This stirring adventure—a soccer story? a ghost story?—defies expectations. Soccer reporter Paul Faustino is thrilled to have an exclusive interview with brilliant goalkeeper El Gato, whose team just won the World Cup. El Gato offers the incredulous reporter an unbelievable tale. As a child, the goalie explains, he was terrible at sports in a soccer-mad town, so he retreated to the jungle his village found frightening but he found beautiful. In the jungle’s darkest tangles, he encountered a mysterious goalkeeper who drilled him mercilessly for two years. When El Gato left his secret training to become a logger like his father (against his mother’s wishes, who wanted her son to go to college and become a scientist), he discovered he’d become a world-class goalie. El Gato’s mystical revelations are saturated with reverence for the vanishing jungle, and his too-perfect soccer ability is tempered by the confusion of a grown man who wants a life his adored parents would not have chosen. Both lyrical and gripping. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7636-2749-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This latest Froggy title (Froggy Goes to School, 1996, etc.) is utterly unfocused, with the star careening from soccer dolt to Mr. Superkick. Froggy’s team has a big game coming up with the Wild Things, and he is trying to remember the mantra his father, and assistant coach, taught him: “Head it! Boot it! Knee it! Shoot it! But don’t use your hands!” But illegally touching the ball seems to be the least of Froggy’s worries; distraction is his problem. He is so busy turning cartwheels, tying his shoes, and more, that the only time he makes contact with the ball is when it bounces off his head by mistake. Then, when the Wild Things make a breakaway, Froggy has some dazzling moves to avert a score, but forgetfully grabs the ball at the last second. The other team gets a penalty kick, converts it, but then Froggy makes a field-long kick for a game-winning score. London forces Froggy into too many guises—the fool, the hero, the klutz, the fancy dancer—but none of them stick. Remkiewicz’s illustrations have charm; it is in their appeal that this book will find its audience. (Picture book. 2-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88257-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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