Goal!

by Sean Taylor, Caio Vilela (Photographs)

Where there’s a ball . . . there will always be someone who wants to play soccer. Whether in Tanzania or Togo, Burma or Brazil, children love soccer. GOAL! celebrates the sport’s power to bridge cultural divides and bring together the many and diverse people of the world. Filled with fun facts and striking photos, this book is a poetic snapshot of soccer around the globe.

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Soccer, Childrens, Photography, Cultural

40 pages, ebook

First published May 6, 2014

About the author

Sean Taylor started writing poetry as a teenager. In 1993, he came across a newspaper article which reported that a goat slaughtered in Iran had been found to have teeth made of gold. He tried writing a story for children. It was called 'The Goat with the Golden Teeth' and it won second prize in a competition run by the British newspaper 'The Independent' and Scholastic Children's Books. Since then, Sean has focussed on writing for children and has published over forty books for young readers of different ages. As well as writing, he has many years’ experience visiting schools, where he works with poetry and storytelling to encourage young people to write themselves. He lives partly in England (where he was born) and partly in Brazil( where his wife is from.)

Reviews

[Marissa Elera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am totally enamored with this accessible, beautifully done worldwide view of soccer and the people who play it. This is a special children's non-fiction title.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taylor takes readers around the world to show how universal playing soccer is. Full color photos show children playing soccer in many countries. Taylor provides information about soccer and the individual countries connection to soccer throughout the book.

[Carrie Gelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was hoping to see more photographs of girls. Did appreciate the photos from numerous places around the world and that soccer is such a universal game. My students would love this book.

[Kathy (Kindle-aholic) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nonfiction, soccer facts. Boychild devoured it.

[Stephanie Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For those interested in soccer, a pretty interesting glimpse into the game being played by kids around the world. The main text of the book is very simple, geared toward a young audience, while the blurbs on each page that highlight soccer facts and soccer stars from different countries are for upper elementary kids. Photos are beautiful. I enjoyed the book, but for kids who don't really care about soccer, this doesn't carry the kind of universal appeal that other themed worldwide cultural books achieve, such as "Bedtime!" by Ruth Freeman Swain.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the idea of this book and enjoyed the nonfiction facts about soccer and the cultural diversity in the photos. I also loved reading some facts about teams & players that I didn’t previously know (i.e. doesn’t just include facts about the most famous players or international superpowers). BUT, while there were some great facts about female teams/players, I only noticed two pictures featuring girls playing the game. That was incredibly disappointing to me, especially in a book where the photos are more of a draw than the text.

[Shiloah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm currently reading a book by Melvyn Bragg called Twelve Books that Changed the World. One of the books he selected to be one of the twelve is the rule book for Football (or Soccer for us Americans). This book shares how far this game has spread around the world. My little guy, who is in first grade in a German school, plays football once a week. He loved this book.

[Nichole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book at Dollar Tree. You can sometimes find really very good books there. It's always worth checking.

This book tells the reader about soccer and also includes fun facts about soccer as played around the world.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about soccer, including history of the sport and geographic facts. My son and I both enjoyed reading this one. It’s mostly photographs vs. illustrations but still very pretty. The text is easy to follow for ages 4+. Overall, would rate it 4/5 stars ⭐️

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about soccer around the world. I love the message "when you are playing soccer, there will always be someone else playing somewhere in the world."

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a neat little book about soccer! My daughters are soccer players, so when I saw this I knew I had to get it.

After reading it, I’m surprised by how much I learned about the sport I spend HOURS watching during spring and fall each year. In addition to the main narrative (which, as mentioned in the summary, talks about how soccer is something just about anyone from anywhere can understand), there are short but sweet factoids on each page. They’re focused on one very interesting fact from various countries, including England, U.S.A., China, Brazil, Ghana, and many more. I always knew that soccer really is the international sport, but I never realized just how international it is. These tidbits of soccer-related trivia alone make the book worth reading.

As mentioned above, the main narrative talks about how soccer is a unifying sport. Anyone anywhere can play it — “proper” equipment is optional. Readers are encouraged to use sticks or lines in the dirt to create goals, as well as be creative if one lacks a soccer ball. It talks about how much hard work goes into playing soccer, and that you just never know what’ll happen until the final whistle is blown.

If you know a young soccer fan, this book would make a great addition to their library. My little athletes agree!

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is on one hand deceptively simple and on the other extremely powerful. Through positive, inspiring prose, it talks about soccer from the viewpoint of a player - how you play, where you play, your emotions, playing on a team - while pairing each idea with stunning photographs of kids playing soccer around the world. Each page has a sidebar that gives fun facts about soccer in that country, such as star players or when they won the World Cup. It concludes as a celebration that soccer is something that people share around the world.

The photographs are just beautiful and convey so much about each child's experience of soccer in these different places. This is a great book for any soccer enthusiast and I'd recommend it for any multicultural collection. My only regret is that the wonderful cover photo is not captioned; I was not able to find any mention of where it was taken.

[Ro Menendez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soccer fans and those wishing to learn more about this sport will delight in this photographic fact book. Each spread has children from different parts of the world playing soccer. Each spread is accompanied by a few sentences describing how you feel or what you do when you are playing and enjoying this sport and also a text box with soccer facts from a different country. The last spread is a world map highlighting the different countries where the sport is played and when it was first introduced. The one caveat of this book is that out of the 15 illustrations of children playing soccer, only two include girls.

[Merrilyn Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty book filled with photos of boys and girls playing soccer/football in countries around the world. There are short bursts of text facing each photo, and the text gives very brief information about the game. Below the text is a sidebar/insert that highlights the country featured in the photo on the facing page. It is somewhat confusing at first because the reader expects the insert information and the photo to match up, but they do not. If one is looking for an in-depth coverage of soccer around the world, this is not it. I am not sure exactly for whom this book is intended, but primary aged children would be the ones most likely to enjoy the photos.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Large, colorful photographs accompany interesting snippets of text providing information about soccer. Taken singly, the facts and photographs show the joy playing soccer has for many, but taken together, as in this book, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that soccer is a world-wide phenomenon and that the sport provides a sort of universal language across the globe. I liked the reminder that soccer is a great sport that has more to do with simply playing the game rather than winning or losing. Clearly, the book's creators have gone out of their way to represent all sorts of soccer fans.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a sport that the author purports to be "universal", you sure can't tell by the dearth of girls shown playing the game. Out of 15 photographs from as many nations, only 2 show girls playing. Even on the corresponding page that talks about the US Women's National Soccer Team's success, girls aren't shown (unless the floppy-haired boy that is shown is really a girl). So much for the universality of the sport...

[Yoo Kyung Sung · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well intended book but choice of countries is quite interesting. Obviously it is not reflecting the World Cup and its international reputations by coutries but childhood and soccer. No countires in South and Central America ( only Brazil in the book) are marked. More and more books written about soccer especially in Africa and middle East and I wonder soccer now tends to be assoicated global-econmoy status..eventually repetitive images??

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got a World Cup fan in the house or classroom? This is a great nonfiction picture book title to check out. Terrific photos from around the world of kids (though girls are way underrepresented) playing soccer. Interesting soccer tidbits about the countries, the sport in general, and it's universal popularity are shared with limited text on each page.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the photographs and the facts in the little insets. Some of the text on each individual page wasn't as interesting, though.

I can see this being a good mentor text for research projects for elementary school.

[Great Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

The love of soccer is shown through beautiful multicultural photos of children around the world enjoying the sport. Interesting facts about the game from each country will peak curious minds.
Reviewer#17

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nicely illustrated picture book which points out the international appeal of soccer. With the month long 2014 World Cup beginning in Brazil, this would be a good one to have front and center for the younger set.

[Karen Arendt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes a look at how soccer is played in many different countries. The primary text talks about the joy of playing soccer while a caption on each two page spread talks about soccer in one country. Photographs of children playing soccer round out the text.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful action photos and simple text introduce soccer and talk about how universal it is. Children from around the world are shown playing soccer and the text gives a short explanation of the history of soccer and a brief explanation of the game in that country.

[Miss Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great nonfiction book about soccer where every page has tips about playing the game and then has a small blip about soccer in different countries around the world. Each page is one country but it's not overwhelming. Cute facts and could be simplified for different age groups.

[Ampersand Inc. · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Morgen:
***

From Ali:
*****

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at the global love for soccer, or football as the rest of the world calls it. Appealing illustrated with color photographs of children at play in countries all over the world.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid book about soccer, with a great global perspective, but the text, photographs, and country tidbits of information are not really linked.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the photos and theme of this book--all over the world we play soccer! But the random facts were not cohesive.