August: Read the Game

What better theme for the month of school holidays and the Beijing Olympic Games? This list covers the real and the virtual, from football to mountaineering, cycling to swimming. While we can't guarantee that an improved level of fitness will result, we can promise some popular reads around the theme.

Friendly Matches
Allan Ahlberg
Puffin Books
9780141307497
A whole book of poems dedicated to football, which is bound to strike a chord with the youngest fans.

MacB
Neil Arksey
Puffin Books
9780141304151
Football can be deadly... In this highly original reworking of the Macbeth story, MacB is driven to do whatever is necessary to fulfil his ambition to captain the school team.

The Transfer
Terence Blacker
Macmillan Children's Books
9780330397865
A virtual football player? Guaranteed to appeal to the online addict as well as the sports fanatic, this tells of how 'cybertelekynesis' transforms Stanley into a football superhero - with gripping and sometimes hilarious consequences.

Burn Out
Ben Bo
Bloomsbury
9780747546993
Max lives a privileged ‘couldn’t-care-less gravity-free life’, one where skateboarding is everything. An uncomplicated life… but everything changes with the arrival of Luka, a refugee from the fires which have swept through Eastern Europe and killed her family. Lots of great descriptions of skateboarding, but also a gripping plot and some serious issues to think about. Surfing fans might also like Skullcrack.

Divided City
Theresa Breslin
Corgi Children's
9780552551885
In Glasgow, with its religious, sporting and political divisions, football unites people as nothing else. Joe and Graham, from opposite religious camps, are a brilliant team on the pitch - and as they work together to get a place in the Glasgow team, and to help the young asylum seeker Kyoul, a new tolerance and understanding is forged.

Dirt Bike Runaway
Matt Christopher
Little, Brown
9780316140027
Matt Christopher’s ‘Sports Classics’ series includes American football, basketball and skateboarding. The formula will appeal to many who like exciting sport wrapped up in a good story.

Matt Christopher also writes non-fiction: The Olympics: Unforgettable Moments of the Games is due to be published in August.

Fat Boy Swim
Catherine Forde
Egmont Books
9781405239660
Jimmy is obese, useless at football, and the constant target of the school’s most unpleasant bullies. However he's a talented cook, and at night he is haunted by dreams of being a powerful and graceful swimmer. A hugely satisfying read in which dreams come true, wrongs are righted and family secrets uncovered.

The Kick Off
Dan Freedman
Scholastic
9780439944304
With ringing endorsements from professional footballers and an obvious understanding of the game, this is also a convincing story of families, friendship and the struggle to succeed.

Asterix at the Olympic Games
René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
Orion
9780752866277
Armed with a magic potion, Asterix and Obelix set off to compete in the ancient games in Athens and defeat the Roman champion Gluteus Maximus. Written and then translated to coincide with the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, what more fitting book for a summer of ‘reading the game’?

The Match
Romesh Gunesekera
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
9780747579397
Sunny's story, from Sri Lanka to Manila to London, is framed by two cricket matches: the first in Manila when he is a teenager, the second at the Oval thirty years later, when he takes his own son to watch the visiting Sri Lankan team. A tale of families, cultures and belonging, told with humour and lyricism.

The Rider
Tim Krabbe
Bloomsbury
9780747559412
A mesmerising and adrenaline-packed account of one rider's participation in the gruelling Tour de Mont Aigoual leg of the Tour de France. A cycling classic which will leave you feeling as if you've ridden it too!

A Little Piece of Ground
Elizabeth Laird
Macmillan Children's Books
9780330437431
Living in the occupied Palestinian city of Ramallah, 12 year Karim wants more than anything to be 'champion footballer of the entire world'. Despite the curfews and the dangers of living under Israeli occupation he and his friends make a football pitch out of a patch of waste ground. The preoccupations of an ordinary boy sit movingly alongside a tragic and terrifying modern conflict.

Cinderboy
Anholt Laurence
Orchard
9781846169830
From the Seriously Silly series of retellings of traditional fairy tales, Cinderboy is the hilarious story of how a hardworking football fan finally does make it to the cup final - despite the machinations of his wicked stepdad and two lazy stepbrothers. It also has a much more charitable ending!

Tilting at Windmills: How I Tried to Stop Worrying and Love Sport
Andy Miller
Penguin Books
9780140297607
As an antidote to Olympic fever, why not try one of the funniest sports books around? The author confesses: "I hate football. I don’t understand cricket. Swimming leaves me cold. Rugby strikes fear into my heart...". But he sets off to explore them all in a last-ditch effort to understand what all the fuss is about.

Billy the Kid
Michael Morpurgo
HarperCollins Children's Books
9780007105472
A young, talented footballer has his career interrupted by the Second World War. But football is in his blood, and despite the horrors he witnesses he remains a Chelsea fan into his old age. A moving story, richly supported by Michael Foreman’s illustrations.

The Penalty
Mal Peet
Walker Books
9781844280995
Sports journalist Paul Faustino is unwillingly drawn into a hunt for a missing young football prodigy. A story of corruption, murder, slavery and the power of the occult, and a thrilling read.

Horrid Henry and the Football Fiend
Francesca Simon
Orion
9781842550717
Will Henry be man of the match and win the tickets to the FA Cup Final? This is bound to become one of the Horrid Henry favourites.

Touching the Void
Joe Simpson
Vintage
9780099771012
A mountaineering classic, this is the true story of two men's near fatal ascent of the 21,000 foot Siula Grande peak in the Peruvian Andes. An extraordinary and controversial tale of survival, and a page-turning read.

Tennis Shoes
Noel Streatfeild
Jane Nissen Books
9781903252086
A 1937 classic about four children who set out to follow in the footsteps of their father, once a top class tennis player. Competition between them appears gentle and good-natured by today's standards, and the emphasis is on making the most of the talents you have.