Javaherbin follows Goal! with another moving story drawn from the world of soccer. With the 2016 Olympics coming to Brazil, this is a timely story, but Paulo’s dream will resonate with soccer fans long before and after that event. Still, the energetic art, rendered in sepia ink with digital coloration, also reflects Paulo’s passion and exuberance, and views of fishing boats in the ocean and the hillside homes at twilight are especially dramatic.
Alarcão, himself from Brazil, provides scenes of modest homes stacked on a hillside, narrow passageways, and children at work more than at play. Paulo’s enthusiasm for soccer is infectious, but the story also reveals a Brazilian poverty in which boys must work rather than attend school. Readers who love the game will cheer on Felino and his team of hopeful soccer stars. The joyful expressions of the players as they dribble, knee, and bicycle kick the ball around the sandy soccer field reinforce the story’s positive and inspiring tone. A lovely story about soccer, gender and hope.Īlarcão’s luminous digitally colored sepia-ink illustrations elegantly portray the setting. Perhaps most importantly, Javaherbin shows that being poor doesn’t stop people from having lives and dreams. Javaherbin deftly handles Paulo and Maria’s poverty with honesty while simultaneously refraining from sugarcoating, overemphasizing or romanticizing it. T's downright refreshing to see illustrations that realistically relay the diversity of shades found among Brazilians. Javaherbin gives her readers plenty to think about, but intimations of hardship can’t dim the children’s infectious pleasure in the game. It’s a child’s-eye view of poverty, well suited to this story narrated by Paulo Marcela Feliciano, a determined, optimistic boy of about 11 who lives in one of the shanties.
In Alarcão’s illustrations, the bright-white sunshine of Brazil takes on a soft edge, and the high roofs of the favelas offer the perfect perch for kite-flying.
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