8-0? How could The Team lose 8-0? Easily! Harvey s team always loses. Professor Gertie, Harvey s neighbor, can t really understand it, but her game winning inventions for The Team just haven t helped. (Her Bouncy Boots were too bouncy and her Smoke Machine was too smoky.) Now she thinks she has the perfect solution: Mark 1, the Soccer Machine. He has a metal body covered with Squidgy Skin, a top speed of 45 miles per hour and he s programmed to win! But will this latest invention really work? Can The Team actually win?
I wanted to be a professional soccer player for a long time, but I didn't make it. I liked school too, though, and my favourite subject was biology - so I became a biologist. I had a job at Stanford University, where I worked in a lab, wore a lab coat, and made new antibiotics. I was heading towards being a Professor, but I changed my mind and became a writer instead.
I write picture books for younger children, and a soccer series ('The Team') for older children. The Team has got great football players AND a Professor in it.
I grew up in England where I still live with my family, by the sea in Norfolk.
My favourite books:
A Ladybird book of 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' started me off. I used to copy out the story, one painful letter at a time. I would underline in felt pen the words in the book I had copied.
When I was older I was hooked on 'The Famous Five' stories, but I also liked Annuals like 'Whizzer and Chips' and 'Monster Fun', and I had some great graphic novels about Dracula. At school we read 'Stig of the Dump', 'The Hobbit', 'Moonfleet', and 'To Kill a Mockingbird', all of which I still enjoy and admire. These books made me love stories and reading - and I was speechless when, not so long ago, I met the author of Stig!
