Soccer Star -- a Multicultural Children's Book Day Review #ReadYourWorld

Disclosure: Mina Javaherbin gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review in return for an honest review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation.  As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today I am sharing with you a wonderful multicultural book that gives an inside look at life as a child in Brazil. It is Soccer Star by Mina Javaherbin and illustrated by Renato Alarcao. This tale follows Paulo Marcelo Feliciano through his day. His hope is to have time to practice soccer, but first he and his teammates must do their work. 

 His sister goes to school and teaches him the math she learns at night. She really wants to play soccer with his team but the team rule is no girls allowed. He however teaches her to play and they practice together. Then while she is in school he goes to work, but he stops to give his teammates some breakfast and check on them as each of them start their jobs as well. Paulo works hard on the ocean helping a fisherman. Then it is time for soccer. His team meets him as the boat comes in and off they go. They work hard--very hard all day, but their dreams are to become soccer stars and get out of the poverty with which they live.

Source

 The pictures in this book are beautiful. The colors show such action and bring the excitement of the day. The story itself shows how hopes and dreams can help anyone look beyond the current situation and bring happiness. It is a beautiful story that shares a piece of culture that one might not encounter every day.

Hazel wanted to learn to play soccer better so this summer she took a week long soccer camp. She loved it!! They also said she did really well and picked it up quickly. We talked about having her join a team this year, but decided to wait.

To go with this book I made printable soccer themed Valentines for you!! These are for personal use only and if you would like to share them, please link back to this post.

Of course the math teacher in me wanted to look at the math of a traditional soccer ball (since 1970). The first thing is to look at the shape. It is a truncated icosahedron. It has twelve regular pentagons (traditionally black) and twenty hexagons (traditionally white).  There are several on-line tutorials to make a paper one. I liked this one. There are so many math questions to go along with this from the angles of the shapes and of course the definition of a truncated icosahedron. 

By Pallo_valmiina.jpg: Christopher Bruno (sxc.huderivative work: Sir James (talk)) [CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons