Lampard is a man to admire, he has it all, wealth, a TV presenter fiancé but he is a humble man who still celebrates a goal by pointing to the sky in honour of his mother who passed away a few years ago. What this man does, is live his life how his mother would want her son to do.
He recalls in his interview with the Telegraph's Martin Chilton (Feb, 2013)
"I first had the idea of Frankie and his Magic Football when reading stories to my own children. Sport and reading are two essentials for us at home, so I decided to make up my own football stories and adventures. The characters are loosely based on friends and team-mates I've played with over the years".
Frankie v The Pirate Pillagers is the first in the series of Frankie's Magic Football books, the stories give Lampard the opportunity to share this wonderful idea with children around the world. As a father he recognises the importance of parents connecting with their children through reading and the benefit this has on their literacy development and imagination.
Lampard's books have been published by Little Brown and have the backing of J.K Rowling so he's clearly impressing the right people. There are a limited amount of football books for children on the shelves with Dan Freedman and Tom Palmer producing excellent stories for older readers so its positive to see professional footballers with so much influence over young fans spending their time writing for them.
England & Arsenal striker Theo Walcott has written his series of football books called T.J and the hat-trick and David Beckham's Academy books did well so in my opinion this is a very positive move by Lampard to bridge the gap between fantasy and football.
The two children's football books that I have written were influenced by family and Frank Lampard has done the same by using family and fantasy to create a wonderful series of books that stretch children's imagination and create a situation where a father can read about football with his children- even after his team have lost on a Saturday afternoon!
Fair play 'Super Frank' and best wishes.
