Customer Reviews

Penalty Shot (Matt Christopher Sports Classics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Just read this book with my 6 year old hockey player...he loved it for the hockey action, and I loved it for the messages it sent about teamwork and friendship and overcoming fears. This is a terrific book for a young athlete.

Penalty Shot was written by Matt Christopher and had a sports-friendship theme. It is a very good book. It is about a boy named Jeff, who the year before had been kicked-off the hockey team because his English grade had slipped. This year he is determined not to let that happen again. He even gets a tutor. Now someone has been changing his composition papers with flunking composition papers. Whoever switched the composition papers, even got into the garbage and dug out a note that Jeff had written to his friend and turned it into a friendship breaking note. Now Jeff has to find out who wants him off the team and who is messing with his friendship. It's a great book.

Would you like to play hockey and then get bumped off the team? This happens in Matt Christopher's story Penalty Shot. A person named Jeff was a hockey player, he got bumped off the team last year. He is trying out for the team again this year. Wait till you see what happens! I thought this was a great book, because I love hockey! I think anyone would like this book!

I am currently reading this book with my son and it is extremely frustrating. Mr. Christopher's understanding of the sport of hockey is appalling. The entire central conflict of the book revolves around the protagonist's desire to make and stay on the team's starting lineup. Mr. Christopher makes the so-colossal-it's-unbelievable blunder of presuming that a starting lineup in hockey is the same as a starting lineup in baseball (a sport that Mr. Christopher actually had a good knowledge of) and that just as one baseball player will play center field or shortstop for an entire game, so too will one hockey player play left wing or center for an entire game. And when I say an entire game, please understand that I mean an ENTIRE game. Without rest. Anyone with even the most tenuous understanding of the game of hockey knows that this is not the case, and that teams continuously switch up 3 or 4 revolving lines in shifts during play. The idea of one player (besides the goalie, obviously) staying on the ice for an entire game, as players routinely do in this book, is so ridiculous that it has ruined all enjoyment of the book for both me and my son (who, at 5 years old, already knows more about the game of hockey than Mr. Christopher ever did, it seems).

And don't even get me started on his play-by-play descriptions, which never approach capturing the feel of an actual game of hockey!

Extremely, extremely frustrating.

great book by matt christopher. once again shows a bit of what reality can be like.

Do you think sports are cool? You will change your mind when you read Matt Christopher's Penalty shot. This book is about a boy named Jeff and his team. They start as a team that loses every game and think their very bad.
The next year they finally win a game. They also go all the way to the championship game. They win the championship game. It shows that 1 team thinks there bad then they will be bad if they think there good they will be good. And accomplished great goals for the team.
This book is a book that is just right for you. Some other books that Matt Christopher he wrote are Bike rally, Soccer scoop, Miracle at the plate, and The Brush `Iim back pitch. This book reminds me of me and when I play hockey. I thought I was bad
But know I am great. The thing I do not like is that he doesn't use many
Vocabulary words like when you are looking for a better word.
This book not that valuable but it is a very good book. The setting is mostly in the hockey arena. Would you like to play hockey? It is a great sport.
Even though the hockey team won the championship doesn't
mean that they will win next year. What do you think? Will they win next year or not. This book is a great book. If you like sports then read Matt Christopher's wonderful series of books.
This book will change your mind about sports.