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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hilary McKay1836285493|title=Binny in SecretThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4.5

|summary=Reading Binny in Secret was rather like that moment whenWill is a keen player of video games, as a childconscientious student, I discovered that Noel Streatfield had written a LOT slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of other shoe books orall, just a few years agohe is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, when I suddenly discovered Jeanne Birdsall and her Penderwick stories, and I gorged on themMarlowe Park, utterly delighting in their humour and kindnessone at which he excels. I donThis hasn't quite know how I haven't come across Hilary McKay beforegone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, but of course now a long list of her books have gone onto my 'to read' pile because I thoroughly enjoyed this story and I immediately wanted more!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444913409</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Kate Pankhurst|title= The Disappearing Dinner Lady (Mariella Mystery)|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary=Mariella she has suggested to admit it: the school dinners have been much better lately. When Big G was in charge, vegetable mush was the order of the day, but since the 'Ladies Who Lunch' agency have been supplying the meals, they have been serving up heavenly dishes like 'Monday Munchie Madness', 'Princess Pie' Will and 'Pirate Pasta Bake'. The mystery girls love the new menu, but even more than his mum thathe spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, they love the new dinner ladyStation Road, Diana Dumpling. When Diana goes missing in mysterious circumstances, Mariella and her friends are on the case to discover what really happened to their favourite dinner ladywhere his ability might be better extended.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444012347</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tomiko Inui and Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator)1836282028|title=The Secret of the Blue GlassFighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley

|summary=One problem with being four inches or so tall, as any [[The Borrowers: The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton|Borrower]]-type creature I'm sure will tell 'Would youlike to adopt a ghost?'' ''Young spirit, is getting aroundborn 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a speciality. There're ' ''If interested, place outside your home three twigs, in the impracticalities shape of being so smallan arrow, encounters with cats, and a whole lot morepointing to your front door... But with this modern world things can happen – such as an English governess-type taking '' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is celebrating a married couple decade of Little People to Japan his wonderfully entertaining [[Rob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in Chronological Order|Spirits]] series with hera new adventure that is both a reboot and a continuation. There they have kidsJust like Doctor Who, Edward Fitzberranger, our incorrigible Victorian ghost boy, has some new companions. Ruby and Jayden respond to this intriguing advertisement and she leaves them with her favourite pupil – alongside Edward, who has broken the most necessary equipmentrules as usual and absconded from his manor house home, a small blue glass goblet, that helps the human bond with the Little People is adopted by using it to donate milk to them on a daily basisand takes up residence in.... We're now into the second generation of Japanese people looking after them, but something much more threatening, all-enveloping and worrying than a cat is around the corner – World War Two.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690344</amazonuk>wardrobe!

{{newreviewplainFrontpage|author=Rob Keeley|title=In Their ShoesChildish Spirits: Fairy Tales and Folktales10th anniversary special edition

|summary=Lots Around here, we're big fans of books have, in their own way, shown fairy tales to have relied on certain tropeschildren's author Rob Keeley. You certainly donHe't have to read them alls a ball of happy positivity, or indeed manyhe understands children, to see the wily child outsmart the adult again and again, people tricked into changing ownership of magical things, the power of being a stepmotherhe writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or the power of doing things in threeshector. Still, I think this must be  The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a very rare few collections to look at footwear as sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a theme, stalwart young girl who can cope with a tidyanything the spirit world throws at her, small selection of fairy and folk-tales to entertainEdward, all with that subject.a spoiled lordling and the first spirit Ellie encounters|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782691014</amazonuk>1783064617

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ulrich Hub, Jorg Muhle and Helena Ragg-Kirkby (translator)Max Boucherat|title=Meet at the Ark at Eight!The Last Life of Lori Mills|rating=4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary=An educated penguinWe meet Lori on the first evening she's got the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, just an agnostic penguin and avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a violentblanket fort, smallershe has one main intention, young penguin walk into and that is to log on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a snowdrift… hit in Lori's world. You might not be able to make But first Lori has a full joke out of tiny inkling that opening line, but this book practically does continue stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on from thereher own, and then she finds something even more spooky. Three penguins – each a little different from For the other, even if they generally look server she and definitely smell the same, her bestie and God, a subject of their conversation when a butterfly comes along, nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of all thingstampering. The young, hot-headed one (wellWhen malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in the pictures he wears a woolly hatgame has been doctored – well, he's bound to be hot-headed) leaves in umbrage, leaving just two – which where is perfectly timed if you're a dove, and come along telling all the animals to get into Noah's Ark in pairs, as an almighty flood is about girl to happen…turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690875</amazonuk>0008666482

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven ButlerKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=The Diary of Dennis the MenaceDungeon Runners: Canine Carnage (book 5)Hero Trial

|summary= I'm sure Dennis Meet Kit. Like most of the Menace has a hate-hate relationship with schoolpeople in his world, but the nature of it is relevant when considering these books. The fact seems, he goes at all is the cause for them in the first place an avid fan of Dungeon Running – he [[The Diary of Dennis the Menace by Steven Butler|originally]] was tasked with writing sport where a journal as homeworkteam of warrior, mage and turned it into a menacing manual for ushealer enter specially prepared, his readers. But if he paid attention there he might realise £1century-old,000 is not quite enough to build his ownmagical mazes, self-aggrandising theme park, even if he manages and race to employ the bummyexit, booky, wimpy types behind perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the scenesway. The grand sum Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is what Dennis intends to win when The Fame Factor TV talent show hits town. Thatthat one team has been retired, as we can easily foretelleaten, and a new trio of questors is going to be needed. Possibly very menacingly interestingunfortunately indeed for Kit, but that's not he has taken to the goading from the site token bully of the titular carnage – for his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-zone have in actually managing that we have , and how could he possibly hope to rely on an unusual sleep-over…succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141355840</amazonuk>1839945184

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Cheeky CharlieJames Sherwood Metts|authortitle=Mat WaughPlanet Storyland|rating=4.5

|summary=''My book is about all Things have been a bit sticky for the naughty things that my brother Charlie has doneEarthlings. Some of it is funny, some of it is a bit sadAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and lots of it is disgusting, because other tasks that's what Charlie can betook time to accomplish. It might even make you be sick, so Just as they were beginning to get ready.'' You know what? That's about the size of it. After Harry has introduced herself - she's almost seven years old, she doesn't like her freckles, she's used to people thinking that someone called Harry ought all this technological change and starting to be a boythink of other, and she has a younger brothernew ways to spend time, who is three along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and called Charlie. This is Harry's book about Charlie. Charlie is a cheeky chappie. He never shuts up. He likes to push his luck. And, having pushed his luck once, he likes to push along with it again. And again. And again. This is much to Harry's exasperation, as she explains by dint of a book full of anecdotes..all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1508910510</amazonuk>1736128426

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellTom Percival|title=Dork Diaries: Once Upon a Dork (Book 8)The Wrong Shoes|rating=3.5

|summary=There Will's life is wishing you had difficult, in a fairytale relationshipmultitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and/or having doesn't have enough money for even the chance to change your life drastically – most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and then there is being able to see what would actually happen if either wish came truehad an accident. Nikki wakes up on a typical school day with a hellish start – no alarm clock, due to her younger sister, sandwich all over her jumper, again due to her younger sisterThrow into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and so onWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, and so she can only wish for something to take her out of it and give her he still has a dollop tiny amount of fantasyhope. That something He is dodgeballgood at art, which bangs her on the head so much she wakes up in a sheer fantasy world, where her BFFs are Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood, clings to the world moments of joy when he is peopled by other folk from schooldrawing, but her hunky friend Brandon is still Prince Charmingthat feel like a light at the end of a long, and her enemy Mackenzie Hollister is still able to make her life hell…dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>147114383X</amazonuk>1398527122

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lincoln Peirce1805141872|title=Big Nate Lives It Up (Big Nate, Book 7)The Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley

|summary=Life at school might actually be interesting for Big Nate, for once. Even if the building is so old it's falling down, an ancient student's journal much like his has been discovered, peppered with Seventeen banks and a girl's cartoons from a long, long time ago – proving even he can jeweller’s have a connection with something a century oldbeen raided. (And I don't mean The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the connection made when bits of the place actually fall onto truth – his head.) Unfortunately for NateMaths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, another connection has been forced Miss Judson and Ben go on him – he has had to buddy up with the new boy in classrun. But Al needs them for one last job... ''He's new Goodness me, dorky, and has that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a name that sounds nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a British boarding schoolbad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Luckily for Miss Judson, we're told. But what exactly the pupil who discovers her terrible secret is it about Breckenridge Puffington III that gives Nate Ben, the son of a strong sense of déjà vu…?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007581270</amazonuk>famous magician who has ambitions to be as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= StrefChristopher Edge|title=J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan: The Graphic NovelBlack Hole Cinema Club

|genre=Graphic NovelsConfident Readers|summary=Here's Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a quiz question for you – despite the uniform seventy year copyright rulemovie marathon at their local cinema, which work a place that has been the sole recipient nickname of an endless extension 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, they're looking forward to lots of itexciting films, and many, courtesy of an ex-Prime Minister? many snacks! The answer is obvious now at leastHowever, as the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is one such volume. It's a very readable and pleasant variant on J M Barrie's original stage version and novel regarding Peter Pandifferent, which of course helps and always will now help the Great Ormond Street Childrenthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn's Hospitalt even imagine. And for a boy who never grows upBut as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the cinema, at 111 years old he's in spritely good health.and to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780272901</amazonuk>1839942738

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Helen MossAdam Stower|title= Secrets of the Tombs 2: The Dragon PathMurray and Bun|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= They don't actually intend Murray is supposed to have an adventure: quite the oppositebe a humble, in fact. As far as fifteen-year-old Ryan tidy and his friend Cleo are concernedfriendly cat, being chased by bad guys one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and falling down deep holes is seriously over-rated, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But theyhe's a bad magician're on their way to China with their parents anyways cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the catflap they both use can hardly refuse when Cleo's grandmother asks 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 put a jade bracelet shebe honest, but he's had for eighty years back where it belongs. Whereturned up and he's the harm?ll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444010417</amazonuk>0008561249

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kjartan Poskitt Alex Bell and Philip ReeveTim McDonagh|title=Borgon The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the Axeboy wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a helper at the Whispering Temple (Borgon dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the eatery leads to a confession 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 Axeboy 3)Cat

|summary=''The middle's nice and crunchy but the squishy bits Once again, mice are horriblepitched against cat.'' NoIn this case, principally, thatwe have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you's not re seeing a predator connection, they live in prehistoric times discussing a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to be the eating names of us humanscheeses. InsteadAnyway, itBrie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don's Borgon t match the Axeboy's mother, discussing peachesother mice he lives with. Yes, even in a world where a lot of nasty animals are still around to potentially eat They nibble up paper wrapping from the likes of Borgon, there are still things cheese for people to learnbedding – he displays it as art and makes stories based on the visuals on it. Borgon for And that story-telling will come in handy onenight, in this third adventure in the series, has a lot to learn about religion – when he scoffs at the idea therefeels all alone and cast out. It's a god resident in a temple he and his friends have discovered, even almost as if his friend Hunjah insists otherwisethere were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. The lesson is forced and This makes Brie the top dog in the truth comes outmouse community, howeverthough, when as all the others had the chance to half-inch some thieves turn up, having pegged cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the site as a location of many earthly riches…successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057130737X</amazonuk>0571376010

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Dead End Kids: Heroes of the Blitz Lauren St John|authortitle=Bernard AshleyFinding Wonder|rating=4.5|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=ItRoo's London life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when she was young, and now she finds herself awoken in 1940. Most the middle of the men have been conscripted and night by the East End is populated mainly by women and children. Josie and police banging on her door to tell her that her friends are carrying dad has dropped dead on much as usual, though, grouping into little gangs and arguing over turf via mud fights along his way to the Thames. But then comes corner shop to buy a terrible night of bombinglottery ticket. It When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt, Joni, who she knows her dad didn's the start t think very highly of the Blitz . But she has no one else, and 57 consecutive nights of bombing so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for the East End. The fire service is stretched way beyond its capacity Roo, as when she and the lucky ones make Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it out of the shelters breaks down in the morning, while the unlucky ones don't see another sunrise.middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408338955</amazonuk>0571376169

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Emma CarrollAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=In Darkling WoodOscar's Lion|rating=53

|summary= In the early hours We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is more likely – read him his very favourite book a couple of the morning Alice’s mum receives the phone call they have been waiting times before he has to be ready forschool. The long awaited heart transplant that may save her sick brother But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, Theo’slooking sheepish, life is now possibleand admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. Alice finds herself sent But there are benefits to stay with having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a grandmother she doesn’t know, miles away from her friends and birthday party for Oscar the life she knowsother month. There is no TV And it can shapeshift, no phone signal so he can take it to school and no internet but Alice feels drawn it can get him out of a problem. And it's wonderful to have around the mysterious Darkling Wood surrounding house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the house despite her grandmother’s wish to have rules, and so on. OK, it chopped down. Meanwhile back in 1918 can't work a young girl desperately waits for news of her brother’s safe return from the front. Her mother doesn’t like her playing in the nearby wood dimmer switch but it is there that she discovers secrets and magic that can give her hope for the futureOscar a wonderful time. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>057131757X</amazonuk>0008596751

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Potion DiariesJudith Eagle|authortitle=Amy AlwardThe Stolen Songbird

|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Samantha Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is a mixer having to go up North to take care of potions extraordinaireher sister who is unwell. Which So who is just as wellgoing to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, because someone 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 save a princess who has fallen in love halt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with herself. Yesan orphan boy, you heard right! You might not think this is the most enormous problem - princesses are so spoiled and pamperedAlbie, who is it any wonder they fall living there too. But she soon finds herself caught up in love with themselves? But this isn't whata mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's happened. Princess Evelyn has taken old suitcase, and all across London a love potion meant to make someone else fall in love with ''her''fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. And Is the resulting havoc caused by painting somehow linked to the wrong person taking the right potion leads gang? And what has happened to some very unstable magic that could threaten the very kingdom itself. Hence the Caro''Wilde Hunt'', a national quest to find s mother? Is she somehow involved in the ingredients for a cure.mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471143562</amazonuk>0571363148

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Thirteen Days of MidnightTania Unsworth|authortitle=Leo HuntNowhere Island

|genre=TeensConfident Readers|summary=Luke Manchett really isn't that upset when Meet Gil. Just twelve, he gets is so determined to escape the care system – the news system that his father has died. You might think constantly puts him in futureless places that's are not homes – and find a tad harsh, but Luke has been estranged from his father home for yearshimself. His primary concern He is his motheren route to yet another fosterer, who is disabled by crushing cluster headaches. Sowhen he jumps into an anonymous car, rather than worry her, Luke heads off and lets it ride him to a lawyer's office his future. That future seems to deal 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 reading two directions of his father's will by himselfa motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. And he gets Them, and a mute girl also finding a shockhome there, albeit so much more successfully. Luke's inheritance adds up to six million dollars. SIX MILLION! Over a 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>1408337460</amazonuk>1804540080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John Dougherty and David Tazzyman (illustrator)Helen Peters|title=Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face Friends and the Bees of StupidityTraitors|rating=53

|summary=We've been here beforeEngland, WW2. The lovely children whose name is in Two young girls are new at the title of all these books – handy when they make time to try and check if they're in this one or not – are woken up in a ridiculous way by a blackbird making his usual cameocountry pile called Stanbrook. The Army of Great Kerfuffle One is asleep – Nancy, destined to be in service all single cat of her life itseems, like the female generations before her. The King other is wearing Sidney, a girl from a badge hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that allows him to pretend to not be the King – this time hehas been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn's thinking of keeping beest guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, although he has four animals that go 'quack' and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a hive insteadrum 'un. Oh yeahMidnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, and the evil badgers are in prison having not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been naughtyattacked. But they will never follow surely the pattern girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be evil and naughty and break out in order to be eviller and more naughty, will theyso underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192742736</amazonuk>1788004647

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Julian SedgwickJamie Littler|title=Ghosts of ShanghaiArkspire

|summary=ShanghaiTwo sisters, 1926Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. The city Juniper is heavily divided between the naturalan eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, national areas, and the enclaves of including relics from prior major wars left out in the foreigners – Russian, French, American, BritishBadlands. Several Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the younger international youths have formed the Ghost Society gangreligious districts of Arkspire, after perhaps even to become the principal character, Ruby, found another divide cleaving Shanghai child in two – that between line to inherit the living and power of the deadWatcher, the 'real world' and the Otherworld. Her brother dead, she seemed closest to become a ruler the conduit for a poltergeist in her apartmentdistrict has, and recently one of the gang have even managed to lock a spirit into a bottle and cast it down a wellfive major victors in said earlier war. But Being trained in the magic that only five people can use would definitely change the gang is immediately falling apart – status of the lad she loves, Charlie, and his sister are diverting themselves from, or have been warned off, any further such activitywhole family. Rose knows she has But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to find the source gain some power of the problem her own – and cross any untold divides in her city to find the truth…for good, or for very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444923900</amazonuk>0241586143

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guillermo del Toro, Daniel Kraus and Sean Murray024162343X|title=Trollhunters|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=West Coast USA in the 1960s, and the city is wracked and wrecked by a slew of missing children reports. The parents with their new anguishes, 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 to go, Jack Sturgess. Cue the modern era and Jack's younger, now grown-up brother Jim, and Jim Jr live a sheltered life in the most barricaded and secure home imaginable, and Jim Jr's life is as exciting as you'd expect. 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…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471405192</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewStolen History|author= Caroline Lawrence|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-JackedSathnam Sanghera

|genre=Confident Readers Children's Non-Fiction|summary=A boy genius who speaks Mandarin and Latin and 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 criminal who’s just robbed a bank and stolen a car: it’s an unusual pairing but'god'. Where was the proof? In history lessons, it turns outwas 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, a perfect teambut 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. ‘‘Car Looking back, I still believe I was right -Jacked’’ leads us through but I regret that I lacked the twists and turns of 12-year old Jack’s adventure when his parents’ car is hi-jacked with Jack still insidematurity to approach 'the problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>019273346X</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Joan Aiken and Quentin BlakeThiago de Moraes|title=Arabel’s RavenOld Gods New Tricks

|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=It’s been manyMeet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, many years since I first met Arabel 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 her pet ravenone-last-chance-giving headteacher, Mortimer, whilst watching Jackanory on children’s televisionthe world changes. Bernard Cribbins used to read Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the storiesentire planet (apart from mobile phones, and they became firm favourites all that powers the Internet, just for our convenience's sake). Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the power of minepower from us. Here I am returning And so she begins her epic quest, to gather all the first book people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the seriesGods, wellie the semi-deities, just a handful of years latergiants, half-gods and so on known as the story has lost none of its charmtricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847806910</amazonuk>178845295X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Philip CaveneyHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title= One For SorrowFinding Bear|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= You'd think[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], wouldn't youApril had been on Bear Island, that Tom Afflick a lot further north than many people would move heaven venture, and earth to avoid leaving Manchester to go to Edinburgh: finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, things on his last two visits there he ended up tumbling into the pastdomestic and family front are a bit advanced, where he met all manner of scary folkbut not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the islands Bear was last left on. But parents tend to be pretty determined to get their own way about such For a bear doing very Bear-y things, has been shot and no way are they going to swallow some mad tale about him being chased by plague doctors and other assorted murdererswounded. So, off he has Desperate to go, and yes – he's barely set foot in ''Auld Reekie'' when make sure he's time travelling againOK, she and her father return to the Arctic and hope that in a wondrous mix world of dramavery white and very dangerous things, real live people she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and deadly perilthat the friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905916957</amazonuk>0008582017

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dave CousinsSimon Fox|title=Charlie Merrick's Misfits in I'm a Nobody, Get Me Out of Here!Deadlock|rating=4.5

|summary=What Late one night Graham Blake is that sayinglate back from his shift on the force, about the best laid plans of mice and misfits gang aft agley? Charlie and his fondly thought of friends in the soccer squad we met [[Charlie Merrick's Misfits in Foulsthen suddenly rings Archie, Friendsdemanding he fetch something from a secret place, and Football by Dave Cousins|last time]] are hoping for a simple trip to a summer camp for a week's educative trainingjoin him on the run. But noThey get together, their dopey manager has booked them in but barely begin to a survival camp by mistake. Instead of hitting smell the back whiff of Southern trains when the net they're building tarpaulin shelters. They can't set any watching footie-heads ablazefather is arrested, for they have leaving Archie on the late express to spark their own fires at night. They can still score, howeverBrighton, as there's toting a points-based competition tin his father was determined to handkeep away from his colleagues, but now that Charlie has dropped his team in and the proverbial, they're once more really up against it…bearer of a whole heap of questions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192738232</amazonuk>1839944420

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=John McNallyCath Howe|title=The Forbidden City (Infinity Drake, Book 2)|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=Finn may be only 9mm tall and still a teenager, but he's already saved the world once. Accidentally shrunk by his mad scientist Uncle Al, he joined a crack military team and helped foil the threat of a lethal bio-weapon, the Scarlatti wasp. But there's no let-up for Finn. Before Al can restore him to normal size, a new threat emerges.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007521650</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tom Palmer|title=Rugby Academy: DeadlockedMy Life on Fire

|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=ItRen's the third story family home is destroyed 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 to Air by Tom Palmer|Surface to Air]]a fire. In thisShe, the final book in this brilliant seriesher parents, we hear from Owenand her little brother lose everything. We left the team She doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, and now she is living at the end of her grandmother's house where they can'Surface to Air'' when Borderlands had got through to t touch anything, or do anything, or even eat the World Championship in New Zealandfoods they normally eat. Despite When she goes back to school she discovers that the elation class are doing a special art project, creating boxes of doing so Owen isn't entirely comfortable with Jessetheir lives, the team captainto display things that are important to them and show who they are as a person. He But Ren has no doubts nothing to put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to steal things. Small things, things that he was a brilliant player - the best on the team - but he can't respect him as a personpeople 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>1781123993</amazonuk>1839942835

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=E L KonigsburgRob Keeley|title=From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E FrankweilerThe Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories

|summary=Eleven-year-old Claudia Kincaid Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is tired of being taken for granted. As back with a return to the oldest of four children, she suffers many an injustice, and the interplay of school and home life is becoming monotonous. She decides short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to run away from her home in Greenwicheleven new tales, Connecticut each as fun to live in the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art. Middle brother Jamie, 9, is her chosen companion, not least because he can fund their venture. By cheating read as his friend Bruce at card games, Jamie has accumulated more than $24 – which, in 1967 when this classic children's novel first appeared, was not an insignificant amountprevious offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690719</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellLaura Noakes|title=Dork Diaries: Drama Queen (Dork Diaries 9)Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star

|summary=Meet Mackenzie HollisterNumber One. She's a typical American tweenager – concerned in popularityOr rather, looksCosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the hot guys like Brandongirls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and getting one over on they're all those around herUnfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. That's made But Cosima bears the tag as a lot more easy by her parents being spoilingly rich – if Mackenziesurname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, sayas the first ever inmate, wants and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a new cover for her diary daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, she will just rip up discovers a plan involving said outside world – a new $220 leopard print designer blouse and use thatdevilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to adopt all the girls for his Institute. But the problem iswhy, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she's reading back has so little link with?|isbn=0008579059}}{{Frontpage|author=Alice M Ross|title=The Nowhere Thief|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=At last there is new stock in the impoverished yet over, -full antiques shop Elsbeth and what her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. She also knows she's writing inshould be free from worries about being found out, isn't ''exactly'' her diary – it's because she has the diary belonging ability to our beloved heroineleave this world, Nikkiand use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and Mackenzie has managed to purloin it ripe for evil deedsplunder. Can Nikki get it back – or live With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at all without her beloved journalthe shop? And could there actually be something worse than her biggest enemy ofWell yes, like, all timeis the answer, being but the person reading it?fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471117707</amazonuk>1839943769

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lewis Carroll and Sir John TennielNatasha Farrant|title=Alice's Adventures in Wonderland The Rescue of Ravenwood

|summary=It can hardly have escaped anyoneThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''s attention that 2015 . Ravenwood is an old house, in the 150th anniversary North of England, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of their lives. 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 publication cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of Lewis Carrollthe nature around the house and loving 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 becoming more and more expensive to maintain. The children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'Alicell even be together, and if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|isbn=0571348785}}{{Frontpage|author=Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Jayden's Adventures nose is forever in Wonderlanda 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 outside world of Hackney, London. But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and wewith a past involving Jayden've s cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen numerous anniversary editionson 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 in. 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447287118</amazonuk>0241573483

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=B09XWSXSKY|title=Guy Bass Maestro Orpheus and Pete Williamsonthe World Clock|titleauthor=The Beast of Grubbers Nubbin (Stitch Head)Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski

|summary=ItFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn's all wrong in Castle Grotteskewt sleep. The very walls should be terrified by A tune, rather like the monsters the Mad Professor ticking of a clock was playing over and over in the basement is creatinghis mind. It happened every time he came to visit his grandfather. He hadn't really wanted to come; after all, out of various body parts he's ten now and different animalsall those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore.  ''Who needs old clocks anyway? But no, the clamour of noise, All they do is tell the unlikely activities and horrendous appetite for food come from something else entirely – a hundred rescued human orphanstime. That appetite needs feeding – so it’s perfect timing And time isn't good for anything...'' And that was why he was looking at the village below clock beside the castle, Grubbers Nubbin, to have their annual podge-a-thon feastbed. But when Stitch Head and his human friend Arabella go to purloin some human food – there being no decent alternative – theyIt was nearly twelve o're horrified clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and find something even worse than grandad - but where was he? And why had all the monsters trapped in the castle above…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847156096</amazonuk>clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?