Cute and fun, although I got my characters confused and found the story bridge between middle school kids on a soccer team fighting and failing to being a group of BFF's missing. ( )

5/10, a very disjointed book, with annoying characters, random cutscenes, and disappointing art. ( )

Fifth-grader Faith gets suckered into joining the middle school soccer C team by popular eighth-grader Amanda. The C team players aren't good at soccer, mainly because they don't care; with Faith's help, they come to the realization together that they can be a team (friends) who don't play soccer, and instead play music, draw, and eat pizza together. It's a diverse bunch: one kid comes out as trans and is accepted heartily, another wears hijab, another speaks Spanish at home, and they have a variety of skin colors. Faith is an artist, and her imaginative stories and drawings are interspersed throughout.

"New things are part of the joy of life. You have to open up to them. Even if it's difficult." ( )

Funny, weird, misfit soccer team story. Refreshing to read a book in which there is no comeback moment -- they really are very bad at soccer, but friendships keep growing, and they find better ways to support each other, mostly. Trans friendly, diverse, interesting, authentically outcast characters. Liked it. ( )

As an adult, it didn't quite flow as smoothly as I would have liked, but it touched on so many topics of discussion that I will recommend it to my grandchildren. Some Texas parents want this book banned from school libraries, that's too bad because it could be a conversation starter. ( )