Soccer Switch by Jake Maddox

Soccer Switch by Jake Maddox is a fun quick read. It's a story about a boy named Andre who was on a soccer team with his friends. He finally is old enough to be on a team with a really well-known coach, but the coach retires right before the season starts.

He and his friends get a new coach, Coach Barnes. Coach Barnes has some strange ideas about what they should do at practices, and many of the boys aren't sure about his methods. Andre has to decide if he's going to do what his coach asks him to do and see if he can figure out the reasoning behind the training or quit the team like some of his friends.

This graphic novel is a bit different than the other ones I've read. It actually starts out with Andre reading a paper he wrote about what he did over the summer to his class at school. The whole book is his paper he's reading to his class, so it has him narrating the story, and then the pictures with the dialogue illustrating everything that actually happened. The other graphic novels I've read didn't really have much narration as the whole story was mainly told just through the pictures and dialogue.

I feel like this is a good medium for telling this story, as there is a lot of action in playing a soccer game that would probably cause a reader to get really bogged down trying to get through a description of what was actually happening in the game. But, as a graphic novel, there are short narrations and dialogue, and then the pictures fill in the rest, keeping it moving.

There are questions in the back about the book, including some about using the illustrations to help the reader understand what is happening in the story that I think would be really good for kids, especially if they had never read a graphic novel before.

At the back of the book, there is a list of soccer moves with descriptions of how to do them. I felt like this section, you have to know soccer terms to really understand how to do these moves - but it would be great for soccer enthusiasts! There was also a glossary in the back that explained some of the words used in the story.

This is a great book for kids. The entire book is in full color, and the story flows quickly. There are some good themes about not giving up, giving people a chance, as well as realizing there are other ways to do things besides the way that's always been done.