Cover Image

The soccer fence

Each time Hector watches white boys playing soccer in Johannesburg, South Africa, he dreams of playing on a real pitch one day and after the fall of apartheid, when he sees the 1996 African Cup of Nations team, he knows that his dream can come true.

Main Author: Bildner, Phil.
Other Authors: Watson, Jesse Joshua (Illustrator)
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York, NY : G. P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., [2014]
Subjects:
Soccer > Juvenile fiction.
Apartheid > Juvenile fiction.
Race relations > Juvenile fiction.
Blacks > South Africa > Juvenile fiction.
Johannesburg (South Africa) > History > 20th century > Juvenile fiction.
South Africa > History > 1961-1994 > Juvenile fiction.
South Africa > History > 1994- > Juvenile fiction.
Summary: Each time Hector watches white boys playing soccer in Johannesburg, South Africa, he dreams of playing on a real pitch one day and after the fall of apartheid, when he sees the 1996 African Cup of Nations team, he knows that his dream can come true.
Item Description: Includes historical note, sources, and timeline of apartheid.
Physical Description: 1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 24 x 29 cm
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 9780399247903
0399247904
Author Notes: Phil Bildner received a B. A. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1990 and a J. D. from New York University School of Law in 1993. He was admitted to the bar in both New York and New Jersey and got a job as an associate at a large Manhattan law firm. After practicing law for a year, he decided to pursue a career in education. He received a master's degree in early childhood and elementary education from Long Island University in 1995. He stopped teaching in 2006 in order to write full time.

His picture books include Shoeless Joe and Black Betsy, The Shot Heard 'Round the World, Twenty-One Elephants, Turkey Bowl, The Hallelujah Flight, and The Soccer Fence. Marvelous Cornelius won the 2016 Margaret Wise Brown Prize in Children's Literature. His young adult novels include Playing the Field and Busted. He also co-created the Sluggers series with Loren Long.

In 2007, he began chaperoning student-volunteer trips to Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. He co-founded The NOLA Tree, a non-profit service organization.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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