The Six Nations rugby starts on February 3^rd. A great chance to use children’s passion for rugby to engage them with reading and writing for pleasure.

I have loads of resources available on my website that you can use in schools and libraries and homes. All free.

In brief, this is what I can offer.

One. A new video where I talk about rugby reading for the 2018 Six Nations tournament.

Two. Several free downloadable rugby and reading posters in English and Welsh.

Three. Four books set in the world of rugby union. My Rugby Academy series, about a school rugby team. And Scrum.

Four. Certificates – signed and dated by me – for any children who read my Rugby Academy series.

Five. A reading comprehension exercise for each of the four books above.

Six. A Top Trumps game using characters from my Rugby Academy series.

Seven. A free Rugby World Cup story, commissioned by England Rugby in 2015.

Eight. Lesson plans written in conjunction with England Rugby. Half about reading. Half about writing.

Nine. Reviews of the major rugby union books, magazines, websites and newspapers.

Ten. Two school activity toolkits of ideas to promote reading through rugby union.

Please get in touch if you would like more information about author visits I do that link reading for pleasure with rugby, football and cross country running.

Happy Christmas!

I am delighted to be able to  say that I have a new book coming out in autumn 2018.

It’s called Armistice Runner and is about a  thirteen-year-old cross country/fell runner called Lily. And her great great granddad, who was a champion fell runner as well as a trench runner during the last weeks of the First World War.

The story is based very loosely on my daughter’s love of cross country and fell running and the champion fell runner of 100 years ago, Ernest Dalzell (above).

You can read Barrington Stoke’s Press release about the book here.

To celebrate the launch of my Iron Age ghost story, Pitch Invasion, I am offering three free thirty-minute Skype sessions with schools, to take place this coming week on Thursday 16^th November.

Pitch Invasion is about Seth and Nadiya, two children who discover that an ancient hillfort near where Seth is staying is haunted by the Iron Age people who lived there 2000 years ago.

While I was writing Pitch Invasion I found out all I could about hillforts and Iron Age people by visiting Iron Age sites and reading as much as I could find about the era. I hope the book shows what an Iron Age settlement might have looked like and how its people lived.

Pitch Invasion is the last book of three in my Defenders series in which Seth and Nadiya solve hauntings from history. Killing Ground features the Anglo Saxons and Vikings. Dark Arena is set in an excavated British Roman amphitheatre. All three books have been painstakingly researched and tie in very much with the KS2 historical subjects.

I regularly visit classrooms via Skype. In the half an hour session I’ll talk to the children about what I found out about the Iron Age while I was researching the subject. I’ll read a short section from Pitch Invasion. And I’ll answer questions about the book and my life as a writer.

If you would like to be one of the three schools involved, please email me at info@tompalmer.co.uk. All schools who email me before 9 p.m. on Monday 13^th November 2017 will be entered into a draw and three will be chosen at random. I will contact everyone who has applied by Tuesday lunchtime to let you know if you’re one of the successful schools.

Pitch Invasion will be published by Barrington Stoke on Wednesday 15^th November 2017.

You can find out about all three books in the Defenders books and their links to KS2 history topics here.