Book Review: 'If you can read this, thank a teacher'

Minnie Newton, a twenty eight year old London schoolteacher and committed advocate for women’s rights, refuses to accept that football should belong to men alone. In 1897, determined to challenge Victorian convention, she places an advert seeking women willing to form a pioneering ladies’ football team.

The replies are eclectic, and most volunteers have never touched a ball, yet Minnie shapes them into a spirited squad ready to defy expectations.

Their public matches quickly attract huge crowds and spark fierce debate across the capital, turning the team into a sensation. But Minnie carries a dangerous secret, and the growing attention threatens the careful life she has built. As pressure mounts, she must decide whether she can protect her independence or whether the truth about her identity will finally surface. Inspired by real Victorian trailblazers, this is a story of courage, friendship, and women proving they can achieve anything despite the world’s resistance. Signed Copies available

As the end of term approaches, Thank You, Teachers feels like exactly the right book to press into grateful hands. James Patterson and Matt Eversmann gather passionate, true stories from classrooms, shining a warm and timely light on the people who teach, encourage, advise and inspire children every day.

From infants to high school, these accounts reveal the patience, imagination and resilience needed to help young people flourish, often in difficult and under-recognised circumstances.

It is heartfelt without being sentimental, readable without diminishing the seriousness of the work, and full of reminders that education is built on human connection as much as lesson plans. For parents looking for a meaningful end-of-year gift, or for anyone who remembers the teacher who changed the course of their life, this is a generous celebration of an extraordinary profession. If you can read this, thank a teacher.