One to Tackle

Rampaging Rugby by Robin Bennett, illustrated by Matt Cherry

Firefly, 2021

I was never great at sports at school. I'm still not much good now but teaching sports lessons does allow me to ensure every child knows the thing that really matters - to have fun! And with this book, the first in a series that does for rugby what Horrible Histories did for the Tudors, children will have LOTS of fun on and off the pitch. 

Robin Bennett and Matt Cherry have produced in Rampaging Rugby a book that is absolutely jam-packed with detail, both about the game (its history receives a whole section, for example) and how it's played (an incredibly detailed but super-clear portion of the book). The illustrations are humorous and lively but never play down the authentic and passionate tone of how the information is relayed. It really is a great introduction for children in upper Keystage 2 and Keystage 3, who may be coming with interest to the sport for the first time. 

Not only will Rampaging Rugby inspire many young people to take an interest in the game but will also help to engage children for whom sport is already their 'thing' in the enjoyment of reading. A double win! 

I'm very pleased to have been invited to 'kick off' the blog tour for Rampaging Rugby, doubly so as I have been able to ask Robin a few questions about the book: 

What’s the reason for young people reading about the game when they could just *play* it?

Like Conrad Smith says in his foreword, as a kid I loved playing sport but I also loved reading - so anything that combined the two was up my street.

You focus on the history of the game…and (hooray) the history of girls’ rugby. Why is the backstory such an important thing to know about for today’s rugby fans?

Sport is as much about the spirit of the game as the rules and that comes directly from its culture and from its history: its heart and soul. 

In the section on playing matches, you don’t shy away from the toughness of the game. Isn’t this a bit scary for some young readers? 

Partly because it's impossible to dress it up any other way and do it justice but also because I think most kids' games involve physical contact  - they're more comfortable and enthusiastic about bumping into each other than we give them credit for sometimes (more than adults!).

The book is packed with technical detail giving a fantastic in-depth overview of the sport. How did you go about balancing this level of detail with reading about it in a pleasurable way?

That was the biggest challenge - I started off with bare bones facts, then added jokes and anecdotes but that didn't really work ... so I just imagined I was chatting to our kids and that helped it come across more naturally.

You end the book with a look at the future of Rugby Union. What would you like to see for the game in the next few years and beyond?

More people playing: more girls, more older people (like me) and more countries. I would like to see safety remain high on the agenda, obviously not at the expense of flow and set piece.

Thanks, Robin! And best of luck with the launch of the book. I know a number of children in my class will love to read it. 

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Rampaging Rugby is published on August 5th, from Firefly Press, and can be bought from all good bookstores - do support the independents where you can! 

The Big Five

The Climbers by Keith Gray

Barrington Stoke, 2021

Obsession is an unusual theme to observe in a children's - or even young adult - novel, at least when it takes the form of the threatening kind that drives Keith Gray's new novella, The Climbers. It is the kind of madness that grips tightly,
making its unfortunate victim believe the unreal, and which occludes their eyes to their own personal shortcomings. 

Sully's determination to climb the tallest tree in the town park and name it as his reward has overcome everything for him. When Nottingham, a boy who has just arrived in the town, shows his exceptional prowess at climbing and announces as his goal to race to the top, the worst side of Sully comes to the fore and the competition becomes fierce and deadly. 

Blind to seeing what his obsession has made him, Sully is not the usual kind of protagonist in literature for young people.  He may seem to be the hero at the start, but very soon it is revealed that he is 'a right arsehole' - to use Nottingham's words; being party only to Sully’s view of things in the narrative, this makes for uncomfortable reading indeed. Like the unstable branches on which the climbers place their Adidas Swift runs, we are on treacherous ground to the very end. 

Keith Gray pinpoints exactly the teenage mindset, desperate to break free and find their own place in a world that has contained them, passive for the first fifteen years of their lives. Sully's friend, Mish, is determined to go to university and leave behind a small town that is easily excited by (but which all-too-soon loses interest in) the antics of the climbers. Sully and Nottingham still need to find what it is they want but they have for the moment settled on being the big cheese among their peers. They have much to learn...much of which from each other. 

And then, of course, there are the trees. Silent imposing guardians of the natural world, they stand astride the human world that buzzes around them. They haunt the book like green ghosts; you can smell their bark, sap and chlorophyll as they thwart the boys' plans to dominate them. One in particular, 'The Last Tree', fights especially hard - it has never been climbed without a fall - and, like Moby Dick, will not give up without adequate compensation. It is the major success of the book that through his vivid  characterisation, both corporeal and arboreal, Gray's depiction of humankind's determined plan to conquer all, even the very earth from which it was birthed, is subtle and sharply pointed.

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The Climbers is published on August 5th by Barrington Stoke, and can be bought from all good bookstores - do support the independents where you can!