SOCCER TROPHY MYSTERY
Fred Bowen Sports Story Series
By: Fred Bowen
Published: September 1, 2021
Publisher: Peachtree Publishing
Fiction/Middle-Grade Mystery
Fred Bowen is celebrating twenty-five years of his sports story series with some soccer action and a mystery. Aiden and Ava are thirteen-year-old twins and avid soccer players. Their seasons are nearly over and while Ava’s team has a sure league victory, Aiden’s team will have to win a few games to secure the league championship. While at the library, they were looking at the league trophies and envisioning their team names on the trophy. Then, they learned that the original county league trophy had been stolen from the library over 40 years ago when their grandma was the librarian. This sets Ava and Aiden off on an adventure to try to solve the mystery of the missing trophy.
Kids will find lots of soccer game action as well as friendship and team camaraderie in the story. The twins’ mom was quite an athlete in school and shares how difficult it was to get girl’s sports to be recognized. Ava can’t imagine not being able to play sports or not be recognized for their achievements. As the twins and their friend Daniel dig deeper into the missing trophy mystery, they find out there was another missing trophy, the World Cup trophy and they wonder if the two cases have many similarities. This real piece of history woven into the story was a neat addition and something I didn’t know about. The end of the book has a few pages on the real story of the missing World Cup trophy.
I appreciated that the author chose to focus on both boy and girl athletes in the story, including the mom who was a stellar athlete and the dad who was more into creative arts. There was a good build-up to the final games in the league championship and to the kids fitting the puzzle pieces together to solve the mystery. I think the reader will be surprised by the actual trophy thief in the story.
This is the 24th book in the sports story series that features life lessons on perseverance, dedication, friendship, and team spirit. Middle-grade sports fans will enjoy his newest addition to the series and may find themselves immersed in the other 23 books as well. They all stand alone and readers can pick and choose where to start reading including books focused on soccer, baseball, football, and more.
Fred Bowen is the author of Peachtree’s popular Fred Bowen Sports Story Series for middle-grade readers. A lifelong sports fanatic, he has coached youth league baseball, basketball, and soccer. His kids’ sports column “The Score” appears each week in the KidsPost section of the Washington Post. Bowen lives in Maryland. Visit his website, HERE.
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Posted Under Book Review, Children's books, fiction, Fred Bowen, middle-grade, mystery, soccer, sports