Tangerine by Edward Bloor is a novel about the Fisherman family and their sons, Erik and Paul. They moved from Texas to Lake Windsor Downs in Tangerine County, Florida. One of the sons is legally blind.His whole life he was told that he was blind because he stared into a full solar eclipse when he was young,but doesn't remember.Now he is in a particular time in his life where he is starting out in a new school.Their Dad is also plays a roll in why they moved due to his job as a civil engineer. When they started school Erik was already getting busy with his football dream. His Dad called it the "Erik Fishermen football dream" and this kinda left Paul in the blue.After exploring the middleschool, Paul tried out for the soccer team on the first day, he impresses the students with him in soccer.But he is later told by the coach that he is not eligible to play on the team, due to liability issues, because he has an IEP filled out by his mom for him because of his visual impairment. After Paul and Erik get settled they meet Mike and Joey Costello, their neighbors. When football season started for Mike and Erik, Mike was struck by lightening during practice which resulted in him dying. The parents argue about practice and how they thought they shouldn't have it because of Mike's death. Florida is known to have many sinkholes and many natural disasters. Soon after, while Paul is at school, a field of classroom trailers at the school collapse into a sinkhole. Many people, including Paul and Joey, try to rescue the people who are trapped and fortunately, no one gets seriously injured. The emergency relocation plan gives the kids the choice to stay with a different schedule and more crowded classes or go to Tangerine Middle School, the school on the other, poorer side of the county.Soon after, Joey starts to get sick of Tangerine Middle because none of Paul's new friends don't think he is cool and he thinks that Paul acts mean around the other students at school, especially those on the soccer team. After almost getting into a fight, Joey finally goes back to Lake Windsor, leaving Tangerine Middle School and their soccer team. Paul finally has a flashback from his childhood, the day his vision was damaged. Erik said that Paul told on him and his friend Vincent Castor for spray painting a wall in their old neighborhood, so to get back at him, Erik held Paul's arms behind his back and held open his eyes while Vincent Castor sprayed spray paint in Paul's eyes. Paul is furious with his parents for lying to him all these years and finally confronts them about how his vision was really damaged. His parents insist they were trying to do the right thing and protect him from growing up hating his brother, but Paul persists and says that instead of hating his brother, he's been hating himself all along. Paul ends up getting moved to a private school. I think that the author handled the issues very well. I feel like the story teaches a lesson to the parents to not lie to your children because they will end up finding out everything eventually. Also you're teaching a wrong lesson to your children in which causes a lot more issues. But overall I do recommend this book but sometimes the plot and issues can get a bit confusing.
NO SPOILERS! DON'T WORRY! I seldom read stories similar to Tangerine by Edward Bloor. A boy has to cope with life at a new school and making new friends, woo hoo, but after reading just the summary I knew this was a must-read.Paul Fisher is a fantastic soccer player who is as blind as a bat without his glasses. Even so, he is very observant and can “see there are some very unusual things about his family’s new home in Tangerine County, Florida,” as perfectly stated by the back of the book. Paul and his family revisit old secrets, kept a bit too long, after moving to this bizarre town. Having a very diverse selection of characters, Paul and each of them is really given a chance to shine. Filled with enough catastrophes to make a list as long as Dumbledore’s beard, this story was so captivating I finished it in two days! Although this book kept me on the edge of my seat, I felt like Paul’s family was slightly overdone, their interactions became gradually more, and more dramatic. For example, Paul and Eric have a very (emphasis on very) rocky relationship full of hatred and lies. Eric is a football star and wants to keep that status, and even if that means taking drastic measures (of which I cannot reveal). Not all brothers completely ignore each other and fight in a physically and mentally abusing manner. Nobody’s perfectly nice to each other, but they doesn’t mean all brothers all siblings act like they’re inmates! To me this was the one of the book’s two downfalls, if they had made the relationships between the characters more realistic it would have made the story much more believable. The setting of the book was obviously clear, the book is called the name of the county. Bloor gives vivid descriptions of each bright tangerine growing in the few orchards left of this historical town. Each moment in the story is full of details about where (and when) Paul is, it was like I was watching a movie. Have you ever felt like a fictional character is your friend? I know it sounds crazy, but Paul talked in such a nonchalant manner, it really felt like I was talking to someone I knew. Speaking of talking/explaining, for anybody who enjoys soccer this is a great read. Paul explains each soccer game play by play, and the complications that come with them. Finally, (dun, dun,dunnnn) the book’s final downfall made me want throw the book on the ground, and just leave. The book was great up until the end. All the suspense throughout the book was jumbled up into a rushed and confusing couple of chapters. If you’ve ever read Mockingjay from The Hunger Games series, it was similar to that, in my opinion. All the mystery about how Paul became practically blind is revealed, but not in the way that it should have been. The book well-worth reading, I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. Though I ranted about the two faults the book had, it is still worth it. I wish they would have fixed them, it would have taken it to a whole new level of amazing, but the positive components definitely outweighed the negative.
What do You think about Tangerine (2006)?
Tangerine by Edward BloorHarcourt, 1997, 303, $6.95Topics: Sports, relationships, honesty and integrityISBN: 015201246XRebecca DulaneyPaul Fisher, a legally blind, 12-year-old middle school goalie, moves to Florida and joins the War Eagles—Tangerine County’s best and toughest soccer team. He makes new friends, battles the stigma of being visually impaired, and begins to recover suppressed memories of abuse by his older, football playing brother Erik. Muck fires burn continuously, mosquitoes swarm, bug-infested homes have to be fumigated, and lightning storms threaten the safety of the football players every afternoon, yet Paul grows to love this citrus bearing town. There are two tragic deaths in this story and an appalling revelation about how Paul became visually impaired, but author Edward Bloor manages to instill hope and convince readers that Paul will triumph! I would use this award-winning book in a middle grades classroom. It deals with relevant and interesting issues and themes and lends itself to thought provoking discussion.
—Rebecca
Lucas Pires MoraisMs.WhiteIndependent Reading16th December, 12TangerineBy Edward Bloor, E-Book, 306 PagesTangerine is an e-book that I enjoyed reading at times, but I could not realy stay focused because it was online and I kept getting distracted .This is a story about a young boy named Paul, who lives in the shadow of his older soccer start brother Erik. He, along with his family, moves to a small town in Florida called Tangerine, and Paul starts to attend a school called Lake Windsor Middle School. He is happy because the school has a soccer team, and Paul tries out. The only problem is that his mother tells the school that Paul cannot see, and therefore he is not allowed to play in the team, even though he is very passionate about soccer and he believes that he can really see through people, unlike his parents, who have better eyesight than Paul but do not see how bad Erik actually is. When a sinkhole shows up in Paul’s school, he finds out he is going to be moved to Tangerine Middle School. In his new school, Paul is able to get into the soccer team as the reserve goalkeeper, and he becomes friends with his teammates. One day, Erik hits a boy called Tino in the head in his family’s backyard. This causes Tino to come seek revenge later, in an event that is going on in the Lake Windsor High School. When they are done attacking Erik, Paul helps Tino escape by tackling the coach that was holding Tino, and this led to Paul being expelled from the rest of the school year in Tangerine Middle School. He was viewed as a hero by his friends and promised to come back the next year to play in the soccer team again.
—Lucas
I live in Tangerine. Well, at least near it. The real town of Tangerine is in Orange County, Florida, about ten miles south of where I live in Lake County, and the resemblances between the fictional town and the real one are close. That's what drew me to the book, but its story kept me going. There are two boys in this family, who have just moved to a large cookiecutter house in Lake Windsor, a swanky subdivision in this town northwest of Orlando. Older son Erik: football hero, egotistical, nasty. Archetypal older brother. Younger son, Paul, our hero: introspective, alert, insightful, analytical, and - oh, yeah - a fierce soccer player, a strength ignored by the football-crazy father and tolerated by the social climbing mother. He wears thick glasses, and there's a mystery here: something in his past caused his eye problems, but no one talks about it and he can't remember. Tangerine the town is a character in the story, too, because it was the heart of the tangerine business in Florida, and its original residents are Latino families of a different social class. They go to Tangerine Middle and High Schools, and Paul and Erik are at Lake Windsor Middle and High Schools. Paul discovers that the soccer team at Tangerine is better - and meaner - than the one at Lake Windsor, and he asks for a transfer. As the story develops, we see Paul generate deep relationships with Tangerine and its students as Erik demonstrates his truly evil nature. Erik almost becomes a football star, but falls in a stunning ending. Paul learns about true friendship and leadership - and discovers why he has eye trouble.Occasionally you realize this book was written 15 years ago (the tech stuff gives it away), but the story is timeless, so that makes no difference. No "social problems" creep in - no drugs, no pregnancies, no hint of sexuality. The story is about how kids get along, and about soccer. It's well constructed, well written, worth a read.
—Bill
