This was an interesting book, and I can see that the story has promise. However, I had a hard time getting into the writing style and following what was going in. I think it could have been a little shorter to get the message across more succinctly. I do think that it's a great story to tell, though.

I will not be giving a review on this because I have decided not to read it . It lowly -rated on Goodreads and even on Amazon where many books are overly-inflated the rating is barely a 3. I was hoping if given time and more people reading the book; the book would get more and higher ratings and it unfortunately did not. I just cannot make myself read a book that I'm nearly certain, I won't enjoy. I believe this was a read now book.. Since I'm required to give it a rating, I'll just give it a middle rated score of 3.

When Ozzie and Rebecca's parent disappear in Nigeria they are left without anybody to look after them and end up being placed in an orphanage. The are adopted later by Trinidadian parents and live in Scarborough, outside of Toronto in Canada. They settle in well, make friends and have a good life. Soccer is very important to Ozzie and it's how he builds an identity for himself. Through the novel we see how Ozzie and Rebecca adapt to life in Canada, a place which is in stark contrast to their homeland of Africa. This is an important work for young people to read so that some level of understanding can be developed of the plight of so many young people today, relocating, emigrating to cities or countries far from home. It was a good read, one that my students will definitely enjoy.

Team Fugee is an interesting book about kids that have to uproot themselves and move from Africa to Canada as orphans, who must adapt to so many changes. I found the thought play by plays very distracting and unnecessary in so many spots. While I understood the reality of the nationality cliques and how they were trying to show how separated these refugees feel when they come to their new homes, I didn't quite agree with the division being supported for so long. I received a free copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley and I thank them very much!

Team Fugee is one of a set of novels that focus on soccer and the experiences of child refugees leaving their home and making a new one in North America. I have not read any of the other novels in this series and I am probably not inclined to after reading Team Fugee. I teach middle school children in Toronto, Ontario in Canada. The children who are adopted in this novel end up in Scarborough (a suburb in Toronto) and soccer is a sport that many children have a huge interest in because of our FIFA team and their success. It is great that a series of books are dedicated not only to the popular sport but also one that discusses what some of the refugee experience might be like. I think that it is an important topic that should have lots more novels dedicated to it, at all reading levels, so children can either learn about what that experience might be like, or see their experience reflected in a story.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this novel and I don’t think it is one that children will enjoy either. The writing style was too glib and it seemed like the author was trying to check off a whole bunch of boxes rather than tell a sincere, heartfelt story. I think children, at least the ones I teach, will see through this and not connect. I didn’t connect with either the characters, the situations all seemed forced and the entire storyline was predictable and boring. It had the feeling of a story being created in a “boardroom of executives” saying oh lets have them move into a diverse neighbourhood so they can relate (check), oh wait let’s have the mother be the doctor (check) and so on throughout the whole novel.

The story Is simple enough. Ozzie and his sister Rachel are adopted from Nigeria to Canada. There is no formal soccer program at Ozzie’s school and they are forced to share a field with the Syrian refugees. There is an altercation with Victor, the leader of the Syrian refugee soccer students and principal decides they should have a soccer showcase to settle the matter.

Although this isn’t something I would use in my classroom, with my students, it might be something that I would offer in my classroom library to at least see if there was any student interest. If some of my students pick it up and read it, I will ask for feedback. In the end, it is their opinion of the book that matters.

I love this publisher and the idea of having a group of novels by different authors focusing around one sport that has interconnecting teams is one that I am really delighted by. This book focuses on Ozzie learning to adjust to change.

Ozzie and his sister are adopted by a family in Canada. The mother is a doctor and the father is a social worker (woo gender norms smashed). Ozzie loves soccer and he plays with other refugees, but not the Syrians. He ends up getting in a fight with a Syrian refugee named Victor. That sets the principal off, she challenges them to play soccer against each other in a few weeks. I am very thankful principals I have dealt with have not dealt with conflicts like this in my schools. The principals in this series play the Dues Ex Machina for the series. The plots are forced forward by the principals. 

Ozzie is an interesting character. He lost both his parents and misses Nigeria, but he loves his new family. My issue is I couldn't tell Ozzie apart from any of the other boys when he was talking. All of the dialogue sounded the same, except for one scene. There was one scene where Victor admits to taking English lessons to get better. Victor's speech was indistinguishable except for that scene and one mention of a comment a little bit later, which felt forced. 

Over all this book felt like it was a forced book. The plot and the characters weren't all that exciting or easy to roll with like the other books. In Golden Game, Victor was much more interesting. This is true of this incarnation of Dylan and the others on the team. These characters could have been anyone.  

There is a companion book to this one from the same author, Tournament Fugee. There are two other books in the series by another author, Golden Game and Golden Goal.

Thank you to NetGalley for an E ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

If you have readers who are soccer fans, especially if they are developing readers, then this book is one to give some consideration.

Ozzie is a Nigerian refugee, adopted along with his sister by Canadian parents. He loves to play soccer, but there is no program at his school. Ozzie builds a team to compete against Victor, a Syrian refugee, and his friends. Ozzie United and Victor United prepare for their match, and both boys develop into leaders of their teams. After the match, they are given an opportunity to build a team together to take on the division champions. Though soccer is at the forefront of the story, Ozzie is also dealing with his mother's job offer which might force the family to move to a new community.

I enjoyed this book, although it's very soccer-heavy. It pairs nicely with Tournament Fugee, but I enjoyed this storyline more. Though soccer books are not a hot commodity at my library, there will definitely be students who will like this series.

E ARC from Netgalley.com

Ozzie and his sister Rebecca managed to escape the fate that their parents met in Nigeria and have made it to Canada after a long time spent in an orphanage. They have been adopted by a Trinidadian couple, and are settling into their new environment. Ozzie loves to play soccer at school, but when his group is forced off the field by a group of mainly Syrian soccer players, tempers flare, and the school coach arranges for the two teams to play an exhibition game to work out their differences. Ozzie is in charge of the team, and must get the players to work together. He worries, however, because his mother is offered a position at a hospital several hours away, and he and Rebecca don't want to be uprooted again. If the soccer tournament is a success, there is a chance that the school will support soccer teams. Can Ozzie overcome his problems with Victor, the leader of the Syrian team, so that the exhibition match will impress the powers that be?
Strengths: Lorimer does a very nice job at bringing in characters from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and incorporating them into high interest, low level books that involve sports. They definitely fill a much needed niche, and included just enough details about other cultures to intrigue readers while using a lot of sports descriptions so that readers who pick up the books for that reason are satisfied.
Weaknesses: The author is from Trinidad, and while I think the research into the background of Ozzie and his sister is very well done, this is not entirely an "own voices" story. There are a lot of references to Canadian life that may confuse some of my readers; I would love to see Scholastic turn it's hand to a similar line of titles set in the US!
What I really think: This will be a popular series with my struggling readers who enjoy sports stories.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a short book aimed at middle grade readers, but I'm not sure how well it will be received. Obviously I'm not in that age group, but I can still appreciate a good novel and this one did not feel that way. It was too choppy, the story being told more in a series of cameos than in a flowing style. Problems in the plot seemed to arise from out of nowhere, and to be resolved with little difficulty.

The soccer descriptions were not very good. I got the impression that the author knew little about soccer and had done some reading, but still hadn’t quite grasped it. For example, at one point there's a description of a penalty kick, but what the author describes is not a penalty kick - it’s a free kick, with players standing by each of the goal posts and a wall of five boys in front of the goal. No! That's not a penalty kick! With a penalty, it's just the kicker and the goalkeeper! That's it! There's no one else. This as a big fail, and will be noticed by any kid who knows anything about soccer.

At another point the author describes some kids "struggling to pump their ball." This confused me at first until I realized they were trying to inflate the ball, with a pump that didn't work properly. I'm not Canadian and for all I know maybe Canadians describe inflating the ball like that, but it seemed odd and won't play well to an international audience. It’s a minor thing, but these things count, especially when there are lots of them.

The story involved two soccer teams which formed of their own accord at the school, one comprised of Syrian refugees, the other Nigerian refugees. That's where the title of the novel comes from: reFUGEE. I didn't realize that the title should be pronounced with a soft G, so the title made no sense at all until I read the novel. Because of this, the story was in a sense rather racist. Essentially the only people who were depicted as important here were the Syrians and the Nigerians. No Canadians (or anyone else) need apply. I found that insulting and counterproductive, because the essence of the story was supposed to be about cooperation and collaboration. How could this be if the team was exclusively Nigerian and Syrian?

So while I wish the author all the best, I cannot recommend this as a worthy read. The story didn't feel like a story. it felt like notes for a story or at best a rough draft.

This was a quick read. It's written appropriately for its target audience. The book introduces us to Ozzie a recently adopted Nigerian refugee in Canada. He lives with his sister Rebecca and parents. His mother is a doctor, who is unsure about her current job and his father is a social worker. He and other adopted refugees from Nigeria play soccer in the mornings on their schools football field. Since there is no official team they alternate "practice" days with another group of refugees, only from Syria, lead by Victor. The football coach accidentally double schedules the teams which leads to an altercation. The punishment? The principal after seeing that the boys were sorry wanted them to play a friendly game against each other. Ozzie is unsure, he's not a coach he's a goalie. The boys are given the chance to work together again both for their own betterment and hopefully the chance to keep a soccer team at the school. I enjoyed the book more than I thought that I would.

I like books for upper elementary and middle school student, and I think that this book might find an audience in that age range. The author writes soccer scenes that puts the reader right into the game.

The book, in my opinion, has some problems. The writing is stilted and awkward at times. Maybe this was an attempt to control vocabulary. The scene about the bullying situation with some other teens felt dropped into the story to me, and I didn't care for the other students being referred to by numbers. That seemed weird. I would think a kid would identify other kids by physical characteristics (tall, short, thin, heavy) or appearance (clothing, hair style). At one point Victor brought up that he needed/wanted to work on his English. After that, for a while, I noticed his struggles with the English language, but I didn't notice it before this was mentioned.

I also felt that the author might be trying too hard to include too many current social issues (bullying, gay marriages). I wondered why it was even mentioned that an aunt and her partner came to a family event. It was just a dropped in detail that didn't contribute to the story.