Soccer United: Team Refugee
2 total works
Thirteen-year-old Dylan's whole life changes when his father dies. Not only do he and his mom have to move to a poor part of Vancouver, where he misses their nice home and his old school. But then he's also forced to join his new school's soccer team -- a group of immigrant and refugee students who play on a rough, gravel field. Angry and lonely, Dylan gets into a fight at school. As a punishment, he has to join the soccer team -- the last thing he wants to do, because it reminds him of his old soccer teammates and everything else he has lost. But when he's mocked by his old team, the players he thought were his friends, Dylan becomes determined to show them he is still a winner by bringing his new team to the championship finals. Getting to know his new refugee teammates provides Dylan with a lesson on teamwork, opens his eyes about hardship, makes him rethink the idea of "loser" and shows him the true value of a goal that wins in sudden-death play -- a golden goal. This book is the first of a new set of novels about soccer teams of young refugees who have escaped war-torn areas of the world and moved to Canada.
"A junior high soccer team in Vancouver, with mostly refugee and immigrant teen players, is sponsored to play in a big tournament in Toronto. Abbas Wassef, a recent arrival from Syria and a striker on the team, is looking forward to playing the top team in Ontario where he will reconnect with a buddy from Syria. Abbas has a big problem. He has witnessed a bad traffic accident that has given him flashbacks to the strife in Syria, and triggered a fear of airplanes and flying. But Abbas finds a way to conquer his fear and anxiety in time for the tournament. Along the way, he also helps his whole team deal with the pressures of being the only team at the tournament from outside of the GTA, being younger than most of the other players, and meeting the expectations of their sponsors back home. Characters introduced in three other soccer-based novels, Golden Goal, Team Fugee and Tournament Fugee, appear in this book. The quartet of hi-lo novels offer young readers insight into the experiences of young refugees--and offer refugee students validation for their experiences in dealing with a new culture and a new home."--