British children's author of fiction featuring sport & history. Dad. Husband. Fell runner. LUFC. Roy of the Rovers. After the War from Auschwitz to Ambleside . @tompalmerauthor
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DISCOVER more about the inspiration behind Resist here.
To launch the Naval Childrens Charity’s 2022writing competition, a copy of “Arctic Star” has been on tour.
Pictured on Britain’s biggest warship, HMS Prince of Wales, a Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier is Lt Duckworth RN.
Pictured on HMCS Sackville, a Flower-class corvette that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and Canada’s oldest warship is William Woodburn, Chair of the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust.
Thanks for sharing these photos with us and congratulations to all the entrants and the overall writing competition winners Molly and Maggie.
Find out more about the Naval Childrens Charity here
If you’d like to know more about what we’re planning for the Women’s Euros please sign up here for a reminder:
NEW FOOTBALL FICTION : Game Changer
The next book in the Roy of the Rovers series, “Game Changer” is out 23 June 2022.
The newly formed Melchester Women’s team are going from strength to strength in their first full season of professional football, lead by the tenacious Rocky Race. Can she maintain her match-winning performances? And just where does her footballing future lie?
Pre-order a signed and dedicated copy of Game Changer from my local independent children’s bookshop “The Thoughtful Spot” here.
More Rocky Resources
Colouring. Sharp-shooter Rocky is testing her brother Roy’s goal-keeping skills. Can you add a crowd or maybe some more players and colour them all in here?
Roy and Rocky of the Rovers Writing Kit. A set of eight activities designed to engage football fans with different aspects of writing using passion for the game as a way in. Free download from here.
Refugee Week is a UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.
I will be writing a new FREE 5 part read aloud story with the National Literacy Trust to mark Refugee Week 2022. If you would like a reminder of when it and other resources will be available please use the contact form below. Please be patient. Our replies are not automated so you will get a personal reply.
Tom on “Why I featured refugee child characters in recent books…”
“Several of my latest published books have featured child refugees who have made it to the UK to be taken in by families and communities.
I did this because I have visited many schools and communities that have children who are refugees from Syria (and other troubled places in the world) and met them and heard their stories.
That – and reading books and articles about the war – motivated me to develop Yusra, Galip and Aylan as characters in my children’s books.
I did it, also, because I want children who are in all schools to be able to read about how we – in our relatively safe and stable country – can help people whose lives have been smashed to pieces and how we need to remember this country has a history of taking in and accepting refugees.
D-Day Dog (Barrington Stoke) I wanted to think about how today’s refugees are part of our history, part of our future and that is why it is so good to welcome them to the UK.
Gus the Fantastic Football Cat (Egmont, KS1) is about a Syrian girl and her dad who look after a rescue cat when they arrive in the UK from Syria. The parallel of the girl taken in by a UK community and her, in turn, taking a rescue cat in is the only thing about the story that relates to her background. The rest of the story is hopefully a lot lighter, as the cat reveals it can predict World Cup football results.
Pitch Invasion (Barrington Stoke) is a bit more direct. The story is about a haunted hillfort in Cornwall and a ghostbusting duo – Seth and Nadiya – who realise there is a parallel between the ghost of Iron Age refugees escaping the brutal Romans by heading west and two Syrian boys – Galip and Aylan – who have recently been taken in by a Cornish family, after tragedy in Syria. The refugees I describe could well have been some of your Iron Age ancestors, people who might have been part of Boudica’s Iceni tribe after she was killed fighting them. I wanted to think about how there are refugees now just as there always have been. People have always had to flee. Then and now.”
More resources :
“Them” – is a FREE 5 part read aloud story set in 1945, from the point of view of the children in the Lake District community who received 300 child refugees from the Nazi concentration camps after the end of the Second World War. This was written for Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 for the National Literacy Trust but can be used all year round.
5 short films and worksheets to support “Them” story and inspire pupils to write their own responses here
A teacher guide with ideas and sources to support your delivery of “Them” and children’s writing here
5 short films of Tom reading out loud “Them” available from here
“The Question” is a FREE 5 part read aloud story set today, from the point of view of pupils meeting a Holocaust survivor at their school and asking them about their refugee experience. This was written for Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 but can be used all year round for the National Literacy Trust but can be used all year round.
Read “The Question” here for you to read aloud / stream / share or as a series of 5 films of Tom reading the story for you to use however suits your school here ).
You can also find out more about the Windermere children’s story in my children’s book “After the War from Auschwitz to Ambleside” here.
More resources from Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 here.
More resources from Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 here.
To help you celebrate World Book Day, Thursday 3 March 2022, I’ve recorded a free virtual film for assembly/class for schools to show on the day. Filmed from Anne Frank’s Haus, Amsterdam, I’ll be sharing why her diary is one of my all-time favourite books.
Watch below or in YouTube…
More World Book Day dress up ideas and free resources here.
Buy Books
Signed and dedicated copies available from my local independent bookshop, Book Corner Halifax here
Schools bumper book pack and class set offers here.
My children’s book White Fear tackles environmental fiction and activism through fiction.
Lily, Lesh, Hatty, Adnan and Kester are the Squad. They have been summoned to the deadly and frozen land of the Arctic Circle by the British Prime Minister who has heard of their growing reputation as brilliant young spies. An unknown criminal is trying to hijack a world conference about the precious and much fought-over fuels that lie below the arctic ice. To prevent an international war breaking out, Lily, Lesh, Hatty, Adnan and Kester go undercover to find out who it is and stop them.
But the beauty of the icy mountains and deep fjords hide some dangerous secrets and someone will do anything to make sure that the Squad don’t discover them . . .
White Fear was inspired by reports I read in newspapers about how quickly the Arctic ice is melting – and the numerous predicted catastrophes :
the seas will rise
Source:International Boundaries Research Unit, Durham University www.durham.ac.uk/ibru/resources/arctic
rare wildlife will die out
communities that live in the Arctic will lose their way of life
without the ice in place, the seabed is accessible and some countries will begin to drill for oil, gas and other valuable resources – AND that they will start to jostle for who owns which part of the sea bed.
Polar bear caught reading White Fear
White Fear draws mostly on the last two threats.
It is set at a fictional conference of the Arctic Powers (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and USA) in Tromso, Norway. These countries are trying, in a last chance to avoid war, to decide who owns which part of the seabed. But evil forces are at large. Forces that profit from war and oil exploitation. Forces that don’t want peace.
The only way to avert war is for The Squad – five British child spies – to infiltrate the conference and stop the evil-doers. It involves mountain-top anxiety, abseiling, chases on ocean liners and even a submarine.
The Squad
It also involves an ecological protest group made up of Inuit people – called White Fear – that is trying to make the Arctic Powers see sense and help reverse the ice melt.
Sadly, recent events have re-highlighted the problems the Arctic faces.
Norway
The Arctic ice is now at its smallest and thinnest since records began. The melt is accelerating year on year, meaning that some Arctic Powers are already exploring, looking for oil and gas and minerals. Not so long ago the Russians placed a Russian flag on the seabed, appearing to claim it for themselves.
Only very recently Greenpeace has been trying to prevent Russian drilling ships from searching for oil beneath that newly-exposed seabed, facing a very aggressive response from the Russians.
On board the Hertigruten
When I researched White Fear, I was on board a Norwegian ship, looking at the waters and land that the Arctic Powers are fighting over.
I hope this book does something to raise awareness in children about something that is vital to the future of our planet.
Daily update on the Arctic ice visit http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Check out how I used my research to write Black Op and White Fear on my blog writing about Norway.
Themes in White Fear – 2 a character in a wheelchair
“Children’s fiction has a huge lack of disabled characters, which means many children find they do not have characters that they can relate to in the books they read.”Phoebe Kirk
It was really important to me to make a spy series believable and to stress the extreme risks the members of a child spy team would take. Sadly, this meant from the outset – in Chapter 1 of Black Op – a character is killed in the field. And in the sequel, White Fear, a character called Lesh has a terrible fall, but survives to stay on the Squad. It was really important to me to demonstrate what an important contribution he continues to add to the team as a boy in a wheelchair. My dad spent a long time in a wheelchair, so it is something I’ve spent time thinking about.
Discover other children’s books with characters who have a disability suggested by Scope here and here and here .
Real Reader Reviews
‘Hi Tom your book called The Squad White Fear is great I love the way you made Lily like jump off the cliff to get to a cable car, when you made Frank Hawk hunt Kester and Lily it was cool and when Frank tricks them into thinking the detonator that was a scary part of the book. Is Tromso a real place? My name is Scott and… I LOVE YOUR BOOKS! ‘ Scott, Ysgol Esgob Morgan
“Tom Palmer books are usually extremely popular with my pupils at school, and this one will be no exception. It is the second book in the series ‘The Squad’, following the adventures of a group of teenage spies. They manage to stay undercover by being part of an elite youth football team that travel the world playing in matches and tournaments.
The book has sets off at a great pace and wastes little time in getting to the action. It is extremely current, as the group are involved in an adventure based around drilling for oil in the Arctic ocean. The characters of the children are varied enough to be interesting, and the main adult in the story is an archetypal evil genius (of sorts)…
Highly recommended. I have found Tom’s previous books to be a perfect way in to reading for some of my more disengaged pupils, due to the links with sport and simple-to-read, fast paced style of the books. White Fear will continue that trend.” Jonnybid
“What a great book! I am looking forward to White Fear and can’t wait.” Saad Siddiqui
Tom has written a FREE new 3 part Classroom Read, set in First World War Leeds. Suitable for years 5-8. Thanks to Leeds SLS.
3 x 15 minute read chapters to read aloud released 8, 9, 10 November
3 x films of Tom reading the story
3 x films about how and why Tom wrote the story
Additional support materials for teachers
Live Virtual Event-11 November 2021
All free to use and download from my Leeds SLS webpage here
Notes
Coming May 2024
Tarn grapples with the loss of her brother at Dunkirk as she faces the threat of Nazi invasion in the Cumbrian countryside in this gripping wartime tale.
Signed copies make an extra special gift. I can sign and personalise books - including a special birthday card - through my local independent children's bookshop.
My newsletter is emailed 3 times a year. Choose from Termly resources news for Teachers and Librarians or Holiday reading news for Young Readers and their families.
Please enjoy my books for free at school & public libraries, buy them from your local independent bookshop and high street shops like Waterstone's and WHSmith or visit my Amazon bookshop. Thank you.
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To celebrate the publication of my latest book, Resist, I am offering a special souvenir readers’ pack.
FIND RESIST AT your local library, local independent bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon and Kindle. Overseas : FREE Delivery worldwide from The Book Depository. 
To launch the Naval Childrens Charity’s 2022 writing competition, a copy of “Arctic Star” has been on tour.
I’m delighted to announce that I will be writing a new FREE 10 part read aloud story with the National Literacy Trust during the 2022 Women’s Euros.
Colouring. Sharp-shooter Rocky is testing her brother Roy’s goal-keeping skills. Can you add a crowd or maybe some more players and colour them all in 
og (Barrington Stoke) I wanted to think about how today’s refugees are part of our history, part of our future and that is why it is so good to welcome them to the UK.
Pitch Invasion (Barrington Stoke) is a bit more direct. The story is about a haunted hillfort in Cornwall and a ghostbusting duo – Seth and Nadiya – who realise there is a parallel between the ghost of Iron Age refugees escaping the brutal Romans by heading west and two Syrian boys – Galip and Aylan – who have recently been taken in by a Cornish family, after tragedy in Syria. The refugees I describe could well have been some of your Iron Age ancestors, people who might have been part of Boudica’s Iceni tribe after she was killed fighting them. I wanted to think about how there are refugees now just as there always have been. People have always had to flee. Then and now.”
My children’s book White Fear tackles environmental fiction and activism through fiction.
I am proud to be a signatory to the 
Tom has written a FREE new 3 part Classroom Read, set in First World War Leeds. Suitable for years 5-8. Thanks to Leeds SLS.
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