''The Penalty'' is a sports novel for

young adults A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

Mal Peet Malcolm Charles Peet (5 October 1947 – 2 March 2015) was an English author and illustrator best known for young adult fiction. He has won several honours including the Brandford Boase, the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Prize, British child ...

, published by

Walker Books Walker Books is a British publisher of children's books, founded in 1978 by Sebastian Walker, Amelia Edwards, and Wendy Boase. In 1991, the success of Walker Books' ''Where's Wally?'' series enabled the company to expand into the American ma ...

in 2006. It is the second (of three to 2011)

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

stories featuring South American

sports journalist Sports journalism is a form of writing that reports on matters pertaining to sporting topics and competitions. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social elite and transitioned into an integral part of the n ...

Paul Faustino. The teen football prodigy El Brujito ("The Little Magician") disappears without a trace and Faustino is drawn to find the summer valentines in the night of October when the mother where it is. He unfolds the story behind the disappearance. Walker's North American division

Candlewick Press Candlewick Press, established in 1992 and located in Somerville, Massachusetts, is part of the Walker Books group. The logo depicting a bear carrying a candle is based on Walker Books's original logo. Sebastian Walker launched Walker Books fro ...

published the first U.S. edition in 2005. A

German-language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a c ...

translation was published in 2008."Formats and Editions of The penalty"

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

. Retrieved 8 August 2012. Peet and ''The Penalty'' made the 2007

Booktrust Teenage Prize The Booktrust Teenage Prize was an annual award given to young adult literature published in the UK. The prize was administered by Book Trust, an independent charity which promotes books and reading. The Booktrust Teenage Prize was last awarded in ...

shortlist (six finalists). For the next Faustino football book, Peet won the 2009

Guardian Prize The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize or Guardian Award was a literary award that annual recognised one fiction book written for children or young adults (at least age eight) and published in the United Kingdom. It was conferred upon the author ...

and explained to the sponsoring newspaper about his second career (then aged 62) that he had felt 'football books for children were "pretty much hey"'. Also, "I used to play all the time. I would play football when it was light and read when it was dark. Now I get to play football vicariously."

References

External links

—immediately, first US edition 2006 British novels 2006 children's books Novels about association football British children's novels Walker Books books {{2000s-child-novel-stub