English author Dan Freedman visited Aloha College on Thursday 23rd February 2012 to give a talk to Years 5+6 and 7+8 and join our celebration of Book Week.He writes fiction stories about a rising football star, Jamie Johnson, the inspiration for which he has pulled from his own experiences through childhood and young adulthood. He started the talk by describing the scoring of a goal. The language used, the emotion, the expectation, made the words come alive and everyone in the room was on the edge of their seat in anticipation of the ball crossing the line!A few famous names were dropped in to the equation e.g. Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi at which point the room fell silent and the audience were his. He showed videos of interviews with members of the England squad prior to World Cup games in 2006 and 2010 and finished with a reading from “Kick off”, the first book in his series.Questions were asked by a good number of children and congratulations go to Anna Sparsiashvili in Year 6 who won a football for asking the best question – “If you were to interview one last footballer, who would it be and what would you ask?” Dan Freedman’s answer…..Thierry Henry and his question to him would be, “What are your three best stories from your time in football?”.Dan Freedman’s talk was inspirational both to the children and the adults alike and we look forward to inviting him back to Aloha College to inspire us all over again!!