Marcus Rashford Book Club

Welcome to the Marcus Rashford Book Club!

The Marcus Rashford Book Club is a collaboration between iconic international football player and child food poverty campaigner Marcus Rashford MBE and Macmillan Children's Books.

The Book Club aims to encourage and nurture a love of reading in children and get free books to the children who need them the most. 6.5 per cent of children in the UK say they do not have their own book at home, which equates to over 500, 000 children in the UK (Book Ownership in 2022).

Marcus read his first book at the age of seventeen, and credits this with changing the direction of his life, which is why the Marcus Rashford Book Club has delivered over 100,000 free books to children living in the most disadvantaged areas.

Summer 2023 Book Club

The summer 2023 Book Club choice is The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Ghoul in the School. From #1 bestselling author Marcus Rashford comes another exciting adventure full of fantastic friendships, high-stakes mysteries and strange goings-on! Written with Alex Falase-Koya and packed with tons of illustrations by Marta Kissi, it's the perfect book for children aged 8-11.

There’s something strange going on at school . . .

The Breakfast Club Investigators haven't managed to solve a mystery in months and Marcus is worried that the group is going to break up! So when Gbenga, the captain of the school basketball team, comes to ask for their help Marcus knows this might just be the Investigator's last chance to prove themselves.

The basketball team have had a streak of bad luck, and Marcus and his mates are sure there's more going on than meets the eye. As the mystery deepens and they uncover one surprising clue after another, they discover that someone – or something – has cursed the basketball team! Can Marcus and his friends solve the mystery in time?

Classroom resources for The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Ghoul in the School

We have partnered with the publisher Macmillan Children’s Books to create exclusive materials to accompany The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Ghoul in the School.

These resources are suitable for use with pupils aged 8 to 11 - KS2: Years 4, 5 and 6, or P5 and P6 (Scotland), and are free for teachers to download and use. The resources include discussion questions and five reading activities which explore chapter one of the book and aim to foster reading for pleasure.

Not every child needs a copy of The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Ghoul in the School to take part – the activities are all based around chapter one, which is included in the pupil activity pack.

Resources include

• A teacher’s guide with reading National Curriculum links, discussion questions, and follow-up reader-response activity ideas.
• An activity pack for every pupil in your class, including chapter one of the book along with activity sheets and a quiz.

Download the teachers' guide and pupil activity pack from the available files list found at the top, righthand side of this page.

Virtual event with author Alex Falase-Koya

Are you ready to join the Marcus Rashford Book Club for something… spooky?

Jump into The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Ghoul in the School with author Alex Falase-Koya for a spook-tacular virtual event on Wednesday 28 June. Your pupils will get to hear about the inspiration behind this ghostly tale, discover all the best tips for writing your own mystery, and create your very own ghost! This event is suitable for pupils in Key Stage 2, Years 3–6.

About the Marcus Rashford Book Club

At the heart of the Book Club is the ambition to get books into the hands of the children who need them most.

The support of publisher Macmillan Children's Books and funding from KPMG UK has allowed 50,000 copies of The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Ghoul in the School to be donated to schools participating in the Book Club, reaching thousands of children to spark a love of reading and raise literacy skills.

Previous Book Clubs

You can also access lesson plans, an activity pack and videos for previous Book Club titles:

• Silas and the Marvellous Misfits by Tom Percival
• The Breakfast Club Adventures: The Beast Beyond the Fence by Marcus Rashford and Alex Falase-Koya, illustrated by Marta Kissi.
• The 13-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and illustrated by Terry Denton.