A tense Seth is waiting to hear if his mum’s got the ‘all-clear’. But instead of relaxing in Cornwall, Seth is haunted by visions. Heads on spikes – bloodied and rotten, eyes pecked out – surrounding an Iron Age hill fort to keep intruders away. When Seth meets two football-crazy brothers from Aleppo their stories offer him a new sense of courage. Can he look death in the face and restore calm to the present? Exciting finale to the Defenders trilogy.
Books on the Iron Age period tend to focus on the warring nature of tribes, on life in hillforts or the cross-over with the Roman period. Bestselling author Tom Palmer’s Pitch Invasion brings together the author’s passions for football and history in a haunting story that is ‘super-readable’ due to its accessible layout, including a dyslexia-friendly font and tinted paper.
In this story, a boy called Seth encounters visions of severed heads raised high on spikes surrounding an Iron Age hill fort. Seth discovers that the heads were a means of keeping intruders out of the hill fort in Iron Age times and must find a way to face the horrors of the past that echo through the ages. There are plenty of gruesome moments in this story – but it is an exciting and gripping one too. Author Tom Palmer provides supporting materials like quizzes and videos on his website.
Children’s author, Tom Palmer, goes up Winchester’s St Catherine’s Hill to help him research Iron Age Hillforts for his book, Defenders: Pitch Invasion.
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