Tell us what book(s) got your children into reading - for a chance to win a football-themed goody bag worth £100

[SorchaMumsnet]

Football School is an innovative series from two bestselling writers that teaches children about the world through football - and reading!

The books are packed with awesome true stories, real science and fascinating facts and tonnes of humour. When do footballers poo? Can you play football on Mars? What is a magic sponge? You’ll find the answers to these questions and more on subjects from history and geography to biology and maths. Illustrated throughout with hilarious cartoons and filled with laugh-out-loud gags, this is the perfect book for any boy or girl who loves football.

The coaches at Football School, Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton, are journalists, broadcasters and award-winning science and sports writers. They believe that there’s nothing you can’t learn through the prism of football, and their knowledge, enthusiasm and engaging writing make them the perfect team to teach kids how to score with their heads!

To celebrate the second book in the series, we're giving away a fantastic football-themed prize bundle - including Football School Season 1 and 2 and personalised items including a football from We Print Balls, a tabletop football game from Auntie Mims, and football wall stickers from Bright Blue Pig.

As the series is a great way to get the more reluctant of readers interested in books, for your chance to win the prize bundle worth £100, just tell us - what book(s) got your kids into reading, and why?

Buy a copy of Book 1 or Book 2

This discussion is sponsored by Walker Books and will end on Wednesday 20 December

Books T&Cs apply

Horrid Henry was the starting point for DS - they were the first books he picked up and just read for pleasure - over and over again! After that it was Secret Seven, Football Academy, Frankie's Magic Football...

He's now a proper bookworm and it's hard to keep him in new books. Fortunately the school library is great and his class teacher really encourages them to try new authors.

Enid Blyton proved the key to my daughter loving books, such good stories to read together or alone

My kids love Harry Potter and his dark materials x

The books that finally got my son reading were the footballer autobiographies written by Michael Part, they are written for kids and he read 3 in two weeks! He is 9 and completely football obsessed!

We bought a series of Read it yourself books and our daughter decided to learn to read over the weekend - book 1 then book 2 then book 1 then book 2 then book 3 then book 1 etc right up to 32 - what a weekend

The Malory Towers books by Enid Blyton have been a favourite in our house.

For DS1 it was Beast Quest - terrible as they are, they gave him confidence that he could read proper books. And then Mr Gum - we won copies of the audio books, so he listened to them, and then read them.
For DS2 it's Jeremy Strong books - especially the My Brother's Famous Bottom series - he loves the humour.

We all love Alex Bellos btw - I regularly share his Guardian maths / logic puzzles over the dinner table, and got my mum his book for Christmas last year.

Matilda by roald dahl as they like the books

My ds was not a fan of reading and saw it as a chore. I got some classics like charlie and the chocolate factory, the happy prince, and new books like gangsta granny etc.

First I read to him, and then we did a chapter each, now he reads proactively and for pleasure, it's best to spark the passion for reading.

I think it was the Happy Prince that did it, as the the story touched his heart, and we discussed the story/themes at great length and the power of words, as it's not a long story but powerful in it's content, I still had a tear or two myself at the end!

Ds1 is 2.5 and he adores Mr Men. He already knows the vast majority of them by name - far more than I do in fact

DS was a really reluctant reader and I was quite concerned. I’ve always read him a bedtime story but he wasn’t interested in reading independently. However, in year 2 at school he was introduced to the Project X Alien Adventures series and he really got into them. He then discovered Harry Potter over the summer and is now on book 5! His reading is unrecognisable from this time last year: he brings a book with him in the car, I have to confiscate books at bedtime so he doesn’t stay up late reading under the covers, he gets up early to read. This is the same boy who once told me crossly that reading was boring and he never wanted to read, ever :)

My son was a reluctant reader - he would happily have stories read to him at bedtime but hated reading by himself.

The turning point was when he discovered Captain Underpants - he just loved the humour. Silly and childish but perfect for getting him into picking up books.

The 13 storey treehouse collection really clicked with DD.

Neither of my ds were into reading. They didn’t hate it but it wasn’t anything that got them too excited until ds1 read Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver. He loved it and I told him off when I went to bed one night and found him still reading at 11pm (I was secretly thrilled though)
He’s really got into reading now.
With ds2, it was The Big Game by Dan Smith. He’s going through some more Dan Smith but, apparently, theyre not as exciting.

Our 3 kids started on Dr Seuss ABC. We started at about 6 months .... They loved it! DS2 though ...is still a fan of I'm going on a bear hunt !!!

If I hear one of those books now...I wanna scream !!!!!!

Julia Donaldson and Jill Murphy got my daughter into books. She’s just learning to read now and loves going through them figuring out the words.

The Gruffalo and many other Julia Donaldson books. The Gruffalos Child, The Snail and the Whale, A Squash and a Squeeze, The Smartest Giant in Town and Tabby McTat. The rhyming helped and they can more or less recite the books.

My two year old can recite from her counting block book, one acorn, two snowmen, three boxes. It absolutely fills me with love

It’s all about Captain Underpants in our household xx

DD: non fiction on subjects she was obsessed with. DS2: nothing yet.

My DC's love Diary of a Wimpy Kid as they read the first book and really got into the characters and loved the stories.

The Beast Quest books got my DS into reading longer, more wordy books than the Biff, Chip and Kipper ones he had at school. He also likes Ronald Dahl, which I prefer as he gets a better story to read.

For DD2 it was the Stitch Head books by Guy Bass. She liked the pictures, the humour and the storyline which was engaging but not overly scary.

My daughter loves Isadora Moon - she is collecting the whole series - Isadora is half fairy, half vampire and the stories are full of magic :)

What first got my son interested in reading wasn't a book - it was football cards. It made him see that reading could be useful and fun and the decoding of unusual names helped him immeasurably.

He then went on to reading Frank lampard books and also the Jamie Johnson series.

Now it's a struggle to get him to stop reading at bedtime.