May 2023 15th Anniversary of Foul Play

Foul Play was my first children’s football series for Puffin.

Football Detective Danny Harte’s adventures took him all over the world tackling football crimes with the help of his friend Charlotte Duncan.

The series was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award

Follow me on twitter @tompalmerauthor for the chance coming up to win a very special Foul Play prize.

Find out more about Foul Play here.

Buy Books

Signed and dedicated copies of all my books are available personalised to order from my local independent children’s bookshop “The Thoughtful Spot” here. 

With an extra special Christmas or birthday card from me on request!

Overseas : FREE Delivery worldwide from The Book Depository.
Australia: Boomerang
Canada: Amazon Canada
New Zealand: Wheelers
USA :  Indigo books

Visit my bookshop or support your local bookshopHIVE

Schools bumper 35 book pack offer here

35 books
£190 saving £60 – over 20% discount
FREE DELIVERY & SIGNED BOOKPLATES

Please email rosie@rosemaryhillbooks.co.uk.

Schools class set offer here.

15 copies 20%+ discount
30 copies 25%+ discount
100 copies 30% + discount

FREE DELIVERY & SIGNED BOOKPLATES

Please email rosie@rosemaryhillbooks.co.uk for a quote

Email me here for more information or use my contact form here to ask me a question.

Thank you.

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To celebrate the publication of my latest book, Resist,  I am offering a special souvenir readers’ pack.

Resist was inspired by the wartime childhood of Hollywood legend Audrey Hepburn and her role in the Dutch resistance.

It is aimed at children aged 9+.  More here.

The Souvenir Readers’ Packs contain:

• a signed postcard,
• a signed bookplate,
• a bookmark
• a poster

(I can personalise the bookplate with added dedications “To …”,  if requested below).

To request a pack, free of charge, please complete the contact form below.

Thank you! Our replies are never automated.  You will get a personal reply so please be patient with us!

Data protection notice – we respect your privacy and we will not share your details with anyone else.  You may unsubscribe at any time by emailing admin (at) tompalmer (dot) co (dot) uk  or use my simple unsubscribe page here.  If you are under 16, please always make sure to ask a parent for their permission before you give your details to this or any other website.   Please refer to my Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions for further information.

DISCOVER more about the inspiration behind Resist here.

FIND RESIST AT your local library, local independent bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon and Kindle. Overseas : FREE Delivery worldwide from The Book Depository.  

Thank you!

To launch the Naval Childrens Charity’s 2022 writing 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

Find out more about HMCS Sackville here.

Refugee Week 20-26 JUNE 2022

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.

• Read “Them” here
• A powerpoint introducing “Them” here
• 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.

Every year, our good friend and illustrator James Innerdale has created a beautiful Christmas image to mark the publication of a new book of mine for our Christmas cards.

Win a signed set of 3 of my history books!

Can you work out which of my books these Christmas images links to?

To enter please complete the entry form below using the dropdown list to match the images A,  B  & C to the correct book title.

Every entry gets a E-Christmas card from me!

The competition has now closed and the winner has been drawn. Thank you to all those who entered.

The winning answers are :

A After the War

B Arctic Star

C D-Day Dog

Find out more about all my books here.

And don’t miss my new Christmas fiction resources here.

All my books are available signed and or dedicated from my local independent bookshop, Book Corner Halifax here.

Thank you, good luck and Happy Christmas!

Email me here or use my contact form here for more information about any of my books.

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