Now is the time for running

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Title:

Now is the time for running

Personal Author:

Williams, Michael, 1962-

ISBN:

9780316077903

Uniform Title:

Billion dollar soccer ball

Edition:

1st U.S. ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Little, Brown, 2011.

Physical Description:

233 p. ; 22 cm.

Abstract:

When soldiers attack a small village in Zimbabwe, Deo goes on the run with Innocent, his older, mentally disabled brother, carrying little but a leather soccer ball filled with money, and after facing prejudice, poverty, and tragedy, it is in soccer that Deo finds renewed hope.

Subject Term:

Refugees -- Fiction.

Brothers -- Fiction.

People with mental disabilities -- Fiction.

Survival -- Fiction.

Homeless persons -- Fiction.

Soccer -- Fiction.

Blacks -- Zimbabwe -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Zimbabwe -- Fiction.

Electronic Access:

Language:

English

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Location
Searching... Hillview Branch	Juvenile Book	YAF WILL	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

When tragedy strikes, Deo's love of soccer is all he has left. Can he use that gift to find hope once more?

Just down the road from their families, Deo and his friends play soccer in the dusty fields of Zimbabwe, cheered on by Deo's older brother, Innocent. It is a day like any other ..until the soldiers arrive and Deo and Innocent are forced to run for their lives, fleeing the wreckage of their village for the distant promise of safe haven. Along the way, they face the prejudice and poverty that await refugees everywhere, and must rely on the kindness of people they meet to make it through.

Relevant, timely, and accessibly written, Now Is the Time For Running is a staggering story of survival that follows Deo and his mentally handicapped older brother on a transformative journey that will stick with readers long after the last page.

Author Notes

Michael Williams is a writer of plays, musicals, operas, and novels, and is the Managing Director of Cape Town Opera in South Africa. He is the author of several books, including the highly praised young adult novels Crocodile Burning and Now Is the Time for Running . He has written operas for young people based on African mythology as well as the libretti for symphonic operas that have premiered around the world. He finds writing fiction to be the perfect antidote to the drama of keeping an opera company alive in Africa.

Reviews (3)

School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-In Zimbabwe, 14-year-old Deo's life is hard but filled with family, love, and soccer. Then soldiers attack his village and send Deo and his mentally disabled brother, Innocent, running toward South Africa. Their way is complicated by a dangerous river crossing, a game preserve filled with lions, and xenophobia. Everywhere these brothers go there are unending waves of hatred and fear. It is this hatred that threatens to break Deo when violence claims Innocent's life. However, he is able to resurrect and reclaim his own life and hope through soccer. Williams tells his story simply and unflinchingly with depictions of tremendous violence, hard-fought soccer matches, and the loving bond between the brothers. Deo's narration provides an immediacy that is only compounded by the tale's fast pacing and suspense. The author gives readers complicated and compelling characters for whom they will cheer, cry with, and love.-Naphtali L. Faris, Youth Services Consultant, Missouri State Library, Jefferson City, MO (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publisher's Weekly Review

South African writer Williams (The Genuine Half-Moon Kid) delves deeply into the oppression, poverty, and xenophobia that plague so many nations in Africa in this gut-wrenching story of an outcast, soccer-loving teen from Zimbabwe. When 14-year-old Deo's village is ravaged by soldiers, he must flee with his older brother, Innocent, who suffered brain damage at birth, which has left him childlike and sometimes unmanageable. The obstacles the boys must overcome-traveling with no shoes and little money, confronting a hungry lion in a wild game reserve, and repeatedly withstanding prejudice and mistreatment as unwanted refugees-move the story along briskly, while its genuine and relatable characters keep it grounded. There is plenty of material to captivate readers: fast-paced soccer matches every bit as tough as the players; the determination of Deo and his fellow refugees to survive unthinkably harsh conditions; and raw depictions of violence ("The fear eats at us, burns us.... Nobody knows where the men with sticks and axes will be"). But it's the tender relationship between Deo and Innocent, along with some heartbreaking twists of fate, that will endure in readers' minds. Ages 12-up. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Deo, 14, is playing soccer with his friends in his Zimbabwe village when soldiers arrive, destroy everything, and kill his mother. Running for his life while caring for his older, mentally disabled brother, Innocent, Deo takes his homemade soccer ball with him as they flee across the border to South Africa. Told in the young teen's first-person, present-tense narrative, the survival adventure follows the brothers as they crawl beneath barbed wire, wade through the Limpopo River, run barefoot near dangerous wild animals, and find work picking tomatoes for a white farmer before seeking shelter in the rough townships outside Johannesburg and Cape Town, where they face grim xenophobia. Based on his interviews with Zimbabwean refugee boys on the Cape Town streets, Williams captures the refugees' anguish, and Deo's realistic relationship with his brother is heartbreaking. Along with the sorrow, though, is the detailed sports action, as Deo escapes through soccer, and the exciting game specifics climax when Deo kicks the winning goal in the 2010 Street Soccer World Cup final.--Rochman, Hazel Copyright 2010 Booklist