Game On!

Twelve stories about the hardest parts of playing sport - and the children who keep turning up anyway.

Being picked last. Nerves that won't settle. Getting corrected in front of everyone. Losing your place in the team. Making the mistake that costs the final.

These are the moments that quietly make children want to give up, and they're rarely the ones anyone talks about. Game On! takes twelve of them and builds a story around each - written for readers aged 8 to 10, who are old enough to feel all of it and still working out what to do with it.

Leo loves ballet, and the boys at school have just found out.

Maya has been picked last so often she knows how it ends before it starts.

Chloe scores an own goal in the cup final, in front of absolutely everyone.

Milo has been going to the skate park for three months and still hasn't stood on his board.

From rugby to ballet, swimming to skateboarding, cricket to gymnastics - seven girls and five boys take the lead, including a girl walking onto a boys' rugby pitch and a boy who refuses to give up dancing.

Nobody solves anything in a single afternoon. These children get braver in small, believable steps, the way it actually happens.

Fully illustrated - four colour illustrations in every story, so it never becomes a wall of text.

A short foreword for grown-ups suggests how to read these together without turning any of it into a lesson.

Perfect for: readers aged 8-10 · reluctant readers · bedtime and classroom read-alouds · any child who has ever wanted to quit something they love.