Andres Nuñez Servin
Ms. Lesley Johnson
English
7th period
November 27, 2013

The Penalty by Mal Peet

The Penalty is a fiction story that will make you want to read more. It all starts
when an armed group reaches the village of a fourteen year old boy named Ricardo
Gomes de Barros called Rico. After this invasion to the village he becomes
orphan because his parents are killed. He is kidnapped by this group of people
and after overcoming many harsh conditions he finally gets to San Juan. He
started practicing soccer on a low condition field and other players give him
the name of “El Brujito” because of his ability with the
ball.

Rico started to grow as player. He became a very famous player, and when he was at
the top of his career he misses a penalty for his team on a very important game.
Rico showed something unusual, after he missed the penalty he was substituted,
he walked out of the stadium and disappeared. No one knows what happened to him;
people had no idea what to think. They don’t know if he is still alive, killed,
or kidnapped.

 After some time all the media and specially the police lost interest in the case and
it was a situation without answer. Paulo Faustino, a South American reporter,
starts to explore El Brujito story. He was intrigued for this case. The search
options were limited; he didn’t know where to look for any type of clue. He
finally finds a way to get to the bottom of the case, asking questions to Maximo
Sales, a reporter of El Brujito story when he was recently disappeared. After
Faustino questions Máximo he was found murdered in a horrifying way. Faustino
was determined to get to the bottom of the boy’s disappearance and the murder of
Máximo Salez. This determination to found the truth leads Faustino through
dangerous paths. He faces dangerous things, he discovered frightful secrets, corruption and he faces
the suffering of slavery.

This story is involved in extreme feelings. You can see devastation feelings while
you read of all the people that are suffering slavery. The author describes
deeply the emotions of the people whether they are good or bad. You can almost
feel how Rico felt when he misses the penalty, he is starting his career, he is
successful and in a crucial game he misses a penalty that cost the game to his
team, that is very sad for all the fans, teammates, and especially for himself.
At the very beginning when all the people get to the village, the terrifying
feelings of all the people were involved. It is as if you could see the faces
and expressions of the characters. You can feel the suffering, and excitement
for the reader, during the whole book.

I strongly recommend this book for any person who enjoys mystery and suspense,
especially for teenagers who are looking for excitement in a book. This book is
not directly about football, if you are looking for a book about it. When you
start reading this book may seem confusing at first, but when you start to get
deeper into the book you will not want to stop reading. It is interesting for
about the first 60-80 pages because the problem arises; in these pages the
murder of the family is described, as well as the disappearance of El Brujito.
 After these pages the story starts to gets into the real mystery and
excitement. Faustino path is uncertain, you will never know if things are as
they seem. When Salez is killed the book becomes an amazing adventure and
mystery is unleashed.

The narrator is a boy with a fishermen family. He lives in a village near the river
with people that doesn´t know how to defend. Fierce people attacked their
village. He grabbed her sister and ran to the boats. He saw her mother “go down
broken beneath the feet of the fierce people who swept over her like water”. His
father was the only one to die after this attack.

I think this is a pretty intesting book. I am just starting the book, but from what I read I think it is a good book. The one thing that I liked very much about this book before I started reading it was the description on the back of the book. It says something that can happen in real life. It talks about an outstanding soccer player who misses a penalty for his team in  a very important game. Then it says something not so realistic, but intresting. It talks about his disapperance and about all the issues he had to confront.