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.