Budding young rugby 'warriors' inspire book series

With rugby's popularity on the rise in China, a newly published series of children's books illuminates the sport's appeal and positive values it offers kids.

Little Warrior Momo and Rugby hit the shelves on March 1, aiming to tap into the oval-ball sport's growing participation numbers, particularly in East China where rugby is set to further boost its profile when it features at the Hangzhou Asian Games 2022 in the capital of Zhejiang province.

Emphasizing rugby's core values of courage, teamwork, discipline, and respect, a message on the title page dedicates the books to "all the children who persist with their dreams".

The fictional rugby team described in the books is called Clovers, inspired by a real-life kids' team of the same name which originally began training in Hangzhou in 2019, and in April 2020 was officially registered as Hangzhou Xingchuang Culture and Sports Development Co. Ltd.

Founded by five fathers and coach Evan, aka Huang Chongwen, the club is based in Hangzhou's Binjiang district, and began participating in competitions at the city's Huanglong Stadium and later in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

"Our team has expanded from nine children to 17 now," Evan told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

During its short existence, the club-like many sports organizations-has been hamstrung by the COVID-19 pandemic. The parents, however, persevered with the project, with their journey now documented in the picture book series-the brainchild of husband and wife Zhang Peng and Zhang Yanfei.

"It took us two to three months to sort out the first draft. We planned to divide the story into six volumes of short stories and string them into a series of picture books," said Zhang Peng.

Momo, the protagonist, was inspired by their own child who plays on the Clovers team.

"I'm an IT engineer, and it was the first time we'd written a book. We had no experience of writing kids' books, and we were busy with our work so we could only create stories in our spare time," explained Zhang Peng.

"I went to work during the day and wrote with my wife at night. From the first draft to the final draft, we made seven or eight revisions. Sometimes we had to wait until midnight to communicate with the illustrator and publisher.

"The picture books start from Momo's third birthday and tell the story of how he grows up playing rugby, overcoming various difficulties, and finally becoming a little warrior."

Each book ends with a titbit of basic rugby knowledge to educate readers.

The Clovers team is portrayed as a cute four-leaf-clover-shaped character to make the story more appealing to kids.

"In this way, we want to tell our child how much Mom and Dad love him and how proud we are. I hope that when our kid recalls these memories one day, it will be a story of working together, a story about persistence and dreams, not the epidemic which is deeply rooted in kids' minds," said Zhang Peng.

After plenty of rejections, Peng and Yanfei eventually found a publisher in the Beijing Institute of Technology Press, with copies initially distributed to the children and kindergartens.

"Within a short time, a total of 3,500 copies have been sold," said Qin Qingrui, the head of the publisher's parent-child education branch.

"Our press tried to distribute the books in Xinhua Bookstore and online platforms such as Dangdang and Tmall. We also tried Douyin for live broadcast promotion.

"This series is the first set of children's picture books about rugby written by amateur authors, so from that perspective it's very significant.

"The stories work really well, conveying rugby's spirit of courage, competition and teamwork, which is educational."

During the forthcoming Asian Games, the rugby competition will be held at Hangzhou Normal University Cangqian Campus Stadium from Sept 22-24.

Coach Evan is confident that the Games will help expose rugby to a wider audience.

"The Asian Games can help develop this sport and give our young players more opportunities to train and compete," he said.

Fang Xiaoying in Hangzhou contributed to this story.