernickname of 'The Black Hole'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 heAll big movie fans, they'd been given it re looking forward to go out lots of exciting films, and buy many, many snacks! However, as the cheapestmovie starts, poorest food they very quickly realise that was availablesomething about this new film format is very different, and they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. But he had as they lurch from one film genre to have an answer the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the question and when he asked he was told thatcinema, 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 elephanttheir real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406324477</amazonuk>1839942738
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris PriestleyAdam Stower|title=Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's MouthMurray and Bun
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…
|isbn=0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh
|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Young Robert Eli is put on a train back to school busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his stepmothergran owns and runs. It's Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the first journey hefamily. A few short years ago, Eli's made on his own. It turns out parents were both lost to be more of the titular race, a challenge than he could ever globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have imagined. The train stalls at to navigate the world in the mouth company of a tunnel and while magical beast. This has made the other passengers sleep through race anathema to the wait, pair – but when a mysterious woman in white tells him bad incident at the eatery leads to a series confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of stories - stories with a differencemagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408800144</amazonuk>0571382231
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul Fleischman and David RobertsHelen Cooper|title=The DunderheadsTaming of the Cat
|rating=3.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The vile Miss Breakbone hates kids and is forever shouting at her classOnce again, mice are pitched against cat. When In this case, principally, we have Brie the teacher confiscates mouse, up against Gorgonzola the one-eared cat that Theodore (better known as Junkyard) – and in case you're seeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is giving to shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his mum habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for her birthday, bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the Dunderheads hatch a plan to get visuals on it back. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and teach Miss Breakbone a valuable lessoncast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. What follows is an elaborate plot This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, weaving elements of as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the ''Bash Street Kids'' with ''Mission Impossible''cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406322555</amazonuk>0571376010
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Morris GleitzmanLauren St John|title=Toad SurpriseFinding Wonder|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I was going to mention, at some time in this review, that you would be hard pushed to confuse this book with the same authorRoo's [[Once by Morris Gleitzman|Holocaust stories]]life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, but as it begins with an apocalyptic massacre and now she finds herself awoken in a hit and run road crash, perhaps you might. Such is the lot middle of the humble cane toad. Always having night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to take the warty with the smoothcorner shop to buy a lottery ticket. Or so youWhen asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn'd t thinkvery highly of. But she has no one else, until Limpy identifies the next driver and so off she goes to pull up near their swamp as Santalive with her unreliable aunt. At last - his chance Things continue to improve human-cane toad relationshipsget worse for Roo, by getting his species recognised as Santawhen she and Joni leave London in Joni's new little helpers. And so he hops on the truck with his best friendold campervan, it breaks down in the macho Goliath, middle of nowhere and drives off with Santa. then bursts into flames! ...Or does he?Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141326948</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Andrew Klavan |title=The Last Thing I Remember (Homelander)|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Charlie West - US Air Force hopeful Adam Baron 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?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755352998</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hazel Allan Benji Davies|title=Bree McCready and the Half-heart LocketOscar's Lion|rating=4.53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=If you want We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to keep your children quiet and busy for have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a while then this would couple of times before he has to be a good book to give themready for school. Twelve year old Bree and her two friendsBut when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, Sandy and Honey, find themselves running admitting that he won't be hungry for their lives when another two days. But there are benefits to having a message on a heart locket necklace leads them lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to an old, magical book the bully that has enormous powersruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. A monstrous enemy, ThalofedrilAnd it can shapeshift, is trying to get his claws on this book so that he can continue take it to reek death school and destruction in it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the worldhouse – not limiting his biscuit intake, and it is up to Breebeing much more lax about the rules, and her friendsso on. OK, to save us all..it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905537115</amazonuk>0008596751
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Helen Stringer Judith Eagle|title=The Last Ghost: A Belladonna Johnson AdventureStolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Belladonna Johnson can see and talk Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to ghosts return home from her recent work trip abroad and no one else canis now missing. In fact she lives with two; Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her dead parentssister who is unwell. But something So who is happening – the ghosts are disappearing. Her going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother vanishes despises, she feels frustrated and confused and worried. All her father tells summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her he doesn't have much time either. The doors gymnastics are closing, the doors brought to the Other Side and there a halt whilst she is only one leftstuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, but just as he says thisalong with an orphan boy, Albie, he who is gone living there too. Not wanting to lose her parents again But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, Belladonna sets out on as she discovers a journey with the help painting of Stevea bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and all across London a boy from schoolfearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. They need to find Is the entrance painting somehow linked to the Land of the Dead, the door gang? And what has happened to where the last ghost, Elsie, waits, before itCaro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too late… ?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230715044</amazonuk>0571363148
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate ThompsonTania Unsworth|title=The White Horse TrickNowhere Island
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=We last saw Jenny before she made Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the move to Tir na n'Og care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and before she knew she was find a changelinghome for himself. These days He is en route to yet another fosterer, she's happily ensconced when he jumps into an anonymous car, 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 land two directions of the fairiesa motorway, where there is no time a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and nothing much happensseclusion. Them, but everyone feels and a huge sense of lazy contentment. Her human foster parents JJ and Aisling Liddy have mute girl also made the move and they are equally happyfinding a home there, in albeit so much more successfully. Over a laid back kind of way. few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, or if this is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0370329929</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Geraldine McCaughrean Helen Peters|title=The Death Defying Pepper RouxFriends and Traitors|rating=53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=I love it when I discover a England, WW2. Two young girls are new book that I just can't put downat the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, and today, for medestined to be in service all her life it seems, it was like the story of Pepper Rouxfemale generations before her. Our heroThe other is Sidney, Pepper, had his future foretold at his birth, when his Aunt Mireille had a vision girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from Saint Constance bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that Pepper then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would be dead on his fourteenth birthdayonly prove it so. On hearing this news his parents take very little interest in himBut something is amiss, and Pepper grows up fully aware of his impending doom thanks to his very religious Aunt who forces him to confession every day, first separately and ensures he is fully versed then in combination they realise the terrors of hellLord Evesham must be a rum 'un. SoMidnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, as you can probably guesstalk is made of meetings with Germans, his fourteenth birthday comes around and yet somehow Pepper finds not only that he is still alive, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. Through a series of chance happenings he flees But surely the ever present menace of death, skipping from one person's life to anothergirls are wrong, 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.upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192756028</amazonuk>1788004647
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip Ardagh Jamie Littler|title=The Far From Great Escape: Grubtown TalesArkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When 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 Grubtown lighthouse Badlands. Elodie is plunged into darkness because intent on getting closer to power in one of the failure religious districts of its one massive lightbulb a ship called ''The Plucked Grape'' runs aground Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the power of the bay. It ploughs into ''The Rusty Dolphin'' where Watcher, the locals are enjoying closest to a Hot Chocolate ruler the district has, and Bubble-Wrap Popping Nightone of the five major victors in said earlier war. As if this wasn't enough to contend with Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the local Police Department (all three of them) have to cope with a jail break when all six members status of the Fox whole family make a bid for freedom. Their sentence only had another fortnight But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to go and when they're caught there'll be another trial and they'll be imprisoned gain some power of her own – for good, or for a much longer stretch.very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571242340</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anthony Horowitz 024162343X|title=The Devil and his BoyStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera|rating=45|genre=Confident ReadersChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=Queen Elizabeth I met with her magician late one night and asked about was the fate of a man she had known many years beforebad company other people got into at school. He I was dead, but his son lived on. Meanwhile disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the town existence of Framlingham Tom Falconer worked for the couple who had taken him in after his parents dieda 'god'. There Where was no love, or even affectionthe proof? In history lessons, from them and when he it was offered probably worse still. Not too long after the chance end of escape WWII, I didn't so much want to London by a rich learn about the British army's successes (and aristocratic stranger he barely hesitated. Life was never going occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be easy for called 'the likes of Tom and before long he found himself alone in London trying colonies' as want to avoid Gamaliel Ratsey – dispute what right the highwayman who would see him dead.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1406305693</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Walter Moers |title=The Alchemaster's Apprentice|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Meet Echo army had to be there in the Cratfirst place. He is a rare example of his speciesLooking back, which is a cat I still believe I was right - but I regret 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 I lacked the castle that looms over everyone and everything offers him a month of entertaining gluttony before he kills Echo, as opposed maturity to three daysapproach ' starving penury on the streets, the offer is acceptedproblem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552222</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary McKayThiago de Moraes|title=Wishing For TomorrowOld Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a young goddess of nuisance. But just when she''Wishing For Tomorrow'' picks up where [[A Little Princess s being told that by Frances Hodgson Burnett]] left offher one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Avert your eyes if you Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school've not read s in but the first book - entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and if you havenall that powers the Internet, just for our convenience'ts sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – 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 steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the Gods, ie the semi-deities, why not?giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340956534</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Frances Hodgson BurnettHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=A Little PrincessFinding Bear
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sara Crewe has started at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary For Young Ladies. She's so rich [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and well-behaved finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she soon becomes known as called Bear. Back home, things on the 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 little princessislands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. However Desperate to make sure he's OK, when she and her father dies shortly after going bankruptreturn to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, Sara's life is turned on its headshe can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340997397</amazonuk>0008582017
}}
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=When Jim's father diesLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, and his mother and sisters are thrown out of their cottagejoin him on the run. Their new home is a single room in an overcrowded tenement. Food is scarce since Jim's mother can't earn much They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of a wage on her own. And Southern trains when she falls ill - a cholera epidemic the father is sweeping Victorian London - arrested, leaving Archie on the money runs out altogether and they are evicted again. Despite being horribly illlate express to Brighton, Jim's mother manages toting a tin his father was determined to give her two daughters a chance keep away from his colleagues, and the bearer of a job by throwing herself on the mercy whole heap of an old friend. But she and Jim are destitute and are taken to the workhousequestions. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007311257</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Angie Sage Cath Howe|title=Syren (Septimus Heap)My Life on Fire|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=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, Ren''dragon''-wrecked on s family home is destroyed in a lonely island somewhere far out at seafire. And his dragon has definitely wrecked. Its wings are badly wounded She, making escape for Septimus and his friendsher parents, Beetle and Princess Jennaher little brother lose everything. She doesn't have any of her clothes, impossible. To make matters worseor any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, thereand now she is living at her grandmother's something strange about house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the island foods they've become stranded onnormally eat. It's utterly deserted except for When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are doing a girl 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 cat-shaped lighthousebox, and an eerie voice is calling so she finds herself starting to Septimus in his sleep.steal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0747594155</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris Mould Rob Keeley|title=Fangs 'n' FireThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating=2.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Fangs 'n' Fire Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a compilation of ten short stories about dragons, some original return 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 short story of the eyeless dragons. format! The original ones vary in content from dragons taking over England Boy Who Disappeared treats us to dragons being tiny and living in the spines of bookseleven new tales, but they share one thing in common: they are all surprisingly anti-dragon. There's only one in which dragons are portrayed each as noble or peaceful, and that's the ancient Chinese fable. I found this slightly odd, as the children who will want fun 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 Smaughis previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0340944757</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joe MillerLaura Noakes|title=Beetle Power! (Bug Buddies)Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star|rating=34
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the [[The Big Game (Bug Buddies) girls to just be named by Joe Miller|first book the number they correspond to in the Bug Buddies series]] we met Zapledger, Buzz, Lurch and Crunch - insects living in Spinner's Wood. Five books later, they're still doing battle all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the evil spider Spinnertag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and receiving wise advice unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from Gonzo. This timethe kitchen one afternoon, everything's coming she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to a head as either Gonzo or Spinner will have want to leave adopt all the wood girls for goodhis Institute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>000732247X</amazonuk>0008579059
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary Hogan Alice M Ross|title=Perfect GirlThe Nowhere Thief
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=HomeworkAt last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in a seaside town. Drinking your milk Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. Coming home on time. Keeping your mouth shut. These She also knows she 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 to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the sort buildings are generally empty of rules you would associate with 14 year old Ruthie's motherhumans and ripe for plunder. Her mother's glamorous sister With eviction imminent, Aunt Marty (aka can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the Goddess of Love at a swish NYC-based magazine)shop? Well yes, on is the other handanswer, is but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these 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.Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847382290</amazonuk>1839943769
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=G P TaylorNatasha Farrant|title=Mariah Mundi and the Ship The Rescue of FoolsRavenwood
|rating=5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Mariah Mundi This story is leaving another excellent adventure from the famed Prince Regent Hotel author of ''Voyage of his past adventures and going out into the wider worldSparrowhawk''. This time Ravenwood is an old house, in the North of England, his friend where Bea and mentorRaffy have been living for most of their lives. They are part of a complex, Captain Charityextended family arrangement, as Bea is bringing him along on board there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a luxury liner called family. They have grown up swimming in the ''Triton'', as it races another linercove, roaming through the ''Ketos''trees, across completely at one with all of the Atlantic. Charity's mission is to protect nature around the prize money that house and loving every inch of the ''Triton'' carries in its holdplace. But someone doesn't want 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''Triton'' s becoming more and more expensive to winmaintain. In fact, The children find themselves worrying not only about where they don't even want re going to give it a chance. What they want is the prize moneylive, preferably before but if they sink the ''Triton'' to the bottom of the seall even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571227007</amazonuk>0571348785
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott WesterfeldRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=LeviathanSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ItJayden's 1935 and Moosenose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the son phoenixes and unicorns of a prison guardthe world, for example. Aisha is living on Alcatraz Islandaddicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. His most notorious neighbour The problem, as their mothers see it, is none other than Al Caponethat they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. And Capone has done Moose But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a favour science- somehowminded, heeducational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's managed to get Nataliecousin, Moose's autistic sisterthey find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, into including the Esther P Marinoff school, where one Aisha thinks she'll get specialist helps seen on a bit of local footage. Nobody must ever find out though - Moose's father would get The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the sack rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they'd be thrown off side with Leila, the islandwoman on board, at the mercy and her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the Great Depression. unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408801558</amazonuk>0241573483
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony RobinsonB09XWSXSKY|title=Bad Kids: the Worst-Behaved Children in History|rating=5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=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 Maestro Orpheus and the use of ASBOs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230737870</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewWorld Clock|author=Mary Hooper|title=The Betrayal (At the House of the Magician)Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating=3.54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=In this third Elizabethan adventureFrederick (or Fred, our friend - and Dr John Deebut never Freddy, please) couldn's nursemaid - Lucy moves to Londont sleep. Dr Dee wishes to follow A tune, rather like the court as he is as ticking of a clock was playing over and over in need of money as everhis mind. Lucy is ecstatic It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. She He hadn's longed t really wanted to see London and she loves being close to the courtcome; after all, not least because it means shehe's likely to see more of Tomas. And itten now and all those old clocks don's quite clear t appeal 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 attentionanymore. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747599106</amazonuk>}}
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