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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Roland Chambers and Ella Okstad1836285493|title=Nelly and the Quest for Captain PeabodyThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley

|summary=Ella's fatherWill is a keen player of video games, Captain Peabodya conscientious student, sailed away when she was a babyslightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. He remembered her birthday once or twice sending her a gift But most of painted snails all, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and an egg one at which hatched into a visionary turtlehe excels. This turtlehasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, ColumbusMrs Howarth, and she has grown suggested to become Ella's closest friend and companion as her mother sits silently knitting Will and nothing more has been heard from her father. There may be his mum that he spends a lesson about parental inadequacy and unreliability here but if so it's understated. I have rarely met couple of afternoons a less angst-ridden heroine than Ella though she can give week at a firm lecture about keeping one's promisesdifferent school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192742698</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Clive Gifford and Professor Anil Seth1836282028|title=Brain Twisters: The Science of Thinking and Feeling|rating=3.5|genre=Children's Non-Fiction|summary=Meet the brain. We all have one. We all use it (and by 'it' I mean a heck of a lot more of it than the 10% of urban myth) every second of the day. We engage with different parts of it for balance, catching a ball, memorising a list of moves in controlling a video game character, or understanding things ranging from written instruction to body language. It's such a vital part of the body, taking up 20% of our glucose fuel intake as well as of oxygen, that understanding of it cannot come at too young an age. But in this varied and complex book, looking at a varied and complex subject, I do wonder if the right approach has been taken at all times.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782402047</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFighting Spirit|author=Jenny Broom and Kristjana S Williams|title=The Wonder Garden: Wander through the world's wildest habitats and discover more than 80 amazing animalsRob Keeley

|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=Is it any wonder that this book calls the outside world The Wonder Garden''Would you like to adopt a ghost? I know things in fiction books'' ''Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on TV and in games can be fabulous, but can they compete – really – well with what nature has presented? You only need a gate through which to go, other children. Jokes and shocks a willingness to explorespeciality. This book provides those gates – there they are'' ''If interested, place outside your home three twigs, shining luxuriously on in the cover shape of this jumbo-sized hardbackan arrow, pointing to your front door... And '' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is celebrating a decade of his wonderfully entertaining [[Rob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in five easy-to-take steps, the rest of the book provides for Chronological Order|Spirits]] series with a new adventure that explorationis both a reboot and a continuation. Just like Doctor Who, taking us down south in AmazoniaEdward Fitzberranger, down below the waters of the Great Barrier Reefour incorrigible Victorian ghost boy, has some new companions. Ruby and up – Jayden respond to deserts this intriguing advertisement and mountainsEdward, via Germany's own Black Forest. And who has broken the trip rules as usual and absconded from his manor house home, is nothing if not spectacular to look atadopted by them and takes up residence in....|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847806473</amazonuk>a wardrobe!

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin Haake and Georgia CherryRob Keeley|title=City AtlasChildish Spirits: Discover the world with 30 city maps10th anniversary special edition

|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=ItAround here, we's not every time I mention the feel re big fans of the book Ichildren'm reviewing, but this time its author Rob Keeley. He's worth a mention. This volume has been lavishly presented in a roughened card coverball of happy positivity, as opposed to the gloss of others in this format from this publisherhe understands children, and so looks he writes for their pleasure and feels like an old stamp catalogueenjoyment, not to lecture or hector.  The title image ''Childish Spirits'' series is indeed a stamp, stuck on the centre one of the coverhis greatest achievements. And just as all stamps the world over are practically the same yet completely different in design, so are the worldIt's cities. The point a sequence of this book is to bring the common elements as well as the unique features of all ghost stories centring on Ellie, a stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world's capitals to the forethrows at her, and Edward, to show that while a city may be a city is a city, their constant variety is what makes each spoiled lordling and every one worth a visit. With that being on the costly side, this is a decent enough substitute.first spirit Ellie encounters|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847806481</amazonuk>1783064617

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shannon Hale, Dean Hale and LeUyen PhamMax Boucherat|title=The Princess in BlackLast Life of Lori Mills

|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=Princess Magnolia has a double lifeWe 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 avidly rule-breaking eleven year old, on her lonesome. On one hand What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has a perfectly primone main intention, proper and pink castle turret that is to live inlog on to Voxminer, on the other she has world-building, critter-collecting game that is a secret escape tunnelhit in Lori's world. On her head she But first Lori has a tiara, tiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her finger a monster alarmown, and then she finds something even more spooky. Her life is also full For the server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of threats – tampering. When malevolent eyes spark up on one side a horridher phone screen, blue, goat-eating beastie, on the other a prim and proper visitor intent on finding out if her safe place in the perfect Princess has any secrets. Well we know she game hasbeen doctored – well, but will they be discovered – and which where is the greater threata girl to turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0763678880</amazonuk>0008666482

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jacqueline WilsonKieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton|title=KatyDungeon Runners: Hero Trial

|summary= Eleven yearMeet 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 Katy Carr is a tomboy who, despite her best intentionsmagical mazes, is always getting into trouble. Lively and adventurousrace to the exit, Katy is very much perhaps bothering with the treasure or the leader of her five younger brothers big bad and sisters until an accident damages her spine and she finds herself confined to a wheelchairthe points they grant you along the way. Suddenly Katy Unfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's life seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is turned upside down that one team has been retired, eaten, and she a new trio of questors is needed. Possibly very unfortunately indeed for Kit, he has taken to learn the most basic things all over againgoading from the token bully of his world and stumbled into declaring he'll enter as a team. What chance does this friendless, to redefine her role muscle-free-zone have in the familyactually managing that, and find a new meaning in life.how could he possibly hope to succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141353961</amazonuk>1839945184

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ursula DubosarskyJames Sherwood Metts|title=Planet Storyland|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Things have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, often replacing jobs they're paid to do and other tasks that took time to accomplish. Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. Life was pretty much shut down and, along with it, all the many daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|isbn=1736128426}}{{Frontpage|author=Tom Percival|title=The Red ShoeWrong Shoes

|summary=They may be quite far apartWill's life is difficult, but three houses in a row in the rural suburbs multitude of 1950s Sydney contain some incredibly unusual peopleways. In oneHe is bullied because he has 'the wrong shoes', a solitary old man of very few words, shuffling to he has the end of wrong shoes because his days, but brandishing a Japanese sword hedad can's purloined after WWII, t work and with a gun in doesn't have enough money for even the corner most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his lounge. In job at the middlecollege, was working a family of five, with cash-in-hand job on a father figure suffering from PTSD due to the same war, a mother feeling friendless building site and alone in had an accident. Throw into that mix the isolated time fact that his mum and locationdad are separated, and their three daughters – one of whom has given up on school after an alleged nervous breakdownWill's life seems bleak in every direction. And yet, the middle one who barely speaks more than the neighbour, and Matilda, our key interest, who likes the idea of spies, and he still has an imaginary friend who came out a tiny amount of the radiohope. The third house however might be where the most interesting people live – after allHe is good at art, it had been empty, but now and clings to the luxurious building moments of joy when he is home to several shady men in suitsdrawing, who turned up out that feel like a light at the end of the blue in luxury carsa long, and with at least one gun of their own…dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1406358746</amazonuk>1398527122

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Colfer1805141872|title=The Land of Stories: Beyond the KingdomsTeacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley

|summary=''Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. The police are baffled, but only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, Miss Judson, is really a safecracker! With police and her gangster boyfriend Al on their trail, Miss Judson and Ben go on the run. But Al needs them for one last [[The Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning by Chris Colfer|Land of Stories]] book left readers job...'' Goodness me, that Miss Judson is a terror! How on earth did a cliffhanger nice teacher like her manage to get mixed up with a shock revelation about the identity of the antagonist, the villainous bad 'Masked Manun like Al? We'll find out. Since thenLuckily for Miss Judson, fans, myself includedthe pupil who discovers her terrible secret is Ben, have been waiting desperately for the next book in the series in order son of a famous magician who has ambitions to see how our twin heroes Alex be as good as his father some day, and Conner deal with this surprising twist in the tale. The waiting is over; the new book who thinks Miss Judson is here and ready to transport us once again to the magical Land of Stories...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0316339385</amazonuk>worth saving

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Catherine StorrChristopher Edge|title= Clever Polly and the Stupid WolfBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating= 54|genre= Emerging Confident Readers|summary= Polly opens the door one day to find Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a large black wolf standing on place that has the doorstepnickname of 'The Black Hole'. With no preamble whatsoever All big movie fans, not even a cursory hellothey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, the wolf informs Polly that he intends to eat her up. Incredibly Polly invites the wolf into her home and even into many, many snacks! However, as the kitchen! What can she be thinking of? Wellmovie starts, young Polly they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is cleververy different, resourceful, independent and charmingthey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. The wolf is a wolf of very little brain. Therefore it is not long before she is able But as they lurch from one film genre to outwit the wolf and send him packing. This first story next, can they figure out what on earth is very short but sets going on? Will they ever get back to the scene for the ongoing battle of wits between Polly cinema, and the wolf that will continue for the remaining twelve short stories in this charming and entertaining book.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141360232</amazonuk>1839942738

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rupert WallisAdam Stower|title=All Sorts of PossibleMurray and Bun

|genre=TeensConfident Readers |summary=Murray is supposed to be a humble, tidy and friendly cat, one who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, well, whatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician'When s cat, so his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, and the sinkhole openedcatflap they both use can chuck them out, there was no time to break or turn not into the wheelregular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and the old green Land Rover whiffs. This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was snatched off the dirt road over the smoking rim., to be honest, but he's turned up and he'll have to do…|isbn=0008561249}}{{FrontpageSomehow, Daniel makes it out |author=Alex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Eli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the sinkhole wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and emerges to safety with just in the evening a few scratches helper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and bruisesruns. But Eli lives with his father isnlovely gran, too – for there is a generation missing in the family. A few short years ago, Eli't so luckys 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. While 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 lies 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. In this case, principally, we have Brie the mouse, up against Gorgonzola the cat – and in hospital case you're seeing a connection, they live in an induced coma due a cheese shop and therefore all the names used here seem to a severe brain injurybe the names of cheeses. Anyway, Daniel Brie is released into shunned, scorned and, if you must, mous-tracised, for the care of way his aunthabits don't match the other mice he lives with. They nibble 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, a woman when he has never metfeels all alone and cast out. It's almost as if there were another character from fable who had had to tell stories to keep themselves alive. There This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had been a family falling 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 after Daniel?|isbn=0571376010}}{{Frontpage|author=Lauren St John|title=Finding Wonder|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Roo's mother life has become almost impossibly difficult. Her mum died when he she was just a babyyoung, and since then it's just been Daniel and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on her door to tell her that her dad has dropped dead on his dadway to the corner shop to buy a lottery ticket. Although his When asked what other family she has, she can only name her aunt seems nice enough, Daniel finds it difficult to trust Joni, who she knows her or open up dad didn't think very highly of. But she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with herunreliable aunt... Things continue to get worse for Roo, as when she and Joni leave London in Joni's old campervan, it breaks down in the middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|isbn=0571376169}}{{Frontpage|author=Adam Baron and Benji Davies|title=Oscar's Lion|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=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 times before he has to be ready for school. But when he enters his parents' bedroom, all he sees is a mahoosive male lion on their bed, looking sheepish, and admitting that he won't be hungry for another two days. But there are benefits to having a lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the other month. And it can shapeshift, so he can take it to school and thereit can get him out of a problem. And it's a lot wonderful to open up have around the house – not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax aboutthe rules, and so on. OK, it can't work a dimmer switch but it can give Oscar a wonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>147114366X</amazonuk>0008596751

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Fuzzy MudJudith Eagle|authortitle=Louis SacharThe Stolen Songbird

|summary=Tamaya isnCaro't allowed s mother, a world-famous whistler, has failed to walk return home from school on her ownrecent work trip abroad and is now missing. And Tamaya doesn't like Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to break any rulestake care of her sister who is unwell. So when walking partner Marshall insists on taking who is going to look after Caro? Sent to stay with Gam, 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 a "shortcut" through the woods one dayhalt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. But she goes with himsoon finds herself caught up in a mystery, even though as she isndiscovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum't really supposed to walk through s old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the woodsSnakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Unbeknownst Is the painting somehow linked to Tamaya, Marshall the gang? And what has chosen the route in order happened to avoid school bully Chad, who has threatened him with a reckoning. A reckoning for nothing at all - but you know, thatCaro's how school bullies work. But lying mother? Is she somehow involved in the woods is an even greater threat than Chad...mystery too?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408864746</amazonuk>0571363148

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul Stewart and Chris RiddellTania Unsworth|title=Scavenger 2: Chaos ZoneNowhere Island

|summary=York Meet Gil. Just twelve, he is so determined to escape the care system – the system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – and find a lad on a missionhome for himself. So would you beHe is en route to yet another fosterer, if your space station habitation was constantly attacked by evolvedwhen he jumps into an anonymous car, mutated and evil robotslets it ride him to his future. Trying That future seems to get to the core be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of things belongings – both but that someone lives with his brother in a camp on an island between the situation two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and the centre of the giant biosphere carrying the last humans definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a future planet to reside on – he's mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. 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 starting would not work…|isbn=1804540080}}{{Frontpage|author=Helen Peters|title=Friends and Traitors|rating=3|genre=Confident Readers|summary=England, WW2. Two young girls are new at the country pile called Stanbrook. One is Nancy, destined to enter be in service all her life it seems, like the second level, alongside some surprising companions (surprisingfemale generations before her. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that ishas been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. The girls are chalk and cheese, and if you havenwe hadn't read [[Scavenger 1: Zoid by Paul Stewart guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something is amiss, and Chris Riddell|book one]]) first separately and then in combination they realise the Lord Evesham must be a lot of gung ho spiritrum 'un. The next stage Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is a 'mid deck' level, where all made of Earth's habitation zones have been recreated – but nothingmeetings with Germans, either animal or humanand not only that, a local Spitfire factory has stayed been attacked. But surely the same since girls are wrong, and the ship's launch…upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447234421</amazonuk>1788004647

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Katherine WoodfineJamie Littler|title= The Mystery of the Clockwork SparrowArkspire|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary= This entrancing Edwardian mystery Two sisters, Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and cheese. Juniper is set in the exotic, sensuous an eager hunter and opulent world of a Department store which draws the reader trader in with enticing sightsillicit magic, sounds and smells including relics from prior major wars left out in the startBadlands. When Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of the religious districts of Arkspire, perhaps even to become the heroine Sophie first steps on child in line to inherit the shop floor she feels like she is "stepping inside a chocolate box". Furthermore there is also something sacred about power of the experience- "NowWatcher, the closest to a reverent hush hung in ruler the airdistrict has, and she found herself almost tiptoeing…gazing around her at one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the immense chandeliers, magic that only five people can use would definitely change the glittering looking-glasses, status of the glossy walnut panellingwhole family. It smelled luscious: no sawdust now But in finding something oddly magical, but a glorious fragrance Juniper might just be able to gain some power of cocoa and candied violets and some other spicy scenther own – for good, or for very, like the cigars that Papa used to smoke after dinner." very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1405276177</amazonuk>0241586143

{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=024162343X|title=Stolen History|author=David OSathnam Sanghera|rating=5|genre=Children'Doherty 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 Chris Judgeoccasional 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=Danger is Still Everywhere: Beware of the Dog!Old Gods New Tricks

|summary=Meet GordonTrixie. He's a very safe betForever getting into scrapes, now you have met himlarks and adventures involving flooding the school aircon with fart powder, as he's she could almost be thought a source young goddess of highly intelligent and descriptive warnings about dangernuisance. He and he alone can voice warnings about the Puddle Shark you might get eaten But just when she's being told that byher one-last-chance-giving headteacher, the Parp Donkey that might evict you by farting through your letter boxworld changes. Suddenly, and the Headphones Crab that practically everything electronic stops working – wella power-out, even of electric cars, hits not just the illustration here says it all. Now, I know what youtown the school're thinking. Advice this intelligent and salient could only really come s in but the entire planet (apart from Docter Noel Zonemobile phones, and all that powers the worldInternet, just for our convenience's only Level Five Dangerologistsake). And you'd be right. Gordon is Trixie, luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the name Noel gives to his wardrobepower of power from us. And Noel is currently living 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 Gordon stealing from the wardrobeGods, as his house has been taken over by a messyie the semi-deities, noisygiants, half-gods and incredibly dangerous puppyso on known as the tricksters. Add into the mix 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…)|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>014135920X</amazonuk>178845295X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Gillian CrossHannah Gold and Levi Pinfold|title= Shadow CatFinding Bear

|genre= Confident Readers|summary= When Nolan's effervescent mother suddenly takes him [[The Last Bear by Hannah Gold|Last time]], April had been on Bear Island, a surprise journey he is in as much fear lot further north than many people would venture, and doubt as finding a ridiculously unexpected but delightful friendship with a polar bear – that she called Bear. Back home, things on the reader about what will happen next. Meanwhile music sensation Midir's daughter Feather is tired of being controlled domestic and dreading the next photo opportunity family front are a bit advanced, but not perfect for her, and so can easily be ignored when word comes through from the pressislands Bear was last left on. Then, one night, as her father prepares for For a shocking, spectacular event, everything changesbear doing very Bear-y things has been shot and wounded. Cross keeps us guessing as Nolan Desperate to make sure he's world is turned upside down OK, she and he has her father return to make difficult choices. Why is his mother the Arctic and hope that in the clouds on an exultant high a world of very white and very dangerous things, she can find one minute specific white and grey, stressed dangerous thing – and in that the doldrums of despair the next? Does Feather really want to be his friend or do they just have the serval they have sworn to protect in common?friendship can continue.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192736736</amazonuk>0008582017

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Julian Clary and David RobertsSimon Fox|title= The BoldsDeadlock|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= The BoldsLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, Mr and Mrs and their two small childrenthen suddenly rings Archie, demanding he fetch something from a secret place, live in an ordinary semi-detached house in suburban Teddington. They have jobs; Mrs Bold designs and sells flamboyant hats and Mr Bold writes jokes for Christmas crackersjoin him on the run. But they are most definitely not an ordinary family. Oh no! They are in fact hyenas. So far they have managed get together, but barely begin to successfully pretend smell the whiff of Southern trains when the father is arrested, leaving Archie on the late express to be human beings. Although very hairy and prone Brighton, toting a tin his father was determined to laughing a lot they have kept the truth (and their tails!) a secret keep away from everyone. But their grumpy next door neighbourhis colleagues, Mr McNumpty, is growing suspicious and then the bearer of a trip to the local safari park has repercussionswhole heap of questions. Will the Bolds' carefully long kept secret be revealed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1783443057</amazonuk>1839944420

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Maudie SmithCath Howe|title= The Cake, the Wolf and the WitchMy Life on Fire|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Max doesnRen't believe s family home is destroyed in happy endingsa fire. How could he She, when lovelyher parents, brave, caring Mum got killed climbing a mountain? He and her little brother lose everything. She doesn't like heights have any of her clothes, or small dark spaces and he doesn't like silly fairy stories. He absolutely hates being dressed in knickerbockersany of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, silk slippers and a cape for Dad and Ilonanow she is living at her grandmother's weddinghouse where they can't touch anything, and in factor do anything, or even eat the only thing foods they normally eat. When she goes back to school she discovers that's worsethe class are doing a special art project, in his opinioncreating boxes of their lives, is the fact to display things that once it's over he'll have are important to share his home with a horrible new brother them and sister. I mean, come on, people! Nettle is a total grouch show who's clearly never cracked they are as a smile person. But Ren has nothing to put in her whole lifea box, and little Wild is just . . . well, so she finds herself starting to tell the truth, he's plain daftsteal things. He prances about the place like a demented butterfly Small things, and he never takes his baseball cap offthings that people might not really miss, even to go to bednot when they have so much already. How's Max supposed But what will happen to get along with that pairher if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444015605</amazonuk>1839942835

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rose Lagercrantz Rob Keeley|title= The Boy Who Disappeared and Eva ErikssonOther Stories|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary= Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to the short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to eleven new tales, each as fun to read as his previous offerings.|isbn= B0BVW69N1G}}{{Frontpage|author=Laura Noakes|title=Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. Or rather, just Cos to her friends. The practice in the home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by the number they correspond to in the ledger, and they're all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a surname because nothing else seems to be known about where she came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the outside world. 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 girls for his Institute. But why, and what does that body entail? And could it possibly bring Cos closer to the past she has so little link with?|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 her mother run in a seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. She also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, because she has the ability to leave this world, and use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to enter other worlds, where the sea levels are rising dramatically and the buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to actually generate custom at the shop? Well yes, is the answer, but the fact a mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|isbn=1839943769}}{{Frontpage|author=Natasha Farrant|title=When I Am HappiestThe Rescue of Ravenwood

|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=If Dani leaves her school for This story is another excellent adventure from the summer holidays with one souvenir, it will either be the memories author of ''Voyage of the fabulous friendship she formed with EllaSparrowhawk''. Ravenwood is an old house, who struck a chord in [[My Happy Life by Rose Lagercrantz and Eva Eriksson|book one]] then moved awaythe North of England, or it will be a book she has written where Bea and compiled to remind her Raffy have been living for most of all the happiness she has encountered along the waytheir lives. That They are part of a complex, extended family arrangement, as Bea is not quite finishedthere with her Uncle Leo, for the following day and Raffy is to be the great end of year partythere with his mum, and her classroom decorations they are complete living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of the nature around the house and her dress has been bought new speciallyloving every inch of the place. But not all of life now the house is happiness and jollity – and Dani under threat, as Leo is removed under pressure from his other two brothers to sell the classroom property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to face very bad newsmaintain. What ending is in storeThe children find themselves worrying not only about where they're going to live, but if they'll even be together, for her book and for ours?if Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1927271894</amazonuk>0571348785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Noel Streatfeild Robin Birch and Jobe Anderson|title=Ballet Shoes Secret Beast Club: The Unicorns of Silver Street

|summary=Jayden''Ballet Shoes'' tells s nose is forever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the story phoenixes and unicorns of three adopted orphans – Paulinethe world, Petrova and Posy Fossilfor example. Brought Aisha is addicted to 1930s London her new tablet, where she can see videos of anything that might be out there. The problem, as babies by an eccentric explorer (Great Uncle Matthewtheir mothers see it, otherwise known as Gum)is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the girls have a comfortable life until the family begin to run out outside world of moneyHackney, London. Luckily But when a narrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, educational purpose, and with a past involving Jayden's cousin, they find a magical world they never knew existed. For many of those mythological creatures are all given places at real, including the Childrenone Aisha thinks she's Academy seen on a bit of Dancing local footage. The crew of the boat, including a living gargoyle, are tasked with saving the rare critters – and Stage Training the kids unknowingly have the magical sight needed to join in. Dare they side with Leila, the woman on board, and soon start to earn their own way her relative who lives as child performers on a figure in a painting, and become saviours of the stage. unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141359803</amazonuk>0241573483

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gareth P JonesB09XWSXSKY|title=Clash of Maestro Orpheus and the Rival Robots (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates)World Clock|author=Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski

|summary=We learn a lot about the world of the Steampunk Pirates in this volume of their adventuresFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, please) couldn't sleep. While having had references to Britain fighting France before nowA tune, we find the location matters more than [[Attack of rather like the Giant Sea Spiders (Adventures of the Steampunk Pirates) by Gareth P Jones|last time]], as we head back to England. The Pirates have been told ticking of a way to get into the Tower of London to steal the Crown Jewelsclock was playing over and over in his mind. We also learn a lot about their upbringing, if you can call it that – certainly more than last It happened every time, as we see what made them piratical in the first place, which was a surprise he came to their inventor when it happenedvisit his grandfather. But you never knowHe hadn't really wanted to come; after all, they may be about to face a showdown against said scientist – he's ten now and, worse, his next generation of robots. If only they perhaps had been programmed all those old clocks don't appeal to avoid temptation…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847156061</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Karen McCombie|title= Catching Falling Stars|rating= 4him anymore.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= It is 1940 and after a year of the ''phoney war'' London Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is suffering in tell the Blitztime. And time isn't good for anything.. Glory and her younger brother Rich have now been evacuated to a country village far from everything they know and love. When '' And that was why he was looking at the arrangements made by their mother fall through clock beside the children are sent to live with Miss Saunders, a cold and unwelcoming woman who is not popular in the village and Glory wonders if they would have been better off remaining in London despite the danger of falling bombsbed. The local children appear unfriendly and even in It was nearly twelve o'clock but at midnight the countryside they are not completely safe from the enemyclock chimed only six times. All Glory wants is to return home to her parents There was nothing for it but she will soon discover that her life is to change in unexpected ways go and she will learn that her first impressions should not always be trusted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407138898</amazonuk>find grandad - but where was he? And why had all the clocks stopped at twelve o'clock?