‘Fabulously written and the illustrations pop off the page’ Trailblazer Blog Tour, Day 3

The book, Trailblazer, from Maverick and written by Elizabeth Dale and illustrated by Carolina Coroa is a fantastic book about Lily Parr. Lily Parr was a true trailblazer for women’s football, and her story is one that I wasn’t aware of until now. She was born in 1905 and was a true star of her time. The politics of womens’ football is insane to read now in 2020, but it was only 1971(!) that the ban on women playing on FA grounds was lifted. This is despite the women’s game being immensely popular back in 1920 (53,000 people inside a Boxing Day match with a further 14,000 outside!) but in 1921 the FA determined that it wasn’t quite proper for women to be playing football. A notion that seems crazy to my football mad children.

The book is fabulously written and the illustrations pop off the page, there are a lot of snippets and facts interspersed and I’ve caught the older two reading this a few times alone since it arrived.

I knew this was a great opportunity to use LIly’s story to create a lapbook about her and the women’s game.