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The benefits – to physical and mental health – of going out for a walk are widely acknowledged, and they are all captured in this bright, joyful picture book. We join little Maya as she sets out for a walk, grown up in tow. There are so many fun things they can do together, from spying tiny secrets – busy ants scurrying, baby plants sprouting – to listening out for noises or copying animals. Each double page is lively, full of things to spot and name, and Maya herself is a busy bundle of energy at the centre of it all. It ends with Maya tucked up in bed and an invitation to think about the walk you will take as you drift off to sleep, while a final spread reminds us of all the things we can do on a walk. Walking, whatever the destination, will be much more fun after reading this.
January 2022 Book of the Month | What a charming, and wonderfully practical how-to book this is. A junior ballerina provides all sorts of advice and information to her peers, from how to style your hair in a bun (NB it’s quite hard if you’ve recently cut it yourself), to the first steps you’ll learn, to what your teacher means by straight legs. It’s no-nonsense stuff, second position is dismissed as ‘boring’, though fourth position gets the thumbs up, and she warns us not to treat the barre as monkey bars, unless you want to spend time in the thinking corner. We’re left in no doubt though how much this little girl loves ballet and her last bit of advice is perfect, ‘if you’re dancing and your heart feels like it’s flying, you will know for sure that you’re a real ballerina.’ The text is full of humour and character, as are Jenny Løvlie’s gorgeous illustrations, and together they also capture the grace of ballet. This is a book to entertain and inspire all young ballerinas, and to make their parents smile in recognition too.
Frozen Mountain is an interactive adventure game book that teaches essential survival skills to up-and-coming explorers. The story unfolds following an emergency landing high in a remote mountain region and from there the reader has to make a series of life and death decisions to make it home. Every possible danger comes your way as you deal with frostbite, bear attacks, blizzards, raging torrents and more. Not to mention the basic techniques for finding food, water and not getting even more lost than you already are! Frozen Mountain is absolutely packed with expert advice and tips for surviving in the wilderness. My favourite was finding out how to make a snow hole to stay warm and safe during a storm - you never know when that might come in handy! Apart from the cool tips, what this book really teaches is the relationship between risk and luck, and how making good decisions is the most important thing when out in the mountains. Page after page there’s a threat to your life. You're provided with information to make a decision and then your decision is tested by the spinner which comes with the book - a reminder that in the end there is always an element of luck in any dangerous situation. Frozen Mountain is great fun and beautifully illustrated in the style of a classic adventure book, and it even includes snippets from terrifying real-life survival stories to fire the imagination! After all, an adventure wouldn’t be an adventure without the possibility you may not return…
Football Rising Star | There are so many exciting moments described in this lively biography of football star Marcus Rashford. There’s the story of his first game for Manchester United’s first team, the club he’d followed all his life, a fairytale debut in which he scored twice to secure them a place in the next round of the Europa League. His first game in the Premier League was just as impressive – again, he scored twice to win the game. He scored on his debut for England too, at 18 years old, the youngest ever English player to do that. And yet, for many, what really marks him out is his success in persuading the government to extend free school meals for children during the summer holidays, and his campaigning against food poverty. It all makes for thrilling, inspiring reading, and Harry Meredith’s narrative does full justice to the drama. Thoroughly recommended for young football fans, whichever team they support.
Created in order to help children create healthy lifelong habits, ‘My First Animal Moves’ by Darryl Edwards is a picture and activity book that encourages both parents and children to learn about animals through movement and play. The illustrations are bright and colorful, with funny quips from Lola the dog as Nathan learns the new actions in Animal Moves land. This is a great concept to encourage young people to establish healthy habits around exercise. There’s an enthusiasm throughout that I think could encourage young readers to get excited and try all of the different moves as their parents or a teacher reads to them. Filled with lots of basic movements that are well described, I think that most children would be able to carry out each animal move with little difficulty. Like a P.E obstacle course with no equipment necessary, and no specific order required, this could be a nice story to read followed by a “Simon Says”-style game, for a quick burst of exercise at home or at school. A great concept and interesting new way to get children moving.
Test your football knowledge with hundreds of funny and fascinating questions about your favourite players and competitions, plus enjoy a variety of other on-the-page activities. Find out more about the Football Superstars, an entertaining and informative series of biographies charting the success of some of our best known and admired global football players.
50 True Stories of Football's Greatest Sides | If you like football, you’ll love the Football School series of books by Alex Bellos and Ben Lytttleton and this latest, Terrific Teams is another winner! As England falls deeper in love with the national team, Terrific Teams introduces 50 other great sides, from across the world and different eras, and explains just what made them so good. As a Red, I turned immediately to page 112, to read about the rebirth of Liverpool under the great Bill Shankley and how he developed their winning strategy not in the office, but in the tiny boot room under the main stand. It’s a fun fact, but it tells you a lot. The previous entry is tiny Lewes, saved from bankruptcy in 2010 with the introduction of an inspired share ownership scheme which means there are 1,500 owners; while the entry after Liverpool, is Lyon Women, a trophy-winning machine whose former players include Megan Rapinoe, Lucy Bronze and Dzsenifer Marozsán. This is a fantastic way of examining the variety of the beautiful game, its appeal and the players and fans who make it so special. Unbeatable!
The eye opening and fascinating true story of Lily Parr, Alice Woods and their teammates in the Dick Kerr Ladies Football team are the inspiration behind this engrossing story of football obsessed Polly Nabb, who would much rather kick a ball than stay at home and help her mother, which is the role society expects her to fulfil. As men, including her beloved brother, were sent to fight in the war, women and girls took their place in munitions factories. When Polly sees these women playing football in their breaks, she lies about her age to get a job there too and eventually she is recruited to the famous Sparks team, who were playing public matches to sell-out crowds, but also on the receiving end of public vilification and scorn. Indeed, despite drawing crowds of 50,000, women's football was to be outlawed by the Football Association in 1921, who deemed it 'unsuitable for females'. This little-known fact will astonish modern fans of the Lionesses England team, as will the authentic detail of the dangers of the munition factories and the wider struggle for female independence and respect. This is a very well-rounded picture of life on the Home Front during the First World War, full of fascinating detail and incident, populated by vivid and memorable characters and infused with a real passion for the game of football. A very entertaining and enjoyable read that adds useful depth to any historical study of the period and a salutary lesson for any sexist sports fans!
July 2021 Book of the Month | The World Cup, the Europa league, the League Cup, Serie A – you name it, Paul Pogba’s won it (Serie A four times in fact). But if you want to know about the man behind the stats then this is the book for you. It’s jam-packed with information on Pogba’s early life and his playing career from its beginnings at the academy at Le Havre to his glory days at Juventus and Manchester United. There’s lots about his goals of course – especially those amazing volleys, Pogboom! – but other details too, his friendship with Jesse Lingard, his favourite music and yes, his hairstyles. Author and illustrator, who appear throughout in the comic style illustrations, are proper football fans and there’s a real sense of their enthusiasm for their subject. Lively and entertaining, and hugely accessible thanks to the mix of text and illustration, this is another winner in a top-ranked series.
How to Be the Best You Can Be | Dedicated to every young person who is trying to find their way and his mum for helping him to believe that dreams can come true, this is a motivational book by the man of the moment, the inspirational Marcus Rashford, and co-writer Carl Anka. It’s a positive and inspiring guide for life, packed full of stories from Marcus’s own life and calling for the readers to be their OWN champion, and that if they believe in themselves, incredible things can happen. With engaging black and white illustrations and infographics, it’s a great book to inspire any child to be the best they can be. Marcus Rashford MBE is Manchester United’s iconic number 10 and an England international footballer. His lobbying of the UK government during the pandemic made Marcus a household name, outside of sports fans, as he successfully lobbied a u-turn of their policy around free school meals. Before he became a global star, Marcus was just a young boy, an average kid from Wythenshawe in South Manchester – with a dream. This book gives every child the tools they need to reach their full potential. With chapters covering everything from building your confidence to navigating adversity, finding your team, using your voice and stand up for other. And never stopping learning. With action points at the end of each chapter featuring brilliant advice and top tips from performance psychologist Katie Warriner, this is a practical guide for every child to believe that their dreams can come true.
May 2021 Book of the Month | With 50 different activities to try out in this book, there’s really no excuse for not getting active. Its message is that wherever you are, you can get moving, and it makes it sound really tempting. After explaining why it’s important to get active, it lists things to do and how to do them, whether that’s trying the long jump to building an indoor obstacle course. The instructions are clear and fun, with charts and photos to make it even more appealing and easy to follow, and you can record your activities as you go on write-in charts. Little ‘Did you know?’ boxes pass on fascinating facts and there extra tips scattered throughout too. Bright, colourful, lots of fun, this is certain to get everyone on their feet.
The Young Cyclist’s Companion is a brisk guide for the aspirant bike rider all the way from choosing a first bike to techniques for wheelies and bunny hops and the finer points of riding in a group. Peppered with inspirational quotes from pro cyclists as well as the likes of Freddie Mercury and Albert Einstein, it includes lots of practical advice on equipment, maintenance and road safety as well as fun facts from the history of bikes and bike racing. Whether you want know how to adjust your brakes to perfection, corner at speed or which side of your helmet straps the arms of your sunglasses should be on, all the key elements of riding and looking after your bike are covered with infectious enthusiasm. At 38 pages long it’s short enough to be easily digestible for young readers and riders but those pages are packed with a surprisingly large amount of useful and entertaining information. Best of all it makes you want to get out and ride. ~ Sam Huby, Bikemonger Read a short Q&A with author Peter Drinkell in World of Adventure - 50 Books to Inspire
Is Sergio Aguero your ultimate football hero? He is the highest South American scorer in the history of the Premier League with more than 180 goals, has won the title four times, and holds the joint-record for the most goals (five) scored in a single Premier League match. Guided by his father, discover how Sergio started playing football at the age of five and how his skills saw him becomes the youngest player to debut in the Argentine Primera Division at aged 15 before moving to Europe where he has since earned legendary status.
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