Here’s the problem with most children’s football books lists. Half of what’s on them isn’t a book. It’s annuals, sticker albums and fact-packs, which get flicked through on Boxing Day and never touched again.
Don’t get me wrong, these things definitely have their place. And I know plenty of 6-7 year olds’ parents who are single-handedly keeping WHSmith going with the small fortune they’ve spent on sticker packs.
BUT what about those kids who want to enjoy reading and football?
This list is football stories, sorted by age. For those kids who want a bit more than a blurb about their favourite player or a stats table.
If you’re not in the mood to scroll further (no shade, just want to be real because we all have those days/weeks/months), here’s the short version. Frankie’s magic football at 5 to 7, Ultimate Football Heroes and a World Cup dog at 7 to 9, then Marcus Rashford’s mystery club and the Jamie Johnson novels at 9 to 11.
Every book below is a story a football-mad child will actually read cover to cover, not flick through.
Most of them live on our action books shelf, and I’ve been honest about which ones are fiction and which are the biography series, because they do different jobs.
Stories, bios or fact-packs?
Three very different shelves get sold under the same label.
Fact-packs, annuals and sticker albums are the birthday-present shelf. Fun, flickable, finished by teatime.
The biography series (Ultimate Football Heroes leads it) are real reading with a match-day pulse, and children genuinely love them. And then there’s fiction, where football features but it’s often a story about something bigger.
A football-obsessed child deserves all the reading pleasure the obsession can hold, so this list features the second and third shelves only.
Children’s football books for ages 5 to 7
Short chapters, big print, and the football is the star of the show.
The match itself can’t carry a whole book yet, so the best young football stories use the game as a launchpad for an adventure, and save the final whistle for the final chapter.
Frankie vs the Pirate Pillagers by Frank Lampard
Frankie vs the Pirate Pillagers
For the football-mad, dog-mad kid.
Frankie loves football, even if the school team never picks him. Then he wins a battered old football at the fairground, and it turns out to be magic.
Before they know it, Frankie, his friends and his dog Max are whisked off to a mysterious island, where they’ll have to beat a crew of pirates at their own game to find the way home.
Yes, that Frank Lampard. Short chapters and a football star any fan will instantly know.
Ages 7 to 9
These football series are kind of split in two. Fiction, and the biography series. A football-mad 8 year old will usually enjoy both.
The Dog That Saved the World (Cup) by Phil Earle
The Dog That Saved the World (Cup)
For the child who loves the game with their whole heart rather than their stats brain.
Pickles the dog and his owner Elsie love football more than anything, and the World Cup is coming home to England. Elsie’s team have the chance to play a half-time match at Wembley (with Pickles’s help, of course).
But life off the pitch is tough. Dad works hard and money is tight, and it feels like their team of three against the world.
Funny and warm, with a real lump-in-the-throat streak. Age 8.
In Football Academy: Free Kick by Tom Palmer, James has been a junior at United for years, and everyone expects him to follow his dad into the England shirt one day.
The trouble is, James wants something else even more than football, and chasing it would mean giving the game up. A tournament against Arsenal and Chelsea boys forces the decision.
Proper dressing-room details, and a story about wanting the “wrong” thing. Age 8.
Ultimate Football Heroes: Ronaldo by Matt & Tom Oldfield
Ultimate Football Heroes: Ronaldo
The series every football-mad child will probably be familiar with. This one starts long before CR7. A skinny kid from the Portuguese island of Madeira who cried when his team lost.
Being straight with you, these are narrative biographies rather than novels, and they’re pleasure reading in exactly the way a match replay is a pleasure. The chapters read like commentary.
If your child wants the next one, Mbappé is in the library too. Age 8.
In Ultimate Football Heroes: Kelly Smith by Charlotte Browne, Kelly Smith was the best player on every team she joined, until she was told girls weren’t allowed to play at all. What she did next is why she’s a legend of the England game.
Of the whole series, this is the one I’d put in front of any child, not just the girls, because the obstacle isn’t a lost final. It’s being told no. Age 8.
Back to fiction, and the girls’-game thread continues in Jaz Santos vs the World by Priscilla Mante.
Jaz Santos-Campbell is football mad and certain she was born to be a star.
With everything going wrong at home, she needs a plan to show her mum what she can do, and the answer is starting a girls’ football team. Turning a ragtag bunch of classmates (some of whom have never kicked a ball) into the mighty Bramrock Stars, and taking them all the way to a trophy.
Big-hearted, funny, and honest about the home stuff. Sits right on the 8-to-9 bridge.
Ages 9 to 11
Now the stakes get real. Trials, rivals, tempers, and what football costs.
The best books in this band are honest that talent isn’t the whole story, which is exactly what a 10 year old dreaming of an academy place might need to read.
More in this bracket lives on our action books for 10 year olds page.
The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence by Marcus Rashford
The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence
The name every child knows, and the book is genuinely good fun too.
When twelve-year-old Marcus kicks his favourite football over the school fence, he knows he’s never getting it back. Nothing that goes over that wall ever comes back.
Then a mysterious note invites him to join the Breakfast Club Investigators, and he’s pulled into finding out what’s lurking on the other side with his new mates Stacey, Lise and Asim.
Packed with illustrations, and more mystery than match report. Great for 9s who want football in their story without the story being only football.
The Kick Off (Jamie Johnson #1) by Dan Freedman
The Kick Off (Jamie Johnson #1)
The UK football novel.
Jamie Johnson is the fastest player at his new school, with his granddad Mike coaching him after class. He might have the talent. He also has a temper that costs him, a dad who’s never there, and a rival who’d love to watch him fail.
The football is thrilling and the growing-up is real. Age 9 and up, with the series stretching comfortably into secondary school.
For a girl-led take on the same kind of dream, The Soccer Diaries: Rocky Takes L.A. sends its striker to an elite camp in California.
Kick by Mitch Johnson is a step up, and the one that stays with them.
Budi stitches football boots in a Jakarta factory and dreams of wearing them for the greatest team on earth. Then one unlucky kick brings his world down, and suddenly he owes the Dragon (the most dangerous man in the city). Save this one for 10 and up.
Have you got a football phase running alongside a different obsession? Take a look at children’s spy books, and our long car journey list for the away-day drives.
Just so you know…
Every book above is in Little Reads, a library of 3,000+ hand-picked books for children aged 5 to 11.
A free account gives you 100+ free books, and full access is £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
We’re a library, not a classroom, and this list isn’t a scheme to trick anyone into reading. These are just very good stories that happen to be about the thing your child already loves.
And if your first child was the bookworm and this one is the football one, this list was built with exactly that house in mind. These stories meet them where they already are.
Full-time whistle. Over to them.