Non-Fiction

Today, many people cannot enjoy football because of the dangerous fans that go to matches. They often don’t go to watch the match but to fight. But football has always been a dangerous game. It is not a new thing. Read about the history of football and the problems it has made (500 words).

Drifting is an international motor sport that started in Japan. It is popular in Saudi Arabia although it is illegal and very dangerous. (330 words)

This short article looks at the Vikings, farmers from Scandinavia – especially Norway and Sweden – who became sailors because they needed to fish to get extra food more than a thousand years ago. The Vikings travelled all over Europe – to Britain, France, even as far as Turkey – and made all the continent afraid of them. They were great soldiers but also very bloody. (540 words)

Andrew Barton Paterson was a lawyer but his true love was the Australian countryside, called 'the outback'. His stories are usually about farmers, their animals and the hard life of living far from neighbours and friends. He is perhaps Australia's best-known writer. This is the story of his life. (810 words)

Bengal tigers are the biggest in the world but we need to protect them and not take the land where they live (170 words).

It was Christmas 1914 and thousands of German, French and British soldiers were sitting in fields across Belgium. It was the first winter of the First World War and they wanted to be at home with their families. So they stood up and started playing football and singing songs together. (410 words)

Football is now big business but in the late nineteenth century, football clubs could not pay their players. Football was a game for people who liked sport as a hobby – not as a job. William Sudell man changed that but he also went to prison because of it. (660 words)

There is nothing more exciting than watching a football match with thousands of excited fans all around you. But sometimes, a great day at a football match ends in sadness and death. This story tells you about some of the worst accidents in football history (895 words).

There are myths in the Philippines and Vietnam about humanity coming from a part of the bamboo plant. In China, the bamboo’s strength and beauty are used to show the idea of a gentleman. Bamboo has practical uses too: for food, for building and more. And then there's the plague of rats that often accompanies its flowering! (1,040 words).

Mata Hari is one of the most famous spies in history and she has become a symbol of sexual temptation. In the end, she was shot as a spy in the First World War and died bravely. But what made her the woman she was? (1,280 words)

Szabo was executed as a British spy in a prison camp in Germany at the age of 23 in 1945. She had been born in France and could speak French and English fluently. She had also lost her husband while he was fighting in the British Army and was perfect material for a spy. This is the story of a very brave young woman. (895 words)

Whilst running the anti-Soviet section in British intelligence, Kim Philby was also a general in the KGB. He was a double agent and he became the most notorious Soviet spy in British history. (1,265 words)

Thomas Edison left school as a child and became one of the richest and most successful businessmen in America. He was interested in everything and moved quickly from one idea to another. He left us with the electric light bulb, the telegraph, the first machine that could play music, moving films and many other inventions that have become part of our lives. (1,015 words)

Bill Slim fought bravely in the First World War and became an officer. When the Japanese entered the Second World War, he led the fight against them in South Asia and destroyed their armies before they could reach India. He was an excellent organiser and military tactician and he reinvented jungle warfare. (1,090 words)

The aquatic ape theory is an alternative to the savannah theory to explain how and why apes developed into human beings. It is a controversial subject that will anger people who believe we were created as we are now but it may also annoy others that have very definite opinions about human evolution! (1,110 words)