Nice manoeuvre ... Theo Walcott gets past Ashley Cole during the Arsenal-Chelsea game last month. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
Random House has jumped the gun on the January transfer window, signing the Arsenal and England winger Theo Walcott for an undisclosed fee on a four-book deal. According to the publisher, the footballer is due to be "working with a writer" to produce a series of novels for children based on his career so far, though the identity of the author involved is a closely-guarded secret.
The 20-year-old striker, who made his debut for the national side at the record-breaking age of 17 and earlier this year signed a four-year contract at Arsenal reported to be worth £60,000 a week, said he was "really excited to be working on the series."
"Books played an important part in our family life as I was growing up," he said.
The series is due to launch in April 2010, and follows hot on the heels of a series from Walcott's predecessor on England's right wing, David Beckham, which kicked off earlier this year. The first two titles in Walcott's story are due to chart the arrival of a boy who shares Walcott's childhood nickname, TJ, at a new school. Even though he's never played a proper football match before in his life, TJ falls in with a group of children who love football.
"Many of my experiences as a young footballer will be relived by TJ in the series," Walcott explained.
The 128-page books, with black-and-white illustrations throughout, are aimed at readers aged 9-11 – an age when many boys lose the reading habit.
The children's author Mal Peet, whose retelling of Othello as the story of a South American football star won this year's Guardian children's fiction prize, confessed that he was unworried by the prospect of a new player in children's fiction.
"The scowly part of me thinks, 'Oh yeah, another celebrity publishing deal, taking the bread from the mouths of proper writers like me'," he said. "But the cheerier part of me thinks it might be quite a good thing. If you can turn young people's enthusiasm for football into an enthusiasm for books then everyone's a winner."
The relentlessly positive upswing of Theo Walcott's life so far might prove a challenge, he continued, but "it's all down to the ghostwriter. "They didn't offer me the gig - if they had I'd have probably turned them into ghost stories or something. It's very hard to write about football and make it exciting and appealing to both boys and girls. We're not short of crap.
"In terms of plotting it lacks a little something, in terms of harrowing setbacks and so on. I can't see these having much of a dark side. The fact that Walcott is a great player doesn't mean anything about the quality of a book with his name on the front cover." Publishers have a responsibility to "do this well", he added. "If all you read is two Theo Walcott books and they're both rubbish, like the David Beckham Academy books, it's not going to encourage you to become an avid reader."
But as an Arsenal fan, Peet said that he would "wish him luck".
The managing director of Random House Children's Books, Philppa Dickinson welcomed the new signing. "Theo is an incredibly talented player and electrifying to watch in the field," she said. "We are thrilled to be publishing his books."
Friday, December 11, 2009
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