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KS2 English: C鶹 Book Club - June 2022

In June’s Book Club, Laura meets Alex Falase-Koya & Marta Kissi who discuss what it was like to work with Marcus Rashford on their new book, “The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond The Fence”. They take on the emoji challenge, solve some literary mysteries, and Marta shows how to draw a cartoon version of Marcus Rashford.

Also on the programme is Sam Copeland and Jenny Pearson, talking about their new book, “The Underpants of Chaos”, and Anthony Horowitz discusses his new book, “Where Seagulls Dare: The Diamond Brothers Detectives”.

C鶹 Book Club is all about celebrating books and getting children excited about reading! These monthly programmes feature authors, illustrators and celebrities talking about their latest books, stories they loved reading when they were young, the creative ways in which they write/illustrate and most importantly, getting children involved with games, challenges and book reviews.

Teacher notes

“The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond The Fence” was co-written by Marcus Rashford MBE and Alex Falasse-Koya and illustrated by Marta Kissi. The first interview could be used to inspire children to work together on a collaborative piece of writing in groups of three, with different roles for each child: illustrator and co-writers.

Together with Sam Copeland and Jenny Pearson, the above authors/illustrators could be used as an example to discuss teamwork and identify what factors are important when working in a team.

Anthony Horowitz, CBE explains his love of storytelling and how, as a child, Tintin was his favourite character. This could be used as a starting point to explore comic strip books such as Tintin, looking at the differences between them and novels. The children could use the comic strips as an inspiration to draw and write their own.

Suggested follow-up activities

Marcus Rashford campaigned for the government to provide free school meals. He also campaigns against racism and homelessness. This could be used as a starting point to look how the lives of others have been improved by the caring actions of a particular person.

Ask the children to think of how powerful books can be and how they can influence readers on important global topics. How could this inspire them to write about something they are passionate about?

Investigate how people are awarded honours and research children’s authors who have received an honour and the reason they were given it. The children could also look into the history of the honours system.

Marcus Rashford used his experiences as a child at a 'breakfast club' to write his book. Can the children think of any positive experiences in their lives as inspiration for a story?

Ask the children to find out about the football career of Marcus Rashford and write a short biography about him.

Share other illustrated stories with the children and see if any of the illustrations could inspire them to draw in a similar fashion. Ask them to identify what techniques and materials they think have been used.

Choose a child to try oral storytelling and ask the rest of the class to draw illustrations to go with the story or to create a front cover.

Invite the children to write a character description, based around the “world’s worst…”

Play the “World’s worst….” game, matching them with different book characters and explaining why.

Ask the children to work in partners; one to choose words from a dictionary and the other to try spelling the words backwards.

Challenge the children to become detectives and write a secret message using clues to find words in a certain book to compose a sentence.

Look for other novels in the Diamond Brothers series by Anthony Horowitz and investigate their titles and how they are similar to other titles – for example ‘The Greek who stole Christmas’ and ‘The Grinch who stole Christmas’. Give a selection of other titles for children to adapt in a similar way.

Curriculum Notes

This programme is suitable for use with pupils aged 7-12. It is designed primarily for use in English lessons with KS2 pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and with 2nd Level pupils in Scotland.

Related content

We've partnered with The National Literacy Trust to help primary schools explore Marcus Rashford's book, 'The Breakfast Club Adventures', together in class.

Marcus Rashford literacy resources

Dame Jacqueline Wilson answers your questions, plays the Emoji challenge, and tells us all about her awesome new book, which is a modern version of the 'The Magic Faraway Tree' by Enid Blyton. Rhys also meets Lucy Hawking, daughter of legendary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who tells us all about her new book, 'Princess Olivia Investigates: The Wrong Weather'. Lucy also tells us what it was like to write children’s books with her dad, why a pig featured in their books, and why she was banned from writing about aliens!

April 2022

This month's C鶹 Book Club is presented by Alishea and she’s joined in Book Club HQ by Sharna Jackson, the author of “The Wrong Turn”, who talks about writing mysteries, how she was inspired by an American girl-scout leader called Josephine Holloway, and what it’s like to live and write on a boat! Alishea also meets comedian and horror writer Bec Hill to discuss her new book, “Now Live: Streaming”, a story all about swapping lives with a famous influencer.

May 2022