Wednesday 6 June 2012

Euro 2012 reading tips for parents # 4: LIVE FICTION

Sometimes it is good to have a story that is really relevant.

If a story is set now and is about things on everybody's mind, then it might have a chance to grip a reader more.

I call it LIVE FICTION.

For example, there are a few decent fiction books out about the Olympics now. Check out the following:

Running for Gold by Owen Slot
Cycling for Gold by Owen Slot
Danny Baker's Silly Olympics by Steve Hartley
Deep Waters by Robert Rigby
Running in her Shadow by Robert Rigby
Parallel Lines by Robert Rigby
Wheels of Fire by Robert Rigby

Also, my new book, Black Op takes place in the week before Euro 2012 and is set in Poland and Ukraine, where the tournament is taking place. A good one for children to be reading this week, perhaps...

But some readers find a whole book a bit too much to handle. That is why episodic stories, one short chapter a day, can work too. This is about as live as live fiction can get.

In conjunction with the National Literacy Trust, I have written one called The Great Euro 2012 Swindle. Well, the first chapter, anyway.

This is that first chapter of a story that is set for the duration of Euro 2012:

CHAPTER ONE

There will be fifteen more chapters, all published at 8 a.m. on the morning of each week day during Euro 2012.

To make it more exciting (and more of a challenge for me) the story will be written each evening after the day's games are played, after all the controversies of the tournament. Each will repsond to those events, meaning whatever is being talked about in the playground will be in the chapter.

The story is free. It will be published at http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/schools_teaching/euro_2012 and can be read aloud or printed out to one child, or to whole assemblies. Last the 2012 World Cup - over 3000 schools took part.

I hope this appeals.

P.S. I have not decided whether to follow the results of the tournament slavishly... or to change the scores so that England win. What do you think?

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