The Secrets Club: No Match for Dani

Chris Higgins's No Match for Dani is a funny, big-hearted school story for 9 year olds about a girl who'd rather be on a football pitch than anywhere else.

What happens

It's the third Secrets Club book. Dani and her friends Ali, Tash and Lissa are all in Year 7 at Riverside Academy for Girls. They've promised each other there'll be no secrets between them. Two of the four have already had to own up to theirs. Now the spotlight's on Dani (and she really isn't ready).

Her secret is a good one. Every Saturday she gets the train to her gran's, nips into the public loo at the bottom of the hill and pulls on a hoody. Then she walks into the park looking like a boy. The Blackett lads think they've found a brilliant new player called Danny.

She never set out to trick anyone! By the time she realised what they thought, she was having the best football of her life and couldn't bear to lose it.

Of course, it gets complicated. There's a first proper match coming up. There's a huge bruise on her shin that's very hard to explain in the PE changing room. And there's Lissa, who is nobody's fool and knows a fib when she hears one.

Dani tells the story herself and she's great company. She's sporty, a bit hot-headed and very honest about how daft some of her excuses sound. Who hasn't told one small white lie and then watched it grow and grow?

Underneath the football there's a quieter story too. Dani's mum and dad divorced last year. Her dad has married again, and now he takes his new wife's sons to watch football instead of her. She misses him a lot and doesn't know how to say so. It's handled gently, but it's there, so it may touch a nerve if your family has been through something similar.

For a reader who plays in a team, or who's ever felt they didn't fit what people expect of a girl, Dani will feel like a friend. It's also a lovely look at the first year of secondary, when new friendships feel huge and a bit fragile.

What to read next

The Secrets Club books are best read in order. If Dani wins your reader over, start with Alice in the Spotlight, where the four girls first arrive at Riverside and make that no-secrets promise.