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Tom Palmer |
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As well as being a huge football fan, Tom Palmer has an international reputation in reader development. He is a coordinator of the Reading Partners consortium, works with The Reading Agency, Booktrust and the National Literacy Trust, and has been the official writer for the Premier League Reading Stars scheme for five years.
He also teaches annually for the Arvon Foundation, and has travelled around the world to train librarians and teachers in techniques to encourage boys to read. Foul Play is Tom's first book for Puffin, the first in the Football Detective series.
Here are Tom's Top Ten Tips for Parents on using the World Cup to encourage children to read:
- Be seen reading about the World Cup yourself by your children – in newspapers, magazines and books. Keep telling them about interesting things you’ve found out.
- Have sport newspapers round the TV room or at breakfast – or even deliver a newspaper to their room in the morning.
- Buy them some of the World Cup special edition magazines – or the World Cup issues of Match, Match of the Day, FourFourTwo or World Soccer.
- Get audio books of football stories for trips in the car. Order them from your public library in good time.
- Take them to a bookshop and let them choose one of dozens of football books available. Let them make the choice and be open-minded about what they choose.
- Contact your local library. Are they doing any special World Cup events? Have they got any extra football stock in?
- Offer to help your school to run some World Cup reading activities. Mix football coaching or school screenings of games with some of the activities in the free toolkit at www.literacytrust.org.uk/worldcup
- Challenge them to a World Cup fantasy football game online or in a newspaper. Find newspapers, magazines and websites that will help them make the best player decisions so that they can try to beat you.
- Check out World Cup pages online. Many of them will have competitions and interactive activities that will encourage reading and research.
- Read Tom Palmer’s free online Foul Play story based in and responding to the tournament as it unfolds. Download it daily at www.literacytrust.org.uk/worldcup
PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH:
Leeds, 1st August 1967
FAVOURITE BOOK:
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
MOST TREASURED POSSESSION:
A small scupture my mum did at a night class
FAVOURITE SONG:
Mr Brightside, The Killers
FAVOURITE FILM:
Groundhog Day
When did you start writing?
When I was 18 or 19 (after not being allowed to do English Literature at school)
Where do you get your ideas?
Watching people and overhearing them. Memories from when I was younger. Football. Books.
Can you give your top three tips to becoming a successful author?
1. Write about what you are passionate about (e.g. football)
2. Read about things you're interested in
3. Be as honest as you can when you write
Favourite place in the world and why?
The Lake District, because I like hills and lakes and lots of space
What are your hobbies?
Watching football, playing tennis, swimming, walking, reading, loud music, playing with my daughter, talking to my wife, eating chocolate
A milkman (it was my first job and I loved it)
