[[Category:Confident Readers|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=Dead End Kids: Heroes The Double Life of the Blitz a Wheelchair User|author=Bernard AshleyRob Keeley|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=It's London in 1940Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. Most But most of the men have been conscripted and the East End all, he is populated mainly by women and childrenan aspiring writer. Josie and her friends are carrying on much as usualEnglish is his favourite lesson at his school, thoughMarlowe Park, grouping into little gangs and arguing over turf via mud fights along the Thamesone at which he excels. But then comes a terrible night of bombing. ItThis hasn's the start of the Blitz t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and 57 consecutive nights of bombing for the East End. The fire service is stretched way beyond its capacity she has suggested to Will and the lucky ones make it out his mum that he spends a couple of the shelters in the morningafternoons a week at a different school, while the unlucky ones don't see another sunriseStation Road, where his ability might be better extended.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408338955</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Emma Carroll1836282028|title=In Darkling WoodThe Fighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley|rating=54
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= In the early hours of the morning Alice’s mum receives the phone call they have been waiting for. The long awaited heart transplant that may save her sick brother''Would you like to adopt a ghost?'' ''Young spirit, Theo’sborn 1887, life is now possibleseeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Alice finds herself sent to stay Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a grandmother she doesn’t knowspeciality.'' ''If interested, miles away from her friends and place outside your home three twigs, in the life she knows. There is no TVshape of an arrow, no phone signal and no internet but Alice feels drawn pointing to the mysterious Darkling Wood surrounding the house despite her grandmother’s wish to have it chopped downyour front door... Meanwhile back '' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is celebrating a decade of his wonderfully entertaining [[Rob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in 1918 Chronological Order|Spirits]] series with a young girl desperately waits for news of her brother’s safe return from the frontnew adventure that is both a reboot and a continuation. Her mother doesn’t Just like her playing in Doctor Who, Edward Fitzberranger, our incorrigible Victorian ghost boy, has some new companions. Ruby and Jayden respond to this intriguing advertisement and Edward, who has broken the nearby wood but it rules as usual and absconded from his manor house home, is there that she discovers secrets adopted by them and magic that give her hope for the futuretakes up residence in.... |amazonuk=<amazonuk>057131757X</amazonuk>a wardrobe!
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Potion DiariesRob Keeley|authortitle=Amy AlwardChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition
|rating=4
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Samantha is Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a mixer ball of potions extraordinaire. Which is just as wellhappy positivity, because someone has to save a princess who has fallen in love with herself. Yeshe understands children, you heard right! You might not think this is the most enormous problem - princesses are so spoiled and pamperedhe writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, is it any wonder they fall in love with themselves? But this isn't what's happened. Princess Evelyn has taken a love potion meant to make someone else fall in love with ''her''. And the resulting havoc caused by the wrong person taking the right potion leads not to some very unstable magic that could threaten the very kingdom itselflecture or hector.
Hence the The ''Childish Spirits'Wilde Hunt'series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a national quest to find stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the ingredients for spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a cure.spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471143562</amazonuk>1783064617
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{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Thirteen Days of MidnightMax Boucherat|authortitle=Leo HuntThe Last Life of Lori Mills
|rating=4.5
|genre=Teens
|summary=Luke Manchett really isn't that upset when he gets the news that his father has died. You might think that's a tad harsh, but Luke has been estranged from his father for years. His primary concern is his mother, who is disabled by crushing cluster headaches. So, rather than worry her, Luke heads off to a lawyer's office to deal with the reading of his father's will by himself. And he gets a shock. Luke's inheritance adds up to six million dollars. SIX MILLION!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408337460</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=John Dougherty and David Tazzyman (illustrator)
|title=Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face and the Bees of Stupidity
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Wemeet Lori on the first evening she've been here before. The lovely children whose name is in s got the title of all these books house to herself – handy when they make time no neighbour to try and check if they're pop in this one or not – are woken up in a ridiculous way by a blackbird making his usual cameo, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. The Army of Great Kerfuffle is asleep – all single cat of it. What could possibly go wrong? The King is wearing Snuggled in a badge blanket fort, she has one main intention, and that allows him is to pretend log on to not be Voxminer, the King – this time heworld-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's thinking of keeping bees, although he world. But first Lori has four animals a tiny inkling that go this stormy night doesn'quack' in a hive instead. Oh yeaht find herself entirely on her own, and the evil badgers are in prison having been naughtythen she finds something even more spooky. But they will never follow For the pattern server she and her bestie and nobody else should be evil able to enter shows signs of tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and naughty and break out her safe place in order the game has been doctored – well, where is a girl to be eviller and more naughty, will theyturn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192742736</amazonuk>0008666482
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian SedgwickKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=Ghosts of ShanghaiDungeon Runners: Hero Trial
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Shanghai, 1926Meet Kit. The city is heavily divided between Like most of the naturalpeople in his world, national areasit seems, and he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the enclaves sport where a team of the foreigners – Russianwarrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, Frenchcentury-old, Americanmagical mazes, British. Several of the younger international youths have formed and race to the Ghost Society gangexit, after perhaps bothering with the principal character, Ruby, found another divide cleaving Shanghai in two – that between treasure or the living big bad and the dead, the 'real world' and points they grant you along the Otherworldway. Her brother deadUnfortunately for Kit, she seemed to become the conduit for a poltergeist in her apartment, and recently only thing he's seen of the gang have even managed to lock a spirit into a bottle and cast it down a well. But latest race on the gang inn TV equivalent is immediately falling apart – the lad she lovesthat one team has been retired, Charlieeaten, and his sister are diverting themselves from, or have been warned off, any further such activitya new trio of questors is needed. Rose knows she Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to find the source goading from the token bully of the problem – his world and cross any untold divides stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in her city actually managing that, and how could he possibly hope to find the truth…succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444923900</amazonuk>1839945184
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus and Sean MurrayJames Sherwood Metts|title=TrollhuntersPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=West Coast USA in Things have been a bit sticky for the 1960sEarthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and the city is wracked other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and wrecked by a slew starting to think of missing children reports. The parents with their new anguishesother, and new rules against playing out after dark, have no idea of the horrors in their vicinity – literally under their feet lies a city of trolls, guilty of snatching the children. Last ways to gospend time, Jack Sturgessalong came an awful pandemic. Cue the modern era Life was pretty much shut down and Jack's younger, now grown-up brother Jimalong with it, and Jim Jr live a sheltered life in all the most barricaded and secure home imaginable, and Jim Jr's life is as exciting as you'd expectmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. Unfortunately, however, the trolls are about to make a return to their nastiest of ways – and their intentions are a lot more surprising than Jim Jr could ever predict…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471405192</amazonuk>1736128426
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Caroline LawrenceTom Percival|title= The Case of the Bogus Detective|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Howdy folks! Welcome to Virginia City, bustling and busy home to prospectors, dancing girls, lawyers, gamblers and newspapermen. It's 1862, and our twelve-year-old pal Pinky is continuing the quest to become a successful detective and eventually join Uncle Allan in the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago. But for the moment there's so much crime right here in Nevada, thanks to the untold wealth being found daily in the nearby silver mines, that Pinky and financial partner Ping are soon busy day and night, chasing desperados, solving crimes and righting all manner of wrongs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444010336</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Ali Sparkes|title=Car-JackedWrong Shoes
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers |summary=A boy genius who speaks Mandarin Will's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and Latin 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 college, was working a criminal who’s just robbed cash-in-hand job on a bank building site and stolen a car: it’s had an unusual pairing butaccident. Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, it turns outand Will's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, he still has a perfect teamtiny amount of hope. ‘‘Car-Jacked’’ leads us through He is good at art, and clings to the twists and turns moments of 12-year old Jack’s adventure joy when his parents’ car he is hi-jacked with Jack still insidedrawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>019273346X</amazonuk>1398527122
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joan Aiken and Quentin Blake1805141872|title=Arabel’s RavenThe Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It’s ''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been manyraided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, many years since I first met Arabel Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her pet ravengangster boyfriend Al on their trail, MortimerMiss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last job...'' Goodness me, whilst watching Jackanory that Miss Judson is a terror! How on children’s televisionearth did a nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Bernard Cribbins used to read Luckily for Miss Judson, the storiespupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, and they became firm favourites the son of mine. Here I am returning a famous magician who has ambitions to the first book in the series, well, just a handful of years laterbe as good as his father some day, and the story has lost none of its charm.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806910</amazonuk>who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Philip CaveneyChristopher Edge|title= One For SorrowBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary= YouLucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a place that has the nickname of 'd thinkThe Black Hole'. All big movie fans, wouldnthey't youre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that Tom Afflick would move heaven something about this new film format is very different, and earth to avoid leaving Manchester to go to Edinburgh: on his last two visits there he ended they are swept up tumbling into the past, where he met all manner of scary folkan adventure they couldn't even imagine. But parents tend as they lurch from one film genre to be pretty determined the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to get their own way about such thingsthe cinema, and no way are they going to swallow some mad tale about him being chased by plague doctors their real lives?|isbn=1839942738}}{{Frontpage|author=Adam Stower|title=Murray and other assorted murderersBun|rating=4. So5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, off he has one who is able to gosleep and eat and eat and sleep and, and yes – well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's barely set foot in ''Auld Reekie'' when hea 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 travelling againround it drops them into a Viking land, in where a wondrous mix of dramatroll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to be honest, real live people but he's turned up and deadly peril.he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905916957</amazonuk>0008561249
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave CousinsAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Charlie Merrick's Misfits in I'm a Nobody, Get Me Out The Glorious Race of Here!Magical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=What Eli is that sayinga busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, about and in the evening a helper at the best laid plans of mice dessert cafe his gran owns and misfits gang aft agley? runs. Charlie and Eli lives with his fondly thought of friends lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the soccer squad we met [[Charlie Merrickfamily. A few short years ago, Eli's Misfits in Fouls, Friendsparents were both lost to the titular race, and Football by Dave Cousins|last time]] are hoping for a simple trip globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a summer camp for a week's educative trainingmagical beast. But no, their dopey manager This has booked them in made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a survival camp by mistakeconfession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=0571382231}}{{Frontpage|author=Helen Cooper|title=The Taming of the Cat|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Once again, mice are pitched against cat. Instead of hitting In this case, principally, we have Brie the back of mouse, up against Gorgonzola the net theycat – and in case you're building tarpaulin sheltersseeing a connection, they live in a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the names of cheeses. They can't set any watching footieAnyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-heads ablazetracised, for they have to spark their own fires at nightthe way his habits don't match the other mice he lives with. They can still score, howevernibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there's a points-based competition were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to hand, but now that Charlie has dropped his team keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the proverbialmouse community, they're once more really up against it…though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192738232</amazonuk>0571376010
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lauren St John McNally|title=The Forbidden City (Infinity Drake, Book 2)Finding Wonder
|rating=4
|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Finn may be only 9mm tall and still a teenager, but heRoo's already saved the world oncelife has become almost impossibly difficult. Accidentally shrunk by his mad scientist Uncle Al Her mum died when she was young, he joined a crack military team and helped foil now she finds herself awoken in the threat 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 corner shop to buy a lethal bio-weaponlottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, the Scarlatti waspwho she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But there's she has no let-up for Finnone else, and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Before Al can restore him Things continue to normal sizeget worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, a new threat emerges.it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007521650</amazonuk>0571376169
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom PalmerAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Rugby Academy: DeadlockedOscar's Lion|rating=53|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=It's the third story in the ''Rugby Academy'' series and so far we've heard from Woody in [[Rugby Academy: Combat Zone by Tom Palmer|Combat Zone]] and Rory in [[Rugby Academy: Surface We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to Air by Tom Palmer|Surface have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of times before he has to Air]]be ready for school. In thisBut when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, the final book in this brilliant serieslooking sheepish, we hear from Owenand admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. We left the team at the end of ''Surface But there are benefits to Air'' when Borderlands had got through having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the World Championship in New Zealandbully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. Despite the elation And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and it can get him out of doing so Owen isna problem. And it't entirely comfortable with Jesses wonderful to have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the team captainrules, and so on. He has no doubts that he was OK, it can't work a brilliant player - the best on the team - dimmer switch but he it can't respect him as give Oscar a personwonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781123993</amazonuk>0008596751
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=E L KonigsburgJudith Eagle|title=From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E FrankweilerThe Stolen Songbird
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=ElevenCaro's mother, a world-year-old Claudia Kincaid famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is tired having to go up North to take care of being taken for grantedher sister who is unwell. As the oldest of four children So who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she suffers many an injustice, feels frustrated and the interplay of school confused and home life is becoming monotonousworried. She decides All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to run away from practise her home in Greenwichgymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, Connecticut to live in the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art. Middle brother Jamiealong with an orphan boy, 9Albie, who is living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her chosen companionmum's old suitcase, not least because he can fund their ventureand all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. By cheating his friend Bruce at card games, Jamie Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has accumulated more than $24 – which, in 1967 when this classic childrenhappened to Caro's novel first appeared, was not an insignificant amount.mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690719</amazonuk>0571363148
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellTania Unsworth|title=Dork Diaries: Drama Queen (Dork Diaries 9)Nowhere Island|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Meet Mackenzie HollisterGil. She's a typical American tweenager Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – concerned the system that constantly puts him in popularity, looks, the hot guys like Brandon, futureless places that are not homes – and getting one over on all those around her. That's made find a lot more easy by her parents being spoilingly rich – if Mackenzie, say, wants a new cover home for her diary she will just rip up a new $220 leopard print designer blouse and use thathimself. But the problem He isen route to yet another fosterer, what she's reading back overwhen he jumps into an anonymous car, and what she's writing lets it ride him to his future. That future seems to be in, isn't ''exactly'' her diary jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – it's but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the diary belonging to our beloved heroine, Nikkitwo directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and Mackenzie has managed definitely ignored enough to purloin it provide for evil deedstheir safety and seclusion. Can Nikki get it back – or live at all without her beloved journal? And could Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there actually be something worse than her biggest enemy of, likealbeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, all time, being the person reading or if this is one place where life as we would want it?just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471117707</amazonuk>1804540080
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lewis Carroll and Sir John TennielHelen Peters|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Friends and Traitors|rating=53
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It can hardly have escaped anyoneEngland, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to be in service all her life it seems, like the female generations before her. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn's attention t guessed that 2015 then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and first separately and then in combination they realise the 150th anniversary Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of the publication secrecy, talk is made of Lewis Carroll's ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' meetings with Germans, and we've seen numerous anniversary editionsnot only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447287118</amazonuk>1788004647
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Guy Bass and Pete WilliamsonJamie Littler|title=The Beast of Grubbers Nubbin (Stitch Head)Arkspire
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's all wrong in Castle GrotteskewTwo sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. The very walls should be terrified by the monsters the Mad Professor Juniper is an eager hunter and trader in the basement is creatingillicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out of various body parts and different animalsin the Badlands. But noElodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the clamour child in line to inherit the power of noisethe Watcher, the unlikely activities closest to a ruler the district has, and horrendous appetite for food come from something else entirely – a hundred rescued human orphansone of the five major victors in said earlier war. That appetite needs feeding – so it’s perfect timing for Being trained in the village below magic that only five people can use would definitely change the castle, Grubbers Nubbin, to have their annual podge-a-thon feaststatus of the whole family. But when Stitch Head and his human friend Arabella go in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to purloin gain some human food power of her own – there being no decent alternative – they're horrified to find something even worse than the monsters trapped in the castle above…for good, or for very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847156096</amazonuk>0241586143
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Cassie Beasley024162343X|title=Circus MirandusStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera
|rating=5
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=I was the bad company other people got into at school. I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a 'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it was probably worse still. Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about the British army's successes (and occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in the first place. Looking back, I still believe I was right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Thiago de Moraes
|title=Old Gods New Tricks
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Micah is an orphan who has been raised 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's being told that by his grandfatherher one-last-chance-giving headteacher, but now Micah’s grandfather is dyingthe world changes. And if that wasn’t bad enough Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, his horrible great aunt has arrived to take care even of himelectric cars, cutting their limited time together further. But don’t worry all hope is hits not lost. When grandpa Ephraim was a child he visited just the town the school's in but the mysterious Circus Mirandusentire planet (apart from mobile phones, where he was promised a miracle by and all that powers the miraculous Man Who Bends LightInternet, just for our convenience's sake). All Micah Trixie, luckily, realises what has to do is get a message to happened – the Light Bender and his grandfather can ancient Gods have his miracletaken the power of power from us. With And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the help of Jenny Mendoza (people that can steal it back – namely the smartest girl characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the class)Gods, Micah sets his sights on ie the circussemi-deities, giants, a task that requires unconditional love half-gods and faith. Aunt Gertrudis is wrong, Ephraim’s stories aren’t just stories ..so on known as the tricksters. are they?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1101892315</amazonuk>178845295X
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Owen DaveyHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=Mad About MonkeysFinding Bear|rating= 4.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=Of all the many millions of animals [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on our planet that deserve Bear Island, a large format hardback non-fiction booklot further north than many people would venture, I guess monkeys are one of the ideal places to startand finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. They Back home, things on the domestic and family front area bit advanced, of course, our distant cousinsbut not perfect for her, with and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the ancestor we have in common with them walking around our world within the past thirty million yearsislands Bear was last left on. They have For a large range across bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and her father return to the planet, they have over 250 variant species, Arctic and they have hope that in a lot world of interesting facts very white and details regarding their social lifevery dangerous things, their diet, their diversity she can find one specific white and their potential future dangerous thing – all of which makes this an interesting read whatever your species bias may beand that the friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909263575</amazonuk>0008582017
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Josh LaceySimon Fox|title=Dragonsitter TroubleDeadlock|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=You don't need me to tell you what it's like when your uncle owns two dragons. He's Late one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the pig-headed type who has a mummy force, and baby dragon living with himthen suddenly rings Archie, and demanding he must live on fetch something from a remote island off Scotlandsecret place, and he must spend half the time hunting the world of dragons in Outer Mongolia, or searching for the yeti, so that trouble starts from the very moment you arrive with your mother and sister to housesit for join him – there's no food, on the dragons are pooing everywhere and you can't even use the front door properly because he didn't leave the key in an obvious placerun. StillThey get together, that's nothing compared but barely begin to when the neighbouring farmer gets his guns trained on smell the dragons when he accuses them whiff of stealing his sheep… Or how about Southern trains when your big birthday party the father is herearrested, and leaving Archie on the magician is booked – and the two dragons come late express to stayBrighton, because somebody else with the talent toting a tin his father was determined to care for them has keep away from his colleagues, and the hots for your mother…bearer of a whole heap of questions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1783442972</amazonuk>1839944420
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jo SimmonsCath Howe|title=Super-Loud SamMy Life on Fire
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Sam Ren's family home is louddestroyed in a fire. Not just loud as in the loudest lad in classShe, her parents, and not just loud as in loudest fire alarm in schoolher little brother lose everything. NoShe doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, Sam and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can''LOUD''' loud. Stop traffic in t touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the streets loudfoods they normally eat. Scary loud. Loud enough When she goes back to make passing birds forget how to fly loud. There's little rhyme or reason for thisschool she discovers that the class are doing a special art project, just as there is no real reason why his best friend Nina does nothing but knit all the livelong daycreating boxes of their lives, even when walking to school. It's just something you have display things that are important to acceptthem and show who they are as a person. But what's this? Their favourite teacher Ren has vanishednothing to put in a box, and a new one has taken his place – Mrs Mannso she finds herself starting to steal things. She's ridiculous with her weirdly large handsSmall things, things that people might not really miss, her huge cardigan and even huger beehive hairdonot when they have so much already. The biggest thing about But what will happen to her though is the threat if someone finds out what she poses – that of eternal silence in her lessons. How can Sam possibly continue at school, when even him clearing his throat is like a plane crash in your earsdoing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407152300</amazonuk>1839942835
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Christopher MyersRob Keeley|title=My PenThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories
|rating=4
|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=How long does it take you to read Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a picture book? Don't worry counting the number of words, forget totalling the pages, and ignore how many times you may return to bring it off the shelf. What matters so much more than how long it takes short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to scan a page can be how long it lies in the memoryeleven new tales, and what it can lead each as fun to. This example, for instance, can be perused in seconds, but creates a vivid and long-standing mental image, and will if it hits the right buttons lead to untold future activities. You can't judge something like this on the value of timeread as his previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1423103718</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Cath Senker and Melvyn EvansLaura Noakes|title=Ancient Egypt in 30 Seconds: 30 Awesome Topics for Pharaoh Fanatics Explained in Half Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Minute (Children's 30 Second)Star
|rating=4
|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=EgyptMeet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. It's up there with dinosaursOr rather, space travel and not much else that can hold a young child throughout the length of their school careerjust Cos to her friends. Considering a lot of them will grow up declaring The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they have no interest correspond to inthe ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or even suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a hatred forsurname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, historyas the first ever inmate, it all was relevant a long, long time ago – and with Carter's finding of King Tut's tomb closing unique in having no known family in on its centenary it won't go away yetthe outside world. There are indeed books that solely concern themselves with During a daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the history of our love affair with Egyptgirls for his Institute. But I guess why, and what does that body entail? And could it does boil down possibly bring Cos closer to it being introduced by a fine teacher. Whether this latest book will supplant the human in giving us all the lessons we need remains to be seen.past she has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782402373</amazonuk>0008579059
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan MeresAlice M Ross|title=The World of Norm: 8: May Contain ButsNowhere Thief|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Why At last there is it new stock in the only person impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in Norm's world able to think straight is Norm? a seaside town. His best mate Mikey is clamming up on certain subjects, and blaming mood swings on his hormones (well, he is all of thirteen, after all)Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. His dad seems to She also knows she should be mourning free from worries about being found out, because she has the loss of ability to leave this world, and use an antique bottle unworldly portal of aftershavekaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, his mother thinks sorting where the recycling is a cure for boredom, sea levels are rising dramatically and his grandfather is all full the buildings are generally empty of weird expressions humans and euphemism thingiesripe for plunder. That's not to mention his younger brothersWith eviction imminent, who have it in mind can Elsbeth nab anything to use mum's hair straightener on actually generate custom at the dog. shop? And that's certainly not to mention Well yes, is the girl next door, who evidently has been incapable of thinking straight since birthanswer, but at least is doing the good thing by moving house. It's fact a flipping miracle that Norm can get through a weekend like this without anything disastrous happening. Or can he?mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408334062</amazonuk>1839943769
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Piers TordayNatasha Farrant|title= The Wild Beyond|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers |summary= Stories for younger readers about the effects of climate change, known as cli-fi, are growing massively in popularity right now, as environmental disasters and the disappearance of many of the planet's animals and plants hit the news on a depressingly regular basis. Shrinking glaciers mean rising water levels and the slow extinction of polar bears, and in many cities pollution and smog are so dire at times that governments are forced to ban cars and urge their citizens to stay indoors. But far from frightening children with tales Rescue of ever-increasing destruction and death, Piers Torday offers them a way to hope. No matter how bad things are, this trilogy tells us, all it takes is determination, and together we'll save our beautiful world.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848668481</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Caleb Krisp and John Kelly|title=Anyone But Ivy PocketRavenwood
|rating=5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=12-year-old maid Ivy Pocket This story is at a loose end after her employer the Countess Carbunkle leaves her for South America "for no other reason than it is far enough away another excellent adventure from Paris to ensure that I never see you again." Charitably deciding that the old woman is author of 'bonkers' on Voyage of the basis that anyone who doesnSparrowhawk''t see how wonderful she . Ravenwood is couldn't possibly be an old house, in the North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their right mindlives. They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is there with her Uncle Leo, and Raffy is there with his mum, and they are living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, Ivy thinks she'll stroll into another job but finds it more difficult than she'd expect - until roaming through the Duchess trees, completely at one with all of Trinity gives her an important mission; to deliver a priceless diamond necklace to the granddaughter nature around the house and loving every inch of an estranged friendthe place. But what should be now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the property to a simple task becomes fraught with danger developer as Ivy faces obnoxious aristocratsit's becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, strange creaturesbut if they'll even be together, and betrayalif Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408858630</amazonuk>0571348785
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Esme KerrRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Mischief at MidnightSecret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=34
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= At Jayden's nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and unicorns of the world, for example. Aisha is addicted to 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 slightly strange school outside world of KnightHackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's Haddoncousin, therethey find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's always something intriguing going seen ona bit of local footage. New girl Janet The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, cool are tasked with saving the rare critters – and confident even when arguing the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, the teacher'swoman on board, is the big surprise for Edie this termand her relative who lives as a figure in a painting, and they become friends - but Anastasia feels forced out by saviours of the newer student's presence. Then some things happen which make Edie start to wonder if Janet is hiding something - can she solve another mysteryunseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>190948900X</amazonuk>0241573483
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth P JonesB09XWSXSKY|title=Attack of Maestro Orpheus and the Giant Sea Spiders (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates)World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=It's a three-way battle in the Slurring Mariner pub. On the one handFrederick (or Fred, four Steampunk Pirates – a fine mix of viciousbut never Freddy, nefarious and metallic mariners who would make any passing human gulp (which is more than you could ever say of the beerplease)couldn't sleep. On anotherA tune, rather like the Dread Captain Inkybeard, who is married to ticking of a squid who lives on his head clock was playing over and keeps over in his facial hair darkmind. On the third, a ridiculously rich, ridiculously French and ridiculously successful recruiter – but It happened every time he came to just what is he taking so many seamen? visit his grandfather. Whatever it isHe hadn't really wanted to come; after all, ithe's enough to get the Pirates ten now and Inkybeard working together (ish) all those old clocks don't appeal to solve the problem – but someone else might just be controlling the whole farrago…him anymore.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847155995</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Liz Pichon|title=Yes! No (Maybe''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for anything..) (Tom Gates)|rating=3.5''|genre=Confident Readers|summary= WorkAnd that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. Itwas nearly twelve o's not something Tom Gates has been guilty of much before now – unless clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it's but to work out how go and find grandad - but where to hide his favourite caramel wafers, or how to deflect the evil grin of his slightly goth older sister. was he? But it's on the cards this time round – not only does his mother have the inspired idea of clearing the house out for a car boot sale (which causes disasters) And why had all the school is having an enterprise competition, where groups of students have to create something to sell on to their peers clocks stopped at a profit. But it's not like Tom wants much – of course, he's a simple lad, with no real desires as such – hetwelve o's never going to want to go hell for leather to get anything, is heclock?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407143190</amazonuk>
}}
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