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You are here: Home / Archives for football

Our Beautiful Game by Lou Kuenzler

July 5, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 5 Jul 2021

Waterstones
Amazon
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They can take our ball, but they can never stop the game.

A timely, important and well-researched ‘middle-grade’ historical novel about the growth in women’s football on the home front during WWI. Publication of the novel marks the centenary of the FA’s shameful banning of women’s football in 1921—a ban that remained in place for 50 years.

Who better to tell you more about the book than the author herself:

A hundred years before the Lionesses, Lily Parr, Alice Woods and their teammates were proudly playing their beloved, exciting and skilful game. As men were sent to fight in the war, women and girls took their place in munitions factories. Football became a favourite pastime and, before long, they were creating all-female sides and playing public matches to sell-out crowds, overshadowing the men’s football.

“Absolutely magnificent! A glorious tale of football, friendship, feminism and social history”
EMMA CARROLL

 

Filed Under: Blog, BookOfTheDay, Books, Fiction Tagged With: factory, family, feminism, football, historical, history, social, sport, war, women, working, WWI

Edgar & Adolf by Phil Earle & Michael Wagg

January 13, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment


ACHUKA Book of the Day 13 Jan 2021

Waterstones
Amazon
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Based on a true story…

When he inherits a special football badge, German teenager Adi sets off on a mission to fulfil his grandfather’s dying wish and return the badge to its rightful owner, former England footballer, Edgar Kail. After tracking Edgar down, Adi gets the chance to learn more about the achievements of his grandfather, Adolf Jager, and the story unfolds of a special friendship that spanned twenty years and survived the horror of the Second World War. Edgar Kail and Adolf Jager played for their respective clubs in the early twentieth century and they remain folk heroes even now. Perfect for less-confident readers, this is a fictional tale of two real-life footballing heroes, and the moving story of a friendship forged by the beautiful game.

The cover illustrator is Tom Clohosy Cole, also responsible for the excellent covers on Tom Palmer’s Armistice Runner and D-Day Dog.
Follow Tom Clohosy Cole on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomclohosycole/

Super-Readable Rollercoasters is a new series of titles resulting from a collaboration between Oxford University Press and specialist publisher Barrington Stoke, expertly edited to remove barriers of comprehension and printed in Barrington Stoke’s dyslexia-friendly font, designed to build reading confidence and stamina.
Other titles in the series”
Rat by Patrice Lawrence
I Am The Minotaur by Anthony McGowan


 

Filed Under: Blog, BookOfTheDay, Books, Fiction Tagged With: football, friendship, Germany, quest

Rashford – Tales from The Pitch by Harry Coninx

November 2, 2020 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 2 Nov 2020

The story of how a boy from Manchester used his passion and his talent to steer himself on a path to greatness. This fictionalized biography is one of a dozen new titles in Ransom’s Tales from the Pitch series. 

Each of the books in this series is prefaced  by the words, “Some of the events described in this book are based upon the author’s imagination and are probably not entirely accurate representations of what actually happened.” Fair play; that holds true for even the most scholarly and highly-researched biographies.

This is a wonderful series from a publisher who aims to produce books that are non-intimidating and don’t look as if they are for struggling readers. “In short,” the publicity sheet says, “we’ve made sure they tread the line of being tailored to our readers’ needs, while also looking like cool, fresh, normal books.”

They’ve succeeded with this series. Harry Coninx, a football fanatic and sports data analyst, has produced a set of 120-page chapter books that will have children developing a reading habit in no time. The books are superbly designed, with striking cover illustrations by Ben Farr, that give each one a collectible, football card appeal.
Follow Ben Farr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benfarr_illustration/

This title, which may already be temporarily unavailable, such has been the media attention the footballer has recently received, follows Rashford’s career from playing recreation ground football for Fletcher Moss Rangers to getting signed for Manchester United’s football academy at the age of seven, through his goal-scoring professional football debut right up to a game played in July this year under Covid restrictions in an empty stadium. As well as descriptions of action on the pitch, we get insights into Marcus’s relationship with his brother, and with manager Jose Mourinho.

Waterstones
Amazon
direct from publisher

 

 

Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, NonFiction Tagged With: biography, football, sport

Pele – Little People, BIG DREAMS 46 by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara ill. Camila Rosa

October 28, 2020 By achuka Leave a Comment

With a sock full of rags for a ball, Pele honed his skills in a poor neighbourhood in Brazil. He believed that, one day, he would lead his country to World Cup victory – and he was right! With Pele and his super skills on the team, Brazil lifted the trophy three times. Today, he is widely regarded as the greatest footballer who ever lived – and a hero off the pitch, too, using his voice to help the people who need it most. This inspiring book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of The King’s life.

Waterstones
Amazon

Filed Under: NonFiction Tagged With: biography, football

World Book Day, Preston North End

March 6, 2015 By achuka 1 Comment

World Book Day 2015

wbd2015-139video camera’s view of the crowd

I know from personal experience how much work is involved and how nerve-wracking it can be to organise a single author visit attended by groups from half a dozen schools with a total audience of just a few hundred, so just imagine how daunting it must have been to envisage inviting not five hundred but five thousand children to attend a World Book Day event at a football stadium.

wbd2015-122spot the Wally’s

[In the space that follows I do not even touch upon all the logistics of getting the children to and from the stadium (a whole road being closed off for coach parking), or the work involved in sourcing and supplying the pre-ordered copies of books for attending school groups.]

In recent years the concept of a single World Book Day has expanded to embrace a series of events held in different locations, collectively known as the Biggest Bookshow On Earth.

wbd2015-117Kirsten Grant of World Book Day

Last year, amongst the most successful of such Bookshows was one arranged by Jake Hope (previously of the Lancashire Library Service, now a freelance book consultant and events organiser) and Elaine Silverwood of Silverdell bookshop. That event was held in King George’s Hall, Blackburn, with an audience of 1000 children.

wbd2015-112Frank Cottrell Boyce waves to the crowd

When Jake and Elaine were asked by Kirsten Grant of the World Book Day organisation to prepare to host a 2015 Bookshow on World Book Day itself, they were keen to try something a little bit big, a little bit audacious.

wbd2015-108The warmup duo

Jake, now in his mid-thirties, was very keen to design an event that would excite and enthuse boys and, although no football fan himself, he conceived the notion of hosting the Bookshow at Preston North End stadium. It helped his cause that the previous year’s venue was unavailable for a repeat booking.

wbd2015-102opportunistic shot of the two organisers

The format for the Bookshows – a panel of 6 authors, with one of the them serving as the MC – is the same for all, but each show is organised locally. So it was totally down to Jake and Elaine to approach the stadium and negotiate arrangements.

wbd2015-105Jake and Kirsten survey the VIP guest list

Mark Farnworth, the football club’s ground safety officer, was their main liaison. Because it was an event that involved school children, Preston City Council‘s health & safety team also had to be reassured that adequate first aiders would be on hand, so a large team from St John Ambulance had to be engaged for the day.

wbd2015-107pre-performance planning

Jake has been a great friend to ACHUKA over many years, so when I received an invitation to attend the event, I was quick to book a return rail ticket to Preston (a city I’d not previously visited).

wbd2015-106

Let’s be in no doubt – this was a major undertaking, and both the chief organisers are to be heartily congratulated on carrying off such a spectacular large-scale event that did World Book Day proud.

wbd2015-103

I was still hanging around long after the authors and other VIP guests had left, while Jake and Elaine – together with a small number of friends and helpers – put the Players Lounge (that had served as Green Room for the occasion) back to rights, and it was notable how repeatedly effusive the head groundsman was in his praise of the event. He went out of his way to say how much of an impact the children’s enthusiasm had made upon him – an enthusiasm that I am sure will have come across strongly in media coverage, which included CBBC Newsround, Granada TV and local radio.

wbd2015-124Jonny Duddle

Any event throws up things to consider for the future. The technical side of the day was ably overseen by a student team from the local university, but because three sides of the stadium were empty, there was a mushy reverb to the sound which made hearing some of the presentations and announcements difficult. Sometimes the radio microphones played up, and it would have been better to revert to hand-held sooner than happened.

wbd2015-131Frank Cottrell Boyce [ can he be our next Laureate, please]

Kirsten Grant confirmed to me that this was the first roadshow held outside of a theatre-style setting. The format of author presentations was perhaps not best suited to the larger open-air venue and the acoustics of the stadium. The reading of extracts didn’t work as well as they do in more enclosed surroundings and there was a noticeable loss of audience engagement during these sections. The parts of presentations that worked best were those in which speakers connected directly with the audience: Cathy Cassidy communicating her passion for libraries, Cressida Cowell talking about her childhood holidays on a desolate Scottish Island, Frank Cottrell Boyce [whose slot was worst affected by radio mic issues] telling us about turning yellow as a boy, Danny Wallace in his amazingly confident and apparently debut author appearance.

wbd2015-133

Stephen Butler, a trained actor and MC for the occasion knew how best to engage such a broadly spread audience, with exaggerated gestures and comments directed to different parts of the football stand. This isn’t a skill that necessarily comes naturally to authors.

wbd2015-123Stephen Butler

I’d love to think that this event will give World Book Day the confidence to organise similar large-scale gatherings in other stadiums, ideally with the inclusion of a poet or two. I couldn’t help thinking how John Agard or Jon Hegley might have animated the crowd – poetry is, after all, very popular with children in the 8-13 age group.

wbd2015-129Cathy Cassidy

I think it’s a big ask to expect authors and illustrators to step up to ‘performing’ in a stadium without some prior experience of previous engagements with very large audiences.

wbd2015-128Danny Wallace

This is a personal view, and I realise it would complicate the current roadshow stencil, but a big open air event probably requires a different format compared with the theatre-style shows – with a lead ‘act’ (someone with performance pedigree – one of the fore-mentioned poets, or Eoin Colfer, David Walliams…) being given the bulk of the time, with shorter slots for supporting authors.

wbd2015-134Cressida Cowell

But what a fantastic and memorable day this was.

wbd2015-119

World Book Day 2015 will go down in history as the year of the big venue.

wbd2015-126

Some early responses include:

“This was a spectacular event.” Gemma Jackson, Blackpool Gazette

“What an amazing day that was! My kids really loved it. They are thrilled with their books.” Sarah Goldson, Assistant Head Teacher Brownedge St Mary’s Catholic High School

“An awesome organisational feat. Fantastic media coverage. Huge statement about the love of books and reading.” Joy Court, Reviews Editor, School Librarian

“What an incredibly wonderful World Book Day event. 5,000 children from 100 schools! Thanks” Anna Ganley, Society of Authors

“What a way to celebrate World Book Day, to see some great authors, and to be surrounded by other book lovers. It was a delight to BE there.” Nikki Heath, School Librarian of the Year, 2008 Werneth School

wbd2015-136Elaine Silverwood
wbd2015-101DayGlo DMs

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Features Tagged With: football, Preston, stadium, WBD2015, World Book Day

Mal Peet shares his top tips on writing football fiction

June 10, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

Mal Peet shares his top tips on writing football fiction

1. Don’t. It’s too hard. Write about wizards or zombies or bad-ass girls or something easy like that.

 

via Mal Peet shares his top tips on writing football fiction | Children’s books | theguardian.com.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: advice, fiction, football, tips, writing

Q&A With Sophie Smiley

June 13, 2013 By achuka 1 Comment

From The Independent’s Children’s Books Blog, a Q&A with Sophie Smiley, author of a series of chapter books illustrated by Michael Foreman:

Sophie Smiley is the author of a heart-warming series of chapter books about a football-mad family. Packed with charming illustrations by the award-winning Michael Foreman, the books follow the adventures of big sister Charlie (short for Charlton) and her brother Bobby, who has Down’s syndrome. Books in the series include Bobby, Charlton and the Mountain, Man of the Match and Team Trouble.

Sophie recently took part in a cultural exchange between British and Turkish writers before speaking at the London Book Fair, where Turkey was this year’s Market Focus. When she’s not busy working on her novels, Sophie teaches English, Film Studies and Creative Writing. She lives in Cambridge.

via Children’s Book Blog: Ask the author – Sophie Smiley | Rebecca Davies | Independent Arts Blogs.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: chapter, disability, Down's, football, Foreman, Smiley

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