On Your Marks, Get Set, Gold!: A Fact-Filled, Funny Guide to Every Olympic Sport

On Your Marks, Get Set, Gold!: A Fact-Filled, Funny Guide to Every Olympic Sport is a book that every school should have. It is clearly laid out and appeals to children from ages 8+. It is colourful and clearly structured.

As a teacher, I would use this book not only to promote different sports but you can easily teach skimming and scanning due to its structure. There is a range of vocabulary that is both easy to understand but also some language that will stretch your class. A great introduction to some new sports too!

96 pages / Reviewed by Rebecca Green, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 9+

I think On Your Marks, Get Set, Gold! is a great book because it really lives up to its title - 'A fact-filled, funny guide'. I think that the funniest bits in this book are the basic training boxes - especially the trampolining one.

Apart from being funny, On Your Marks, Get Set, Gold! is very informative with over 90 pages of Olympic sports, which also cover the equipment, the countries who are best at it and the history of that sport. I also want to note that the illustrations are amazing because they are really colourful and look like they took a lot of time.

Suggested Reading Age 9+

On Your Marks, Get Set...Gold! is a comprehensive non-fiction text allowing readers to find out everything they need to know about becoming a professional sportsperson. Covering every Olympic and Paralympic sport, this is the ultimate guide with fascinating facts, weird and wonderful information and eye-catching diagrams. Readers are also transported back in time to learn how the Olympics began, before being left to ponder how the Olympics might change in years to come.

The layout of the book is perfect for information retrieval. Each double page spread covers a different sport and is full of the information needed to acquire a good insight into it. Rules, skills, history and more are covered in a clear and factual manner which is accessible for young and old readers alike.

Scott Allen's words help deliver the knowledge fantastically and Antoine Corbineau's illustrations really engage you further into the book. I found myself being caught by the illustrations first and then using them to pick the sport I was then interested by. I feel that children would also find themselves doing the same.

Another beauty of this book is the way in which there is no set chronology, allowing readers to simply explore the pages and let their curiosity take the lead. Every aspect of this book has been carefully designed…from the bright bold colours on the front cover to the gold end pages.

This really is a wonderful text to look at, study and share. Even as a keen sports fan myself, I found myself lost in this book and learning new things about the sports I knew little about.

This text really is the perfect read for any sports fan - especially with the delayed summer Olympics due to take place in Tokyo this year. I will be sharing this with my KS2 children and envisage it being used as a great lure into books for some reluctant, but sporty, readers.

96 Pages / Reviewed by Kyle Matravers, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 7+