Defending the Line: The David Luiz Story by Alex Carpenter

All three of my boys are playing soccer this summer, so I jumped at the chance to read this book.  Defending the Line tells the story of David Luiz, a rising star on the international soccer scene.  The book touches on his childhood, playing for soccer clubs in Brazil, through making it to his first professional team, to now playing in the World Cup for Brazil's national team.  This book is appropriately leveled for 6th - 8th graders (although I couldn't get my 6th or 8th grader to read it).

I enjoyed reading Defending the Line.  I found myself a bit confused at times by all of the different levels and names and locations and teams, but I did learn a lot about how international professional soccer works.  It was inspiring to read about how David Luiz overcame adversity and setbacks with his tenacity and hard work to realize his dream of playing soccer for his national team. 

I was a little disappointed by the simplistic approach to exploring Luiz's faith.  The tagline of the book reads: "The story of a Brazilian soccer star fueled by faith."  This led me to believe that the author would give specific examples of how faith played an integral part in Luiz's life and success.  Instead, there were just a few vague mentions that Luiz's faith kept him going or allowed him to persevere.  Since this book was written for 8-12 year olds, perhaps the lack of detail was designed to keep the target audience from tuning out.

Bottom line: this would be a great read for the young soccer fan in your life, and a non-threatening way to start planting seeds of faith in a non-believer.

I received this book from BookLook Bloggers for free in exchange for my honest review.