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[[Category:New Reviews|Confident Readers]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Keris Stainton1836285493|title= Lily and the Christmas WishThe Double Life of a Wheelchair User|author=Rob Keeley|rating= 4.5|genre= Emerging Confident Readers|summary=I In the small town Will is a keen player of video games, a conscientious student, a slightly annoying brother and a supportive friend. But most of Pinewood the people are busy preparing for Christmasall, he is an aspiring writer. English is his favourite lesson at his school, Marlowe Park, and one at which he excels. This year they are doing something special hasn't gone unnoticed by his headteacher, Mrs Howarth, and she has suggested to celebrateWill and his mum that he spends a couple of afternoons a week at a different school, Station Road, where his ability might be better extended. Each person will write down }}{{Frontpage|isbn= 1836282028|title=The Fighting Spirit|author=Rob Keeley|rating=4|genre=Confident Readers|summary=''Would you like to adopt a secret wish ghost?'' ''Young spirit, born 1887, seeks kind home to haunt. Gentleman by birth. Good company. Gets on well with other children. Jokes and tie it to the Christmas tree shocks a speciality.'' ''If interested, place outside your home three twigs, in the town squareshape of an arrow, pointing to your front door.. Although nine year old Lily likes this idea she .'' Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is more than celebrating a decade of his wonderfully entertaining [[Rob Keeley's ''Spirits'' series in Chronological Order|Spirits]] series with a little sceptical new adventure that wishes can come true, no matter how much you may want them to. Then is both a strange storm blows in reboot and scatters all the wishes across the towna continuation. Lily wakes up the following morning to discover that BugJust like Doctor Who, Edward Fitzberranger, her pug puppyour incorrigible Victorian ghost boy, can talk! That was not what Lily had wished for but maybe it was someone else's wish? The Christmas magic has definitely gone wrongsome new companions. Can LilyRuby and Jayden respond to this intriguing advertisement and Edward, her younger brother Jimmy who has broken the rules as usual andabsconded from his manor house home, of course, Bug put things right before Christmas Day?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471405125</amazonuk>is adopted by them and takes up residence in.... a wardrobe!

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jean UreRob Keeley|title=My Dog DaisyChildish Spirits: 10th anniversary special edition

|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Lily did Around here, we're big fans of children'nots author Rob Keeley. He'' want s a goldfish. Nor did she want a hamster ball of happy positivity, he understands children, and he writes for their pleasure and enjoyment, not to lecture or a cathector. She wanted a  The ''DOGChildish Spirits'' and whilst she understood what Mum said about not being able to have a dog in the 5th floor flat without a garden she still thought it was unfairseries is one of his greatest achievements. After all, when they lived at GranIt's house there was a garden and she could have had a dogsequence of ghost stories centring on Ellie, but then Mum and Gran had a row and they moved out. She hadn't even seen Gran for three months and she ''missed'' stalwart young girl who can cope with anything the spirit world throws at her. And the dog which she couldn't have. Even Keri, her best friendand Edward, though that she was going on a bit about spoiled lordling and the whole thing.first spirit Ellie encounters|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781124965</amazonuk>1783064617

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mary Webb, Daniel Swift and Lauren O'NeillMax Boucherat|title=GulliverThe Last Life of Lori Mills

|summary=Be careful what you wish forWe 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. Gulliver wants adventure – What could possibly go wrong? Snuggled in a blanket fort, she has one main intention, and boy that is he going to get itlog on to Voxminer, the world-building, critter-collecting game that is a hit in Lori's world. His very But first voyage ends in an almighty storm, which ends in him being washed onto Lori has a shore alone – but the shores of an island where he himself is almightytiny inkling that this stormy night doesn't find herself entirely on her own, compared to the inhabitantsand then she finds something even more spooky. After being shot at with For the smallest server she and her bestie and nobody else should be able to enter shows signs of arrows, chained tampering. When malevolent eyes spark upon her phone screen, made a spectacle of – and sorted out a problem of etiquette most diplomatically her safe place in the game has been doctored – he tries againwell, only to be stranded on where is a second island, completely in contrast girl to the first… Whether or not you recognise the story from this summary, be relieved that this most perfectly conveys big ideas (and those of one big book in particular) for small people…turn?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847176763</amazonuk>0008666482

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Anthea Bell Kieran Larwood and Anna MorgunovaJoe Todd-Stanton|title=Vasilisa the Beautiful (Russian Folktales)Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial

|genre=Emerging Confident Readers|summary=When I say to you Meet Kit. Like most of the people in his world, it seems, he is an avid fan of Dungeon Running – the first response I had on picking up this book was 'Oohsport where a team of warrior, mage and healer enter specially prepared, century-old, someone knows their Klimt'magical mazes, and that I thought I had seen Kandinsky in race to the art insideexit, it tells perhaps bothering with the treasure or the big bad and the points they grant you along the aesthetic is definitely to the fore hereway. (That latter claim was a bit false – but thereUnfortunately for Kit, the only thing he's definitely seen of the latest race on the inn TV equivalent is that one team has been retired, eaten, and a touch new trio of Picassoquestors is needed.) Of course there is a storyPossibly 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 moreteam. What chance does this friendless, muscle-free-than decent story it is toozone have in actually managing that, but with the intriguing, detailed and unusual artwork of Anna Morgunova, this picture book with many words really does come how could he possibly hope to life.succeed?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>9888342517</amazonuk>1839945184

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Christopher William HillJames Sherwood Metts|title= Tales from Schwartzgarten: Marius and the Band of BloodPlanet Storyland|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= FranklyThings have been a bit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, itoften replacing jobs they's a surprise re paid to do and other tasks that took time to discover there are still people left alive in the gloomy town of Schwartzgartenaccomplish. In Just as they were beginning to get used to all this storytechnological change and starting to think of other, the fourth in the seriesnew ways to spend time, creepy bad guys in masks roam the town after darkalong came an awful pandemic. The local kiddie catcher is determined to rid the streets of orphans by any means he can (quite a challengeLife was pretty much shut down and, along with it, considering how high the death rate among parents is) and for some reason the chocolatiers of all the town are being murdered in inventive and frequently sticky waysmany daily social interactions on which they depend so heavily.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408331829</amazonuk>1736128426

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= David WalliamsTom Percival|title= Grandpa's Great EscapeThe Wrong Shoes|rating= 4.5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= Most people donWill't really get Grandpas life is difficult, in a multitude of ways. Heis bullied because he has 's old and set in his ways (apart from the fact that recently wrong shoes', hehas the wrong shoes because his dad can't work and doesn's taken to going down to t have enough money for even the shops in most basic of things like food, and his dad can't work because he lost his brown checked slippersjob at the college, whatever was working a cash-in-hand job on a building site and had an accident. Throw into that mix the weather)fact that his mum and dad are separated, and heWill's definitely getting more and confused by the daylife seems bleak in every direction. In fact And yet, he still has a lot tiny amount of hope. He is good at art, and clings to the time moments of joy when he thinks he's back in World War Twois drawing, flying his Spitfire out across the Channel to defeat the bad guys. Only his grandson Jack understands that feel like a light at the way to get through to him is to play alongend of a long, dark tunnel.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007494017</amazonuk>1398527122

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= E R Murray1805141872|title= The Book of LearningTeacher Who Knew Too Much|author=Rob Keeley|rating= 4.5

|summary= An orphan with only her beloved grandpa for company, Ebony Smart's world is turned upside down when he dies'Seventeen banks and a jeweller’s have been raided. Sent to Dublin to live with an Aunt she didn't know existedThe police are baffled, Ebony soon discovers that her new homebut only Ben knows the truth – his Maths teacher, 23 Mercury LaneMiss Judson, is full of secretsreally 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 job... Discovering '' Goodness me, that she Miss Judson is part of an ancient order of people who have the power a terror! How on earth did a nice teacher like her manage to reincarnate, Ebony is soon under threat from get mixed up with a terrible evil that threatens to destroy their existencebad 'un like Al? We'll find out. With just Luckily for Miss Judson, the pupil who discovers her pet rat Winstonterrible secret is Ben, and the son of a mysterious book to help her, she must figure out why her people are disappearing and how famous magician who has ambitions to save their soulsbe as good as his father some day, and her own, before time runs out…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781173621</amazonuk>who thinks Miss Judson is worth saving

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dr Kris J SimeChristopher Edge|title=Dragon's FlightBlack Hole Cinema Club

|summary=Simon Lucas and Alice have spent the school term living with his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their auntlocal cinema, a kindlyplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. All big movie fans, if somewhat vaguethey're looking forward to lots of exciting films, and many, many snacks! However, person. Simon's father describes Aunt Maggie as bohemian the movie starts, they very quickly realise that something about this new film format is very different, and hippythey are swept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. Simon But as they lurch from one film genre to the next, can they figure out what on earth is quite dismissive of going on? Will they ever get back to the flowing clothes and collections of gemstones and discussions of auras that being bohemian and hippy entailscinema, but both he and Alice can agree that Aunt Maggie is a nice person.to their real lives?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1512096997</amazonuk>1839942738

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Luke PearsonAdam Stower|title=Hilda Murray and the TrollBun

|summary=HildaEli is a busy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and in the evening a rather delightful small, blue-haired girlhelper at the dessert cafe his gran owns and runs. Eli lives with his lovely gran, too – for there is never far from an adventurea generation missing in the family. She is confident and excitableA few short years ago, brave and creativeEli's parents were both lost to the titular race, and her stories are slightly mada 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, and veryEli knows his only hope is to dare to enter what he most hates, very readable!with the sole aim the prize of magic at the end – the only thing to possibly save his gran.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909263788</amazonuk>0571382231

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeff KinneyHelen Cooper|title=Old School (Diary 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 live in a Wimpy Kid book 10)cheese shop and therefore all the names 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'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, when he feels 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. This makes Brie the top dog in the mouse community, though, as all the others had the chance to half-inch some cheese while the cat was distracted. But will the story have the successful sequel it needs when that cheese runs out?|isbn=0571376010}}{{Frontpage|author=Lauren St John|title=Finding Wonder

|summary=Aah, for the modern Roo's lifehas become almost impossibly difficult. InternetHer mum died when she was young, baby wipes, ease, lemonade and now she finds herself awoken in the middle of the night by the police banging on tap. The only problem – well, one of them – is her door to tell her that Greg's mother is demanding her dad has dropped dead on his way to the town switch off for corner shop to buy a weekendlottery ticket. When asked what other family she has, so good old-fashioned standards she can be returned to. She's not the only person with ideas of old-fashioned standards – Greg's grandfather has moved inname her aunt, so there're both his siblingsJoni, three adults – and a pig who thinks heshe knows her dad didn's a family membert think very highly of. Mind youBut she has no one else, and so off she goes to live with the usual ineptitude of a Wimpy Kidher unreliable aunt. Things continue to get worse for Roo, probably nothing modern could prepare Greg for whatas when she and Joni leave London in Joni's about to comeold campervan, when a trip to a character-forming camp seems like it breaks down in the necessary easy way out…middle of nowhere and then bursts into flames! Poor Roo!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141364726</amazonuk>0571376169

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter GoesAdam Baron and Benji Davies|title=TimelineOscar's Lion|rating=3.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionConfident Readers|summary=''Tick followed tock followed tick followed tockWe 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'' Oncebedroom, that all he sees isa mahoosive male lion on their bed, welooking sheepish, and admitting that he won'd got over the Big Bang, which of course was silentt be hungry for another two days. We flash forwards But there are benefits to having a few billion years lion around – it can be shown as an unspoken threat to the creation of bully that ruined a birthday party for Oscar the earthother month. And it can shapeshift, have a quick look at prehistory, then so he can take it to school and it's in with the world's happenings we can be sure get him out of and date accuratelya problem. This book makes an attempt at conveying And it all along one river of time 's wonderful to have around the house – albeit with many tributaries – and with a strong visual style points us to all that is important not limiting his biscuit intake, being much more lax about our past along the wayrules, and so on. Flick through OK, it backwards and you can recreate 't work a different Guinness advert to the one I quoted – dimmer switch but it's probably worth can give Oscar a much longer lookwonderful time.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1776570693</amazonuk>0008596751

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Liz PichonJudith Eagle|title=Tom Gates 9: Top of the Class (Nearly)The Stolen Songbird

|summary=Tom Gates Caro's mother, a world-famous whistler, has been told not failed to return home from her recent work trip abroad and is now missing. Her other mother, Ronnie, is having to go up North to worrytake care of her sister who is unwell. Which So who is not 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 good thinghalt whilst she is stuck inside this staid old Victorian lady's house, along with an orphan boy, Albie, who is living there too. HeBut she soon finds herself caught up in a mystery, as she discovers a painting of a bird hidden away inside her mum's been told not old suitcase, and all across London a fearsome gang called the Snakes are thieving artworks and terrorising people. Is the painting somehow linked to the gang? And what has happened to worryCaro's mother? Is she somehow involved in the mystery too?|isbn=0571363148}}{{Frontpage|author=Tania Unsworth|title=Nowhere Island|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Gil. Just twelve, but he is so determined to try his best at escape the care system – the school test system that constantly puts him in futureless places that are not homes – so and find a home for himself. He is en route to yet another fosterer, when he does neitherjumps into an anonymous car, and lets it ride him to his future. His best friend has told him not That future seems to worry about having just left an incriminating portrait of be in jeopardy when someone steals his one bag of belongings – but that someone lives with his teachers brother in a library reference bookcamp on an island between the two directions of a motorway, a place inaccessible and definitely ignored enough to provide for their safety and seclusion. Them, and a mute girl also finding a home there, albeit so much more successfully. Over a few weeks we see if their oddball destinies can combine, even though he has or if this is one place where life as we would want it just 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 worry about getting be in service all her life it back seems, like the female generations before anyone else sees ither. The other is Sidney, a girl from a hoity-toity Sussex boarding school that has been removed there away from bomber flight-paths. EspeciallyThe girls are chalk and cheese, and if we hadn't guessed that then their behaviour with each other over their first encounters would only prove it so. But something isamiss, when the biggest bully and first separately and then in combination they realise the year above Lord Evesham must be a rum 'un. Midnight deliveries are received under cover of secrecy, talk is also turning his hand to graffiti made of meetings with Germans, and not only that, a local Spitfire factory has been attacked. But surely the power to get other people in trouble…girls are wrong, and the upper class could never be so underhand?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407143204</amazonuk>1788004647

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Noel StreatfeildJamie Littler|title=White BootsArkspire

|summary=Many moons agoTwo sisters, when I was a young girl obsessed with Torvill Juniper and Elodie, born fifteen minutes apart, are growing to be chalk and Dean cheese. Juniper is an eager hunter and wishing we lived much closer to a skating rinktrader in illicit magic, I discovered Noel Streatfeild's wonderful Shoe stories including this one, ''White Boots''relics from prior major wars left out in the Badlands. It soon became Elodie is intent on getting closer to power in one of my favourite re-readsthe religious districts of Arkspire, so it was interesting perhaps even to come back become the child in line to inherit the power of the story as Watcher, the closest to a grown up and find that it is still funny and engaging, all these years laterruler the district has, and one of the five major victors in said earlier war. Being trained in the magic that it still has only five people can use would definitely change the status of the enduring whole family. But in finding something oddly magical, Juniper might just be able to gain some power to make me wish of her own – for good, or for my own pair of white skating boots too!very, very bad…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007580460</amazonuk>0241586143

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Lindsay Mattick and Sophie Blackall024162343X|title=Finding Winnie: The Story of the Real Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-PoohStolen History|author=Sathnam Sanghera

|genre=For SharingChildren's Non-Fiction|summary=A little boy called Cole wanted a storyI was the bad company other people got into at school. He particularly wanted I was disruptive in religious education classes because I disputed the existence of a true story and it had to be about a bear'god'. It Where was getting latethe proof? In history lessons, but Mummy said that she would do her bestit was probably worse still. Her story began Not too long after the end of WWII, I didn't so much want to learn about a hundred years before Cole was born the British army's successes (and it was about a man occasional failures, but we didn't dwell on those) in what came to be called Harry Colebourn who lived 'the colonies' as want to dispute what right the army had to be there in Winnipegthe first place. He Looking back, I still believe I was a vet and was on his way right - but I regret that I lacked the maturity to Europe to look after approach 'the horses of problem' politely. I wish I'd had Sathnam Sanghera's ''Stolen History''.}}{{Frontpage|author=Thiago de Moraes|title=Old Gods New Tricks|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Meet Trixie. Forever getting into scrapes, larks and adventures involving flooding the soldiers fighting in the Great War when he met a trapper school aircon with fart powder, she could almost be thought a baby bear: his head might have said young goddess of nuisance. But just when she's being told that there was nothing he could doby 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 his heart told him to get hold of the bear entire planet (apart from mobile phones, and he gave all that powers the trapper $20Internet, just for our convenience's sake). WinnipegTrixie, as he named luckily, realises what has happened – the ancient Gods have taken the bearpower of power from us. And so she begins her epic quest, went on to gather all the people that can steal it back – namely the characters from myth that have past form in stealing from the train with Captain Coulbourn and his troopGods, across ie the ocean semi-deities, giants, half-gods and finally arrived in Englandso on known as the tricksters.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408340232</amazonuk>178845295X

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kate de Goldi Hannah Gold and Gregory O'BrienLevi Pinfold|title=Finding Bear|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=[[The ACB 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 Honora Leea 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 her 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=34.5

|summary=Meet Perry. She's a hen-pecked sort of girl – forever having her grammar corrected by her parentsLate one night Graham Blake is late back from his shift on the force, who love nothing more than packing her off to after-school classesand then suddenly rings Archie, such as music lessons she has no aptitude for. Her father has one dutiful extra-curricular activity, too – visiting his own mother in her care homedemanding he fetch something from a secret place, and taking Perry with join himon the run. But They get together, but barely begin to smell the whiff of Southern trains when one of the classes she father is involved with packs uparrested, she decides to spend more time with leaving Archie on the old dear – after all, she finds it hard late express to identify her own kith and kinBrighton, has memory problems, and reverts toting a tin his father was determined to being a teacher yet cannot even play I Spy correctly. Once in the routinekeep away from his colleagues, Perry finds the weird happenings and characters in the home would be ideal ingredients for an ABC book for bearer of a school projectwhole heap of questions.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1471405052</amazonuk>1839944420

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jackie MorrisCath Howe|title= The Wild SwansMy Life on Fire|rating= 5|genre= Confident Readers|summary= The most well known version of the wild swans Ren's family home is probably the one penned by Hans Andersendestroyed in a fire. This extended retelling by Jackie Morris adds depthShe, her parents, emotional resonance and a number of new twists to the taleher little brother lose everything. As in most versionsShe doesn't have any of her clothes, or any of her special little knick-knacks from her cupboard, Eliza and now she is living at her brothers live a happy and privileged life until their fathergrandmother's remarriage brings jealousyhouse where they can't touch anything, mistrust and trouble in its wakeor do anything, or even eat the foods they normally eat. The brothers When she goes back to school she discovers that the class are magically changed into wild swans doing a special art project, creating boxes of their lives, to display things that are important to them and it is up show who they are as a person. But Ren has nothing to brave Eliza put in a box, and so she finds herself starting to rescue themsteal things. Small things, things that people might not really miss, not when they have so much already. But what will happen to her if someone finds out what she is doing?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847805361</amazonuk>1839942835

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Nicholas GannonRob Keeley|title= The DoldrumsBoy Who Disappeared and Other Stories|rating= 54|genre= Confident Readers|summary= If you are of an imaginative disposition, you go Hooray! Bookbag favourite Rob Keeley is back with a return to school in an elegant building which used to be a button factory, and your house is full of giraffes, ostriches and badgers - stuffed, of course - then the odds are that you'll end up on some kind of adventure. And if your grandparents happen to be famous explorers who've managed to get themselves lost on an iceberg in Antarctica then your particular mission is pretty well handed short story format! The Boy Who Disappeared treats us to youeleven new tales, wrapped up neatly with a big bow and a label on top saying 'quest starts here'. All you have each as fun to do is work out the fine details and set off. Easy-peasyread as his previous offerings.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0008149399</amazonuk>B0BVW69N1G

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Elen CaldecottLaura Noakes|title=Crowns and Codebreakers Cosima Unfortunate Steals a Star

|summary=Minnie's not too keen on sharing her already tiny room with her gran when she arrives from NigeriaMeet Number One. Or rather, Cosima Unfortunate. However Or rather, worries about floor space and how just Cos to open her friends. The practice in the wardrobe door are quickly replaced home she lives in is for the girls to just be named by more serious concerns. Gran is upset. She picked up the wrong suitcase at number they correspond to in the airport ledger, and shethey's convinced it's re all Unfortunates – young people with disabilities, uncommon mentalities or suchlike that Victorian society frowns greatly upon. But Cosima bears the tag as a bad omen. And it almost surname because nothing else seems like to be known about where she's right when their flat is burgled came from, as the first ever inmate, and unique in having no known family in the only thing that is taken is the suitcaseoutside world. The police aren't interested but Minnie and her friends know there must be During a reason behind daring escapade to steal some posh cakes from the burglary. There's kitchen one afternoon, she discovers a plan involving said outside world – a mystery and it's up devilish Lord Fitzroy seems to them want to solve itadopt 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?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408852713</amazonuk>0008579059

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Shel SilversteinAlice M Ross|title=Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot BackNowhere Thief

|summary=Meet At last there is new stock in the finest shooter impoverished yet over-full antiques shop Elsbeth and her mother run in the worlda seaside town. Elsbeth knows this because she has stolen it. NoShe also knows she should be free from worries about being found out, not one of those hunters, who go because she has the ability to Africa and kill off all the wonderful wildlife there, but Lafcadio. He's a lionleave this world, and his real name might have been something more like ''Ruggrrg'' or ''Grummfgff'', but one day when a hunter was about use an unworldly portal of kaleidoscope colours to shoot at him (with an unloaded rifle)enter other worlds, he ate where the hunter sea levels are rising dramatically and picked the gun up buildings are generally empty of humans and ripe for plunder. With eviction imminent, can Elsbeth nab anything to try out – then carried on shooting until he was actually generate custom at the world's bestshop? Well yes, standing on his head or with paws tied behind his back. His new life gives him a new nameis the answer, but is that really what he would have wanted as the fact a young lion cub?mysterious man knows exactly which items come from these different Somewheres only raises more questions…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1782690824</amazonuk>1839943769

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Eoin Colfer (editor)Natasha Farrant|title=Once Upon a PlaceThe Rescue of Ravenwood|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers |summary=You know This story is another excellent adventure from the bit author of the blurb on every ''Artemis FowlVoyage of the Sparrowhawk'' book, where Eoin Colfer had it said about how you pronounce his name? . That wasn't the intention of Ravenwood is an up-and-coming author to be recognisable; ratherold house, it was pride. Pride in the difference North of itEngland, where Bea and Raffy have been living for most of the Irishness of ittheir lives. IrelandThey are part of a complex, it seems to meextended family arrangement, as Bea is more full than usual of peoplethere with her Uncle Leo, things and ideasRaffy is there with his mum, and places that they are different by dint living together as a family. They have grown up swimming in the cove, roaming through the trees, completely at one with all of their singular nationality – the nature around the house and so many deserve loving every inch of the place. But now the house is under threat, as Leo is under pressure from his other two brothers to have pride attached sell the property to a developer as it's becoming more and more expensive to themmaintain. The places might children find themselves worrying not be the famous onesonly about where they're going to live, but if they can 'll even be the source of pridetogether, and of stories, which is where this compilation of short works for the young comes in, with the authors invited to select their chosen place and write about itif Ravenwood itself will be torn down.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>191041137X</amazonuk>0571348785

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris O'Dowd Robin Birch and Nick Vincent MurphyJobe Anderson|title=Moone Boy 2Secret Beast Club: The Fish DetectiveUnicorns of Silver Street

|summary=Christmas Jayden's nose is comingforever in a book, which means he knows a lot about mythological creatures – the phoenixes and Martin Moone's family are on a strict budgetunicorns of the world, for example. Placed in charge Aisha is addicted to her new tablet, where she can see videos of finding anything that might be out there. The problem, as their mothers see it, is that they are never 'out there' themselves, exploring the family outside world of Hackney, London. But when a Christmas tree Martinnarrowboat turns up carrying a science-minded, actuallyeducational purpose, is more worried about how heand with a past involving Jayden'll ever manage to get s cousin, they find a Game Boymagical world they never knew existed. He decides to get himself For many of those mythological creatures are real, including the one Aisha thinks she's seen on a job but bit of courselocal footage. The crew of the boat, being Martinincluding a living gargoyle, he can't get himself are tasked with saving the rare critters – and the kids unknowingly have the usual paper roundmagical sight needed to join in. NoDare they side with Leila, Martin Moone becomes the woman on board, and her relative who lives as a butcher's boy!figure in a painting, and become saviours of the unseen?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1447270975</amazonuk>0241573483

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=B09XWSXSKY|title=Eoin Colfer Maestro Orpheus and Victor Ambrusthe World Clock|titleauthor=The Seal's Fate (Colour Conker) Robert Penee and Joanne Grodzinski

|genre=Dyslexia FriendlyConfident Readers|summary=Bobby Parrish was reluctant to admit that the seal was cuteFrederick (or Fred, but never Freddy, even to himselfplease) couldn't sleep. That sort A tune, rather like the ticking of thing a clock was for girls playing over and over in his mind. It happened every time he was here came to club the sealvisit his grandfather. Seals were affecting his fatherHe hadn't really wanted to come; after all, he's livelihood as a fisherman ten now and there was a bounty of a £1 all those old clocks don't appeal to him anymore. ''Who needs old clocks anyway? All they do is tell the time. And time isn't good for a sealanything...''s flipper: in those days  And that was good money and even one of why he was looking at the girls had collected clock beside the cashbed. Still, somehow he couldnIt was nearly twelve o't quite bring himself to attack clock but at midnight the defenceless cub, all big, black, round eyes and obviously unworried by his presenceclock chimed only six times. What would the other lads say thoughThere was nothing for it but to go and find grandad - but where was he? More to And why had all the point, what would his father sayclocks stopped at twelve o'clock?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781124310</amazonuk>