We are featuring Izzy’s Magical Football Adventure on the blog for any child out there who is football crazy especially if it is a girl and she needs a role model and some motivation. The book which is recommended for children aged 5 to 9 years old shares about Izzy is a seven-year-old girl who lives in Ireland and loves all sport, especially Gaelic Football. Izzy plays football with her brothers on a regular basis in their back garden and dreams of playing for her county in the All Ireland Ladies Football Final in Croke Park when she is older. One day, Izzy puts on her great grandmother’s bracelet, which is made of old All Ireland medals that her great grandmother won a long time ago, and something unexpected and magical happens, which may make Izzy’s Croke Park dream a reality sooner than she expected!
What did we think of the book?
The book is beautifully illustrated by Paul Nugent with large easy to read text. My daughter, Madeline who is 9-years-old easily read this book and said that her favourite part of the book was when Izzy got transported via her magical bracelet to Croke Park. An ardent reader, my daughter finished the book in minutes and wished the book was much thicker with more pages, nevertheless she enjoyed reading the book.
She also added: “I thought that it was a fun book and encouraged young girls who read the book to not give up on their dreams. I would advise Izzy’s Magical Football Adventure Book for any 5 to 8-year-olds and for girls who like football as it has lots of coloured pictures in it and it is a football story. Izzy has three brothers: Patrick, David and Robert. Izzy is seven-years-old while Patrick is nine, David is twelve and Robert is five-years-old. Izzy’s dream is to play football for her country so when she finds it hard playing against her brothers she feels like she is not going to play for her team. I found the book interesting as when I read the title it made me want to find what happens next and also soon as you read the first para you will get stuck in the book and want to know what happens next”.
About Emma Larkin
Emma Larkin is the founder of “Emma Larkin Books” and “Rebel in Kerry Press”. She has recently written and published her first book “Izzy’s Magical Football Adventure”, and she hopes to write many more books about Izzy and her adventures in sport. She is originally from County Cork in Ireland, which is known as the Rebel County, but she moved to Kerry (another county in Ireland which neighbours Cork) in 2006 and has been happily living in Kerry since then, with her husband and four children. Her husband is a Kerry native and they live in North Kerry, near Listowel, where her husband is from and is an area which is rich in literary history! Her inspiration to write this book came from her grandmother, Maureen Hennebry, née Cashman. She was on the Cork camogie team which won the All-Ireland Camogie Championship three times in a row between 1939 and 1941. She came from a family rich in GAA history, the Cashman’s of Blackrock in Cork, and is even mentioned in a poem by the famous Irish poet, Patrick Kavanagh. She wrote the book as she was in awe of the fact that her grandmother and her teammates played camogie at such a high level at a time in Ireland, where a woman’s role was predominantly to be a wife and homemaker. Which comes to her reason for writing this book…her grandmother was her inspiration to write it, so as to encourage all young girls to play sports.
How much does the book cost and how can I order one?
The paperback copy of the book retails for £8 and you can purchase a copy off Amazon here or you can also purchase the kindle edition for £4.50 here.
About the book
ISBN: 978-1916191334
Product Dimensions: 15 x 22.9cm
Pages: 35
Illustration: Paul Nugent
Publisher: Rebel in Kerry Press
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* We were sent a copy of the book for free in return for a review. All opinions are our own.
16 comments
Sounds like a lovely book and I love how her dreams magically come to life, we have not read of Emma Larkin’s books but we have to check her out.
This is her first book and we enjoyed reviewing it, it was different and quite encouraging and inspiring for little girls
This looks like a fab read for kids. Jack would enjoy this, he loves football
How wonderful, hope you get your hands on a copy of this book
This sounds like such a great book for kids! Perfect way to get kids excited about football and enjoy reading.
Totally agree, it is also inspired by Emma’s nan so that is wonderful to read about in the book
I have a football crazy son who would really enjoy reading this book
He would equally find this book by Emma inspiring
I think the idea of this book is so nice as it’s encouraging girls and showing them that they can play sports and do things otherwise traditionally thought of for boys only x
Absolutely especially since football is mainly a boy/men dominated sport so it is nice to have a role model for little girls
So many girls love football, it makes such a nice change to see a girl as the main character in a football themed book! Will be keeping an eye out for this one! 🙂
Hope you do, perfect as a little gift to inspired little minds
Its great that theres a football book with a girl as the lead. Times and perceptions are changing! xxx
Yes they sure are and all for good reasons
We need more female role models in male dominated sports. Great to see that in this book.
It sure is, this book is perfect as I want to encourage my little girl to do more sports