'A shy but talented footballer navigates challenging friendships and anxiety at school in this touching tale from acclaimed author Eve Ainsworth. Lily always feels a little bit left out. Shy and anxious, she finds school really hard, particularly as most of the other girls all seem so confident. Most of the time, Lily wishes that she could just disappear. But during a game of football in PE, Lily's teacher spots her natural talent and invites Lily to join the local girls' team, where she starts to make friends with some of the other players. Finally, she thinks she's found a place where she fits in, but will a vicious argument with one of her teammates put all her progress in jeopardy?'
Anyone who's been through the upheaval of moving from primary school to senior school will be familiar with the themes and emotions of Finding Her Feet, as Lily finds herself drifting away from her best friend, Beth, who's started making new friends. Your carefully constructed world starts to crumble around you as you're in a new place, filled with new people, having to rediscover not only your place in the various friend groups and cliques that are forming, but your passions as you head into your teen years.
Lily is struggling to do this, and even with the help of her father, she's slipping into depression and isolation. Luckily for Lily, one of her teachers, Mr Allen, notices her growing isolation and anxiety, and invites her to come along to try out for football practice with the other girls in her year group. Whilst Lily is afraid to do so at first, she eventually plucks up the courage to go along, and discovers that she's better at the sport than she first thought, and that she really enjoys it. However, the relationships in the team are difficult for her to navigate, and even when she's trying to be nice to Beth it seems to be backfiring for her. Now Lily has to try to figure out how to navigate her teammates, as well as the pitch.
Finding Her Feet is a rather nice story about, as the title suggests, finding your feet in a difficult and scary world. Lily is a quiet girl, a character that most young readers will be able to project onto quite easily, and I think that more than a few will have similar thoughts and fears that she does thanks to how overwhelming school can sometimes be.
The book also has a really decent message that sport and games can help to bring people together. Over the course of the book Lily goes from quiet, reserved, and shy to being a valued member of the team with firm friendships forming. The fact that Lily is also reluctant to even try out for the team is a great choice too, as it will show young readers that often those situations that feel scary and off-putting can lead to decent things, to fun and friendship.
It's not just Lily's story that takes place throughout the book, however, as we also get breaks between chapters where Even Ainsworth imparts brief snippets of the history of women's football in England. We go right back to the very early days, exploring the sport in the 1800's, before taking a look at the sport during World War One, and the groundbreaking Dick, Kerr Ladies team. It's amazing to learn how these women became hugely popular, and how they had some of the firsts in football. Sadly, sexism and misogyny is rampant across history, and women's football was banned by the FA in order to 'protect women', though in reality it was done to make men's football look better. Thankfully, these segments end on a happier note, with discussion on modern women's football, and the increasing popularity of the sport. Even as an adult reader these parts of the book were hugely interesting and informative, and it sparked a real desire to go and learn more about the subject.
As with other releases from Barrington Stoke, Finding Her Feet comes with a number of illustrations, by artist Luna Valentine. Valentine's art is really nice, and all of the characters have clear and distinct looks that instantly make them stand out on the page. Valantine is also fantastic at drawing expressions, and the illustrations do a wonderful job at capturing the emotions of the moments that they're portraying. The artwork was a genuine delight, and it's a shame that there's not more of it (it would make for a brilliant graphic novel!), but what is there will definitely entertain.
Finding Her Feet might be a book about football at first glance, but there's a lot more here than you'd first think, and the story about a girl finding her confidence, in taking risks and making new friends, and figuring out what she enjoys doing are all important messages that kids need.
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