Tom Palmer writes books for children, many of them about football. These are his ten tips on how you can use the 2017-18 Premier League season kick off this week to encourage children to read more for pleasure.

Find out about Tom’s latest book – Killing Ground – here.

Buy one of this weekend’s newspapers. They will all have exciting pull-outs and supplements about the Premier League kick off.

Visit your local public library and see what football books they have. Check sport in the adult and kids’ sections. Ask a librarian to order you a book if you want one about a specific team or player.

Do one of the online Fantasy Football games. Start a league with friends and families. Stress that the best way to do well is to read about football online and in newspapers.

Go to a newsagent’s and browse the new season football magazines. Browse for as long as you dare. Then – if your child is hooked – maybe buy the magazine.

Check out the National Literacy Trust’s Sport and Literacy resources on their website. Including videos, download and book lists: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/sport-and-literacy/football-and-literacy.

Borrow or buy one of the excellent short readable Ultimate Football Heroes biographies, featuring the likes of Pogba, Messi and Ronaldo. https://heroesfootball.com.

Go online and read one of the many online football magazines, such as www.shekicks.net.

If your children enjoy playing video football games FIFA and PES, direct them towards reading tips and advice about becoming better at the games at https://www.easports.com/uk/fifa/tips-and-tricks & https://www.konami.com/wepes/2017/eu/en/.

Go to a football match. Local lower league and non-league teams love the support and children often get in for free or very cheaply. Then buy a match programme. Get there early to give to time to read it together before the game.

Buy my new book, Dark Arena. Please. It features an in-construction London football stadium, a Roman amphitheatre, zombies and more. Read the first chapter and find out more here: https://tompalmer.co.uk/defenders/dark-arena.

Tom Palmer writes football stories for children aged 6 to 16. You can see a full list of his books at: https://tompalmer.co.uk/buy-books.

Thank you for reading!

It’s International Cat Day today, so maybe it’s about time I wrote about Gus.

This is Gus.

Whenever I settled down to write on the sofa in the attic, I soon heard his footsteps padding up the stairs, the little bell on his blue collar tinkling. He sat next to me in the summer. He sat on me in the winter.

Gus was my writing cat.

Gus died dreadfully in August last year. A grim night that ended with me and him visiting the 3 a.m. vets in Halifax. I’ll spare you the detail.

I can no longer write on the attic sofa. I write on my bed. Or in the kitchen.

I put Gus in my new book, Dark Arena. Here’s his short cameo role.

Now he’s in the book, I feel better. Here’s to Gus!

Happy International Cat Day!

This summer holiday I will be visiting libraries to talk about my new children’s series, Defenders. The books feature Saxons, Vikings, Romans, Iron Age people, ghosts and a touch of football.

You can meet me in sixteen libraries from York to Plymouth to talk reading, writing and football during July and August 2017 – and to help launch the fantastic library Summer Reading Challenge.

When I started as a professional author, ten years ago, two-thirds of my author appearances were in public libraries. Now library events are rare: perhaps 5% of what I do.

Libraries have suffered terribly in the age of austerity. And that means library users have lost out too. The sad truth is that public libraries can rarely afford to pay authors to come and speak in libraries.

But a happy truth is that libraries made me what I am. Without them I would be neither a writer or a reader. So, this summer I have committed to doing eight days in libraries. To give something back to the public library service that changed my life.

My publisher Barrington Stoke and Peters Books set up the tour.

These are the libraries I will be visiting and the dates and times I’ll be there. If you need more details please contact the library or see their website. You can also email info@tompalmer.co.uk if you need any clarification.

Everyone is welcome to come, except York which is a school event in the library. All the events are free of charge to the public, as far as I understand.

Friday 14^th July, 10 a.m.
York Central Library
A launch for York’s Summer Reading Challenge.

Tuesday 18^9th July, 3.45 p.m.
Hoyland Library, Barnsley
Launching Barnsley’s Summer Reading Challenge with Barnsley FC.
www.barnsley.gov.uk/services/libraries/summer-reading-fun

Wednesday 26^th July, 11.30 a.m.
Central Library, West Bromwich
www.sandwell.gov.uk/libraries

Wednesday 26^th July, 2 p.m.
Bloxwich Library, Walsall
www.lovelibrarieswalsall.co.uk

Thursday 27^th June, 11.30 a.m.
Wolverhampton Central Library
www.wolverhampton.gov.uk/libraries

Thursday 27^th July, 2 p.m.
Halesowen Library, Dudley

Friday 28^th July, 12.30 p.m.          
Crewe Central Library
www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/libraries/nearest_library/crewe_library.aspx

Friday 28^th July, 2.30 p.m.            
Alsager Library
www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/libraries/nearest_library/alsager_library/alsager_library.aspx

Saturday 29^th July, 1 p.m.
Storyhouse with Chester Central Library

Wednesday 23^rd August, 10 a.m.
Widnes Library                
Contact number: 0151 907 8383

Wednesday 23^rd August, 1 p.m.
Haydock Library, St Helens

Wednesday 23^rd August, 4 p.m.
Penketh Library, Warrington  
www.livewirewarrington.co.uk/events/month.calendar/2017/08/04

Thursday 24^th August, 11 a.m.                   
Eccles Library, Salford

Thursday 24^th August, 2 p.m.     
Swinton Library, Salford

Wednesday 30^th August, 11 a.m.
Four Greens Hub, Plymouth
Contact number: 01752 306237

Wednesday 30^th August, 2 p.m.
St Budeaux Library, Plymouth
Contact number: 01752 975916

During July I will write a ‘live’ story that will bring together football and the story of Anne Frank.

The story is from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old girl called Lily, who is about to go on a school trip to Holland. To visit Anne Frank’s House and to watch England play Scotland in the opening game of the EURO 2017 Women’s football tournament.

To research the story, I visited the Anne Frank House with my wife and daughter (age 13, usefully). I will be writing the last two chapters live from Utrecht as England kick off against Scotland.

I started this story wanting to write an exciting thriller about a group of children going on a school trip to Holland to watch football. But I am planning that there will be a lot more to it after my visit to the Anne Frank House.

The story will be about diary writing, football and Anne Frank. It will also link into the Football Association’s four values. It will feature the events of the next three weeks on and off the pitch. That’s the live element: I will write it the day before publication so that it is as live as I can make it.

Dutch Diaries will be made up of nine chapters. Each chapter will take ten minutes to read aloud. It is aimed at school years 4 to 8, roughly. In addition, there will be at least one episode where readers will be able vote on what happens next. It will be free to download three mornings a week from 3^rd to July 20^th.

Thanks to the National Literacy Trust and the Football Association for commissioning Dutch Diaries, as well as the accompanying writing exercises, blog and toolkit of in-school reading and writing activities, known as Literacy with the Lionesses.

You can read the first chapter of Dutch Diaries here.

Please pass this blog on to anyone who you think will be interested in promoting reading for pleasure, supporting women’s football and continuing conversations about understanding world events from the past and the present.

Thank you for reading.

England Women, Scotland Women and fourteen other countries will play out EURO 2017 this month and next. It is a fantastic showcase for the women’s game as it makes giant strides from the grassroots to elite football.

There are five things you can do to help add to that momentum.

One. Watch tonight’s Denmark v England match and persuade your sons and daughters to watch it too. It’s England’s last warm up game before EURO 2017 kicks off and should give everyone a taste of what’s to come. Thanks to Channel Four for showing the game on their website.

Two. Read about EURO 2017 on the BBC website and She Kicks magazine. Hopefully there will be lots of coverage in the mainstream press too.

Three. Read chapter one of my free live EURO 2017 story, Dutch Diaries, published by the National Literacy Trust and the FA. And, if you like it, read all nine chapters to your family or school assembly as the tournament develops.

Four. Collect the Panini EURO 2017 sticker collection.  Available in WHSmith and other newsagents. (Although you may see this as a colossal waste of money,  it is good news that the women’s game now has sticker albums you can find in the shops.)

Five. Check out the National Literacy Trust’s spectacular range of literacy resources to use in the lead up and during EURO 2017. Great for schools, home and libraries.

EURO 2017 kicks off on 16th July. The final is on 6th August. This is the official website.

I

When I was younger I didn’t think books could be set in the sort of places people actually lived. I understood that books were set in unreal magical places. Or London.

I certainly had no idea they could be set in Yorkshire. Or – even – be written by people from Yorkshire.

As a result, when I started reading and writing for pleasure, I didn’t think it was a career option. I was just something I did.

I was 20. School had gone badly. I’d been unemployed. But, with a sudden love of reading, I started an A level at night school in Leeds. Things were changing.

Within a month of starting the A level, we had read Wuthering Heights and watched film of the poem V. by Tony Harrison. One set on the moors above Haworth. One set in Leeds. A double dose of Yorkshireness.

I had my epiphany then.

You know? That great moment in your life when everything changes.

My epiphany: I could write about where I was from! And… I could be a writer. As a job!

II

Tomorrow I am launching my new book Killing Ground in Halifax.

Because it is set in Halifax.

On the moor next to where they host the Halifax Agricultural Show. At the Shay football and rugby stadium. In the new central library. Inside the town’s extraordinary Piece Hall. And on the streets that connect all those places.

I will visit four Halifax schools to tell them about a book set on their doorstep. I’ll tell them about Emily Bronte. And Ted Hughes, who lived just up the road. I’ll tell them about me.

And I’ll tell them they can read about Halifax in fiction. And write about it too.

You can find out more and read the first chapter of Killing Ground here.

During July I will be writing a live story that schools and families will be able to download for free in nine cliffhanging episodes.

Dutch Diaries will be about Lily, a thirteen-year-old girl who is going on a school trip to Holland. In Holland Lily and her friends will watch England’s opening game in the Women’s EUROs and will visit major sites in Amsterdam, notably the Anne Frank House. The idea is to create a story that will engage children with the tournament and the Anne Frank story.

I had not been to the Anne Frank House before, so, in May, I visited it with my wife and thirteen-year-old daughter. We saw the superb and thought-provoking museum about Anne Frank’s life in Amsterdam. We saw the secret annex where the Franks and their friends hid until they were betrayed and taken away to the death camps. We saw film and photographs that helped us to understand what happened to Anne Frank after that.

It was difficult. But it is one of the best things I have ever done with my family.

I wanted to see the Anne Frank House through the eyes of my daughter, to help me with my story, but also as a dad. The bookcase that hid the secret stairway up to Anne’s hiding place. The cramped rooms they lived in. One of the books of her actual diaries, with the distinctive tartan pattern.

Mostly we looked in silence. Everyone was silent. People occasionally pointing.

Towards the end I asked my daughter how the Anne Frank House made her feel. She said she was angry. Later she said it had made her more aware.

I am writing Dutch Diaries for the National Literacy Trust and the Football Association. Their idea behind the story was to make children – girls and boys – more aware of the Women’s EUROs. To get them behind the Lionesses. But both organisations were very keen, also, that we used Dutch Diaries to raise awareness of the Anne Frank story and how there are stories about children today that we need to be angry about and more aware of.

Dutch Diaries will be published on July 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19 and 20 by 8 a.m. here.It is written – roughly! – in the style of the very popular Dork Diaries books by Rachael Renee Russell. (My daughter will be helping with that too.)

Chapter one is already available here.

It will be a live story in that I will write it each day and include events from the tournament and other possible news stories as they occur during July. That will include me going to watch England’s opening game against Scotland in Utrecht.

A writing exercise linked to the football tournament and the story will be published on each of those mornings too on the same webpage.

I will also be writing a blog about the tournament, story and other related things. You can read that here.

Why are there no books about girls playing football? Why haven’t you written any? These are questions I get asked.

A lot.

As England Women head to Holland for EURO 2017 with a much better chance of winning a trophy than England men, why is there so little football fiction with girls as the main characters?

This is how I answer.

Well, there are two stand-out series about football featuring girls. The Girls FC series by Helena Pielichaty and the Beautiful Game series by Narinder Dhami.

Both full of excellent stories. Both written by excellent writers. Both out of print.

You can get hold of second hand copies of the two series online. But they are not in the bookshops. And library copies will be getting worn out – because they can’t be replaced with new copies and because they get read.

Not great.

Girls FC is available on Kindle, which is some comfort.

I have written several too. In brief:

Secret FC is about two girls who set up a football team at their school when they are banned from playing.

My Squad series – made up of Black Op and White Fear – is about five child spies whose cover story is that they are in an elite football team. Two of the five spies (and footballers) are girls.

All three books in my Wings series feature a mixed sex football team. Book three – Typhoon – leads on two sisters who play the game and end up flying a Typhoon.

You can buy all those books on Amazon here. You can also buy them in lots of other bookshops and borrow them from public libraries.

But what else is there?

Not much. And it is madness. Women’s football is watched more and read about more than ever. Female football is the fastest growing sport in the UK.

When England perform well at EURO 2017 let’s hope the people who make decisions about what sort of books get published are watching.

Please also see the Literacy with the Lionesses toolkit has book lists of well-written  fiction and non-fiction featuring girls and women in sport. You can download that for free here.