Bloor, Edward.  Tangerine.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (September 1, 2006), 323 pages. 

Tangerine is a great book that deals with confidence in oneself and a struggle to remain logical and sane when surrounded by people who do things that one does not like.  Paul, the main character of the book, is a boy who has extreme vision problems and cannot see very well.  His, brother, Erik, is a football player, whom the family praises at Paul’s expense.  Even more, Paul is crazy!  He engages in extremely unacceptable behavior and yet, his parents turn a blind eye.  As a result, all of Paul’s accomplishments and feelings tend to go unnoticed.  While Erik receives so much attention and support, Paul plays soccer for his own enjoyment.  In fact, despite his vision impairment, he is one of the best goalies around!  His family is not the only issue that Paul encounters.  While at school, Paul faces many of the issues that adolescents face including bullying and identity trouble.  However, Paul does a great job and persisting to be himself.

This is a great novel that does a great job of portraying the issues that can be faced both within a family and in the school setting, especially when one has individual obstacles to overcome.  I would recommend this book for 7^th or 8^th grade and it is a pretty fast paced read that keeps you involved the entire time.  There is plenty to discuss in each chapter and students should have a good time relating to the themes of the book.