
Build Your Dream Team: My Greatest Football Team Ever
by Tom Fordyce, illustrated by Kieran Carroll
Interest age: 6 to 11
Reading age: 7+
Published by Wren & Rook, 2020
About this book
Here’s an incredible opportunity for football fans to choose their dream team, packaged in a book that’s the perfect balance of facts, activities and humour.
Aspiring managers kick off with a quiz to find their leadership style then design their ideal stadium, the team’s kit and mascot - even the good luck rituals they go through before the game. Next up is the team itself, choosing from a host of home and international players both past and present.
It’s not easy to pick a mid-fielder from a line-up that includes George Best (inspired Maradona, but was a party animal), Megan Rapinoe (helped earn USA’s 2016 Olympic women’s team gold medals), Lionel Messi (goal-scoring extraordinaire with 138 caps) and Garrincha (Pelé’s teammate whose right leg was 6cm shorter than his left).
Luckily, the book offers plenty of insight and tips to help readers along the way. None of the advice talks down to the reader so children will feel like authentic managers fretting over real decisions.
Fordyce, a renowned sports journalist, writes with an easy, conversational style so children will be engaged from the get-go and are likely to end up involving their friends in family in fierce selection debates too!
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