FRANCES FAIRWEATHER - Faber

Frances is an ace football player so obsessed with the game that her father and teacher ban her from playing with the girls' team. So Frances tries to join a local boys' team, the tigers, but Stan, the manager, dosen't believe in girls playing football and sends her packing. Then Frances has her great idea: by gettinf the right clothes and practising in her bedroom she becomes Frank, a tough macho boy, who the Tigers do take on. Within a few weeks she has become their top goal-scorer. But it isn't so easy pretending to be a boy. What started out as a fun becomes a struggle, on and off the field, between the girl she is and the boys she plays. Funny, clever and wonderfully credible, thorugh football this books examines identity. It asks what is a boy?, what is a gril? -and the answers aren't as obvious as they at first seem. For readers nine and upwards.