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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn= 1836285493|title=The Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=David ORob Keeley|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This hasn'Doherty t gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to Will and Chris Judgehis mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.}}{{Frontpage|isbn= 1836282028|title=Danger The Fighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''Would you like to adopt a ghost?'' ''Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and shocks a speciality.'' ''If interested, place outside your home three twigs, in the shape of an arrow, pointing to your front door...'' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is celebrating a decade of his wonderfully entertaining [[Rob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in Chronological Order|Spirits]] series with a new adventure that is Still Everywhereboth a reboot and a continuation. Just like 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 rules as usual and absconded from his manor house home, is adopted by them and takes up residence in.... a wardrobe!}}{{Frontpage|author=Rob Keeley|title=Childish Spirits: Beware 10th anniversary special edition|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Around here, we're big fans of children's author Rob Keeley. He's a ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or hector.  The ''Childish Spirits'' series is one of his greatest achievements. It's a sequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her, and Edward, a spoiled lordling and the Dog!first spirit Ellie encounters|isbn= 1783064617}}{{Frontpage|author=Max Boucherat|title=The Last Life of Lori Mills

|summary=Meet Gordon. HeWe meet Lori on the first evening she's a very safe betgot the house to herself – no neighbour to pop in, babysitter poorly, mother at work, now you have met himjust an avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, as he's a source of highly intelligent and descriptive warnings about dangeron her lonesome. He and he alone can voice warnings about the Puddle Shark you might get eaten byWhat could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, the Parp Donkey that might evict you by farting through your letter boxshe has one main intention, and the Headphones Crab that – wellis to log on to Voxminer, the illustration here says it all. Nowworld-building, I know what youcritter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori're thinkings world. Advice But first Lori has a tiny inkling that this intelligent stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, and salient could only really come from Docter Noel Zone, the world's only Level Five Dangerologistthen she finds something even more spooky. And you'd For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be right. Gordon is the name Noel gives able to his wardrobeenter shows signs of tampering. And Noel is currently living When malevolent eyes spark up on her phone screen, and her safe place in Gordon the wardrobe, as his house game has been taken over by a messydoctored – well, noisy, and incredibly dangerous puppy. Add into the mix where is a pet contest hosted by the world's most dangerous man and you have a recipe for disaster (when all you wanted was a completely safe recipe for cabbage soup, as well…)girl to turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>014135920X</amazonuk>0008666482

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Gillian CrossKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title= Shadow CatDungeon Runners: Hero Trial|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the sport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, magical mazes, and race to the exit, perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the way. Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to the goading from the token bully of 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, and how could he possibly hope to succeed?|isbn=1839945184}}{{Frontpage|author=James Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland

|genre= Confident Readers|summary= When Nolan's effervescent mother suddenly takes him on Things have been a surprise journey he is in as much fear and doubt as bit sticky for the reader about what will happen nextEarthlings. Meanwhile music sensation MidirAI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they's daughter Feather is tired of being controlled re paid to do and dreading the next photo opportunity for the pressother tasks that took time to accomplish. Then, one night, Just as her father prepares for a shockingthey were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, spectacular eventnew ways to spend time, everything changesalong came an awful pandemic. Cross keeps us guessing as Nolan's world is turned upside Life was pretty much shut down and he has to make difficult choices. Why is his mother in , along with it, all the clouds many daily social interactions on an exultant high one minute and grey, stressed and in the doldrums of despair the next? Does Feather really want to be his friend or do which they just have the serval they have sworn to protect in common?depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192736736</amazonuk>1736128426

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Julian Clary and David RobertsTom Percival|title= The BoldsWrong Shoes|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= The BoldsWill's life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. He is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', Mr he has the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and Mrs doesn't have enough money for even the most basic of things like food, and their two small childrenhis dad can't work because he lost his job at the college, live was working a cash-in an ordinary semi-detached house in suburban Teddington. They have jobs; Mrs Bold designs and sells flamboyant hats hand job on a building site and Mr Bold writes jokes for Christmas crackers. But they are most definitely not had an ordinary familyaccident. Oh no! They Throw into that mix the fact that his mum and dad are separated, and Will's life seems bleak in fact hyenasevery direction. And yet, he still has a tiny amount of hope. So far they have managed He is good at art, and clings to successfully pretend to be human beingsthe moments of joy when he is drawing, that feel like a light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.|isbn=1398527122}}{{Frontpage|isbn=1805141872|title=The Teacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4. Although very hairy 5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''Seventeen banks and prone to laughing a lot they jeweller’s have kept been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth (– his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their tails!) a secret from everyonetrail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But their grumpy next door neighbour, Mr McNumptyAl needs them for one last job...'' Goodness me, that Miss Judson is growing suspicious and then a trip terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to the local safari park has repercussionsget mixed up with a bad 'un like Al? We'll find out. Will Luckily for Miss Judson, the Bolds' carefully long kept pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, the son of a famous magician who has ambitions to be revealed?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783443057</amazonuk>as good as his father some day, and who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Maudie SmithChristopher Edge|title= The Cake, the Wolf and the WitchBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Max doesn't believe Lucas and his friends are all booked in happy endings. How could hefor a movie marathon at their local cinema, when lovely, brave, caring Mum got killed climbing a mountain? He doesnplace that has the nickname of 't like heights or small dark spaces and he doesnThe Black Hole't like silly fairy stories. He absolutely hates being dressed in knickerbockers All big movie fans, silk slippers and a cape for Dad and Ilonathey's weddingre looking forward to lots of exciting films, and in factmany, many snacks! However, as the only thing that's worse, in his opinionmovie starts, is the fact they very quickly realise that once it's over he'll have to share his home with a horrible something about this new brother and sister. I mean, come on, people! Nettle film format is a total grouch who's clearly never cracked a smile in her whole lifevery different, and little Wild is just they are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. . . well, But as they lurch from one film genre to tell the truthnext, he's plain daft. He prances about can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to the place like a demented butterflycinema, and he never takes his baseball cap off, even to go to bed. How's Max supposed to get along with that pairtheir real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444015605</amazonuk>1839942738

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rose Lagercrantz and Eva ErikssonAdam Stower|title=When I Am HappiestMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=If Dani leaves her school for the summer holidays with one souvenirMurray is supposed to be a humble, it will either be the memories of the fabulous friendship she formed with Ellatidy and friendly cat, one who struck a chord in [[My Happy Life by Rose Lagercrantz is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and Eva Eriksson|book one]] then moved away, or it will be a book she has written and compiled to remind her well, whatever takes his fancy next of all the happiness she has encountered along the waytwo. That is not quite finishedBut he's a bad magician's cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, for and the following day is to be catflap they both use can chuck them out, not into the great end regular back garden, but into a world of year party, frightening adventure and her classroom decorations are complete and her dress has been bought new speciallywhiffs. But not all of life This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is happiness and jollity expected – and Dani is removed from the classroom well, one much bigger than Murray was, to face very bad news. What ending is in storebe honest, for her book but he's turned up and for ours?he'll have to do…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1927271894</amazonuk>0008561249

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Noel Streatfeild Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Ballet Shoes The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts

|summary=''Ballet Shoes'' tells Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the story of three adopted orphans – Paulinewondrous library we start by visiting with him, Petrova and Posy Fossilin the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Brought to 1930s London as babies by an eccentric explorer (Great Uncle Matthew Eli lives with his lovely gran, otherwise known as Gum)too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli's parents were both lost to the girls titular race, a globe-trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the world in the company of a comfortable life until magical beast. This has made the race anathema to the pair – but when a bad incident at the family begin eatery leads to a confession from gran, Eli knows his only hope is to dare to run out enter what he most hates, with the sole aim the prize of moneymagic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran. Luckily |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. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in case you're seeing a connection, they are live in a cheese shop and therefore all given places at the Childrennames used here seem to be the names of cheeses. Anyway, Brie is shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the way his habits don's Academy of Dancing t match the other mice he lives with. They nibble up paper wrapping from the cheese for bedding – he displays it as art and Stage Training makes stories based on the visuals on it. And that story-telling will come in handy one night, when he feels all alone and soon start cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to earn their own way keep themselves alive. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as child performers on all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the stagecat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141359803</amazonuk>0571376010

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Gareth P JonesLauren St John|title=Clash of the Rival Robots (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates)Finding Wonder

|summary=We learn a lot about the world of the Steampunk Pirates in this volume of their adventuresRoo's life has become almost impossibly difficult. While having had references to Britain fighting France before Her mum died when she was young, and now, we find she finds herself awoken in the location matters more than [[Attack middle of the Giant Sea Spiders (Adventures of night by the Steampunk Pirates) by Gareth P Jones|last time]], as we head back police banging on her door to England. The Pirates have been told of a tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his way to get into the Tower of London corner shop to steal the Crown Jewelsbuy a lottery ticket. We also learn a lot about their upbringingWhen asked what other family she has, if you she can call it that – certainly more than last timeonly name her aunt, as we see what made them piratical in the first placeJoni, which was a surprise to their inventor when it happenedwho she knows her dad didn't think very highly of. But you never knowshe has no one else, they may be about and so off she goes to live with her unreliable aunt. Things continue to face a showdown against said scientist – get worse for Roo, as when she andJoni leave London in Joni's old campervan, worse, his next generation it breaks down in the middle of robots. nowhere and then bursts into flames! If only they perhaps had been programmed to avoid temptation…Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847156061</amazonuk>0571376169

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Karen McCombieAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title= Catching Falling StarsOscar's Lion|rating= 4.53|genre= Confident Readers|summary= It We start incredibly bluntly, with Oscar hoping to have his mother – or father, but mother is 1940 and after more likely – read him his very favourite book a year couple of the times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents''phoney war'' London bedroom, all he sees is suffering in the Blitz. Glory and her younger brother Rich have now been evacuated to a country village far from everything they know mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and loveadmitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. When the arrangements made by their mother fall through the children But there are sent benefits to live with Miss Saunders, having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a cold and unwelcoming woman who is not popular in birthday party for Oscar the village other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and Glory wonders if they would have been better off remaining in London despite the danger it can get him out of falling bombsa problem. The local children appear unfriendly and even in And it's wonderful to have around the countryside they are house – not completely safe from limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about the enemyrules, and so on. All Glory wants is to return home to her parents OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but she will soon discover that her life is to change in unexpected ways and she will learn that her first impressions should not always be trustedit can give Oscar a wonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407138898</amazonuk>0008596751

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alexander McCall SmithJudith Eagle|title=Precious and the Zebra NecklaceThe Stolen Songbird|rating=54

|summary=There is a new girl at Precious RamotsweCaro's schoolmother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her name other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to take care of her sister who is Nancy, and Precious unwell. So who is asked going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, someone Caro has heard her mother despises, she feels frustrated and make sure confused and worried. All her summer holiday plans of building herself some equipment to practise her gymnastics are brought to a halt whilst she settles into schoolis stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. Precious, already But she soon finds herself caught up in a budding detective at such a young agemystery, soon sniffs out that there is as she discovers a little bit painting of a mystery surrounding Nancy bird hidden away inside her mum's old suitcase, and on discovering that all Nancy has left of her parents is across London a fading photograph fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and a zebra necklace she decides that she must try terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to help Nancy discover the truth about gang? And what has happened to them.Caro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780273274</amazonuk>0571363148

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hilary McKayTania Unsworth|title=Binny in SecretNowhere Island

|summary=Reading Binny Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in Secret was rather like futureless places that moment are not homes – and find a home for himself. He is en route to yet another fosterer, whenhe jumps into an anonymous car, as a child, I discovered 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 Noel Streatfield had written someone lives with his brother in a LOT camp on an island between the two directions of other shoe books ora motorway, just a few years ago, when I suddenly discovered Jeanne Birdsall place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and her Penderwick storiesseclusion. Them, and I gorged on thema mute girl also finding a home there, utterly delighting in their humour and kindnessalbeit so much more successfully. I don't quite know how I haven't come across Hilary McKay beforeOver a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, but of course now a long list of her books have gone onto my 'to read' pile because I thoroughly enjoyed or if this story and I immediately wanted more!is one place where life as we would want it just would not work…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444913409</amazonuk>1804540080

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kate PankhurstHelen Peters|title= The Disappearing Dinner Lady (Mariella Mystery)Friends and Traitors|rating= 4.53|genre= Confident Readers|summary=Mariella has to admit it: England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the school dinners have been much better latelycountry pile called Stanbrook. When Big G was One is Nancy, destined to be in chargeservice all her life it seems, vegetable mush was like the order of the dayfemale generations before her. The other is Sidney, but since the 'Ladies Who Lunch' agency have a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been supplying the mealsremoved there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, they have been serving up heavenly dishes like 'Monday Munchie Madnessand if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, 'Princess Pie' and first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a rum 'Pirate Pasta Bake'un. The mystery girls love the new menu Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is made of meetings with Germans, but even more than and not only that, they love a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the new dinner ladygirls are wrong, 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 lady.upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444012347</amazonuk>1788004647

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tomiko Inui and Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator)Jamie Littler|title=The Secret of the Blue GlassArkspire

|summary=One problem with being four inches or so tallTwo sisters, as any [[The Borrowers: The Borrowers Juniper and The Borrowers Afield by Mary Norton|Borrower]]-type creature I'm sure will tell youElodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is getting aroundan eager hunter and trader in illicit magic, including relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. There're Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the child in line to inherit the impracticalities power of being so smallthe Watcher, encounters with catsthe closest to a ruler the district has, and a whole lot moreone of the five major victors in said earlier war. But with this modern world things Being trained in the magic that only five people can happen – such as an English governess-type taking a married couple use would definitely change the status of Little People to Japan with herthe whole family. There they have kidsBut in finding something oddly magical, and she leaves them with Juniper might just be able to gain some power of her favourite pupil own – alongside the most necessary equipmentfor good, a small blue glass gobletor for very, that helps very bad…|isbn=0241586143}}{{Frontpage|isbn=024162343X|title=Stolen 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 human bond with existence of a 'god'. Where was the Little People by using proof? In history lessons, it to donate milk to them on a daily basiswas probably worse still. WeNot too long after the end of WWII, I didn're now into t so much want to learn about the second generation of Japanese people looking after themBritish army's successes (and occasional failures, but something much more threateningwe 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, allI still believe I was right -enveloping and worrying than a cat is around but I regret that I lacked the maturity to approach 'the corner – World War Twoproblem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782690344</amazonuk>

{{newreviewplainFrontpage|author=Thiago de Moraes|title=In Their Shoes: Fairy Tales Old 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's being told that by her one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the world changes. Suddenly, practically everything electronic stops working – a power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the town the school's in but the entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and 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 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, giants, half-gods and so on known as the tricksters.|isbn=178845295X}}{{Frontpage|author=Hannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title=Finding Bear|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=[[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a lot further north than many people would venture, and finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she 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 islands Bear was last left on. For a bear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Desperate to make sure he's OK, she and Folktalesher father return to the Arctic and hope that in a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one specific white and dangerous thing – and that the friendship can continue.|isbn=0008582017}}{{Frontpage|author=Simon Fox|title=Deadlock|rating=4.5

|summary=Lots of books haveLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, and then suddenly rings Archie, in their own waydemanding he fetch something from a secret place, shown fairy tales to have relied and join him on certain tropesthe run. You certainly don't have to read them all, or indeed manyThey get together, but barely begin to see the wily child outsmart smell the adult again and again, people tricked into changing ownership whiff of magical things, Southern trains when the power of being a stepmotherfather is arrested, or leaving Archie on the power of doing things in threes. Stilllate express to Brighton, I think this must be one of toting a very rare few collections tin his father was determined to look at footwear as a themekeep away from his colleagues, with and the bearer of a tidy, small selection whole heap of fairy and folk-tales to entertain, all with that subjectquestions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782691014</amazonuk>1839944420

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ulrich Hub, Jorg Muhle and Helena Ragg-Kirkby (translator)Cath Howe|title=Meet at the Ark at Eight!My Life on Fire|rating=45|genre= Confident Readers|summary=An educated penguin, an agnostic penguin and Ren's family home is destroyed in a violentfire. She, smallerher parents, young penguin walk into a snowdrift… and her little brother lose everything. You might not be able to make a full joke out She doesn't have any of that opening lineher clothes, but this book practically does continue on from there. Three penguins – each a or any of her special little different knick-knacks from the otherher cupboard, and now she is living at her grandmother's house where they can't touch anything, or do anything, or even if eat the foods they generally look and definitely smell normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that the sameclass are doing a special art project, and God, a subject creating boxes of their conversation when a butterfly comes alonglives, of all to display thingsthat are important to them and show who they are as a person. The young, hot-headed one (well, But Ren has nothing to put in the pictures he wears a woolly hatbox, he's bound and so she finds herself starting to be hot-headed) leaves in umbragesteal things. Small things, leaving just two – which is perfectly timed if you're a dovethings that people might not really miss, and come along telling all the animals not when they have so much already. But what will happen to get into Noah's Ark in pairs, as an almighty flood her if someone finds out what she is about to happen…doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690875</amazonuk>1839942835

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven ButlerRob Keeley|title=The Diary of Dennis the Menace: Canine Carnage (book 5)Boy Who Disappeared and Other Stories

|summary= I'm sure Dennis the Menace has a hate-hate relationship with school, but the nature of it Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is relevant when considering these books. The fact he goes at all is the cause for them in the first place – he [[The Diary of Dennis the Menace by Steven Butler|originally]] was tasked back with writing a journal as homework, and turned it into a menacing manual for us, his readers. But if he paid attention there he might realise £1,000 is not quite enough return to build his own, self-aggrandising theme park, even if he manages to employ the bummy, booky, wimpy types behind the scenes. short story format! The grand sum is what Dennis intends Boy Who Disappeared treats us to win when The Fame Factor TV talent show hits town. Thateleven new tales, each as we can easily foretell, is going fun to be very menacingly interesting, but that's not the site of the titular carnage – for that we have to rely on an unusual sleep-over…read as his previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141355840</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Cheeky CharlieLaura Noakes|authortitle=Mat WaughCosima Unfortunate Steals a Star

|summary=''My book is about all the naughty things that my brother Charlie has doneMeet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Some of it is funny Or rather, some of it just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is a bit sadfor the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and lots of it is disgustingthey're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, because uncommon mentalities or suchlike that's what Charlie can beVictorian society frowns greatly upon. It might even make you But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be sick, so get ready.'' You know what? That's known about the size of it. After Harry has introduced herself - where she's almost seven years oldcame from, she doesn't like her frecklesas the first ever inmate, she's used and unique in having no known family in the outside world. During a daring escapade to people thinking that someone called Harry ought to be a boysteal some posh cakes from the kitchen one afternoon, and she has discovers a younger brother, who is three and called Charlie. This is Harry's book about Charlie. Charlie is plan involving said outside world – a cheeky chappie. He never shuts up. He likes devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to want to push adopt all the girls for his luckInstitute. But why, and what does that body entail? And, having pushed his luck once, he likes to push could it again. And again. And again. This is much possibly bring Cos closer to Harry's exasperation, as the past she explains by dint of a book full of anecdotes... has so little link with?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1508910510</amazonuk>0008579059

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rachel Renee RussellAlice M Ross|title=Dork Diaries: Once Upon a Dork (Book 8)The Nowhere Thief|rating=34.5

|summary=There At last there is wishing you had a fairytale relationship, and/or having new stock in the chance to change your life drastically – impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and then there is being able to see what would actually happen if either wish came trueher mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. Nikki wakes up on a typical school day with a hellish start – no alarm clockShe also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, due because she has the ability to her younger sisterleave this world, sandwich all over her jumper, again due and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to her younger sisterenter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and so on, the buildings are generally empty of humans and so she can only wish ripe for something to take her out of it and give her a dollop of fantasyplunder. That something is dodgeballWith eviction imminent, which bangs her on can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the head so much she wakes up in a sheer fantasy worldshop? Well yes, where her BFFs are Goldilocks and Red Riding Hoodis the answer, but the world is peopled by other folk fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from school, but her hunky friend Brandon is still Prince Charming, and her enemy Mackenzie Hollister is still able to make her life hell…these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>147114383X</amazonuk>1839943769

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lincoln PeirceNatasha Farrant|title=Big Nate Lives It Up (Big Nate, Book 7)The Rescue of Ravenwood|rating=4.5

|summary=Life at school might actually be interesting for Big Nate, for onceThis story is another excellent adventure from the author of ''Voyage of the Sparrowhawk''. Even if the building Ravenwood is so an old it's falling downhouse, in the North of England, an ancient student's journal much like his has where Bea and Raffy have been discoveredliving for most of their lives. They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, peppered as Bea is there with a girl's cartoons from a longher Uncle Leo, long time ago – proving even he can have a connection and Raffy is there with something his mum, and they are living together as a century oldfamily. (And I don't mean They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the connection made when bits house and loving every inch of the place actually fall onto his head.) Unfortunately for NateBut now the house is under threat, another connection has been forced on him – he has had as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to buddy up with sell the new boy in classproperty 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'He's new, dorkyll even be together, and has a name that sounds like a British boarding school'', we're toldif Ravenwood itself will be torn down. But what exactly is it about Breckenridge Puffington III that gives Nate a strong sense of déjà vu…?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007581270</amazonuk>0571348785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= StrefRobin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=J.M. Barrie's Peter PanSecret Beast Club: The Graphic NovelUnicorns of Silver Street

|genre=Graphic NovelsConfident Readers|summary=HereJayden's nose is forever in a quiz question for you – despite the uniform seventy year copyright rulebook, which work has been means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the sole recipient phoenixes and unicorns of an endless extension of itthe world, for example. Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, courtesy where she can see videos of an ex-Prime Minister? anything that might be out there. The answer is obvious now at leastproblem, as this their mothers see it, is one such volumethat they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the outside world of Hackney, London. It's But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a very readable science-minded, educational purpose, and pleasant variant on J M Barriewith a past involving Jayden's original stage version and novel regarding Peter Pancousin, which they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of course helps and always will now help those mythological creatures are real, including the Great Ormond Street Childrenone Aisha thinks she's Hospitalseen on a bit of local footage. And for The crew of the boat, including a boy who never grows upliving gargoyle, at 111 years old he's are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in spritely good health. 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>1780272901</amazonuk>0241573483

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Helen MossB09XWSXSKY|title= Secrets of Maestro Orpheus and the Tombs 2: The Dragon PathWorld Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary= They donFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't actually intend to have an adventure: quite sleep. A tune, rather like the opposite, ticking of a clock was playing over and over in facthis mind. As far as fifteen-year-old Ryan and It happened every time he came to visit his friend Cleo are concerned, being chased by bad guys and falling down deep holes is seriously over-ratedgrandfather. But they He hadn're on their way t really wanted to China with their parents anywaycome; after all, so they can hardly refuse when Cleohe's grandmother asks them ten now and all those old clocks don't appeal to put a jade bracelet shehim anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn's had t good for eighty years back where it belongsanything...'' And that was why he was looking at the clock beside the bed. Where It was nearly twelve o's clock but at midnight the clock chimed only six times. There was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the harmclocks stopped at twelve o'clock?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444010417</amazonuk>