Tangerine

Tangerine

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3.64 of 5 stars 3.64  ·  rating details  ·  11,761 ratings  ·  1,394 reviews
Edward Bloor’s award-winning novel Tangerine grabs readers by the collar on the first page and never lets go. Tangerine, Florida—once known for its citrus groves—is now an uninhabitable quagmire of muck fires and school-swallowing sinkholes. Still, twelve-year-old Paul sees the move as a way to start anew, maybe even make a name for himself in middle school soccer—despite...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Sandpiper (first published 1997)

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Community Reviews

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Casey Schneider
This is actually the best book I've read before, even though I don't read much. I can relate to it a lot, because it's about soccer, and I play it a lot. In this book, Paul Fisher is a young boy who moved from Texas, too Tangerine, Florida. He goes to a school where he can finally play soccer, but then has a conflict because of his impaired vision. That is a whole different part of the story, my favorite part. His parents have been lying to him his whole life about why he has impaired vision. Er...more
Annie
As I figured out which shelves to put this on, I was realizing that Bloor really tried to pack a lot of issues into a relatively short book and he did an excellent job of it. There's the racism/classism stuff and environmentalism (or lack thereof) and disabilities and how they are dealt with in the school system and lots of inequity that isn't related to race or class and farming and safe driving and sports and bulleying and and and.

The story is compelling. The characters are beyond believable a...more
Freddy
I read it in 7th Grade in school as required reading. Out of all the books I read that year, I personally found "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie was (and is still) the best. However, this came in second.


This book about a boy who is nearly blind and moves to Florida. The book generally was quite nice. However, I felt the plot was a tad bit weird, and the description of how he was blinded somewhat creepy and icky. However, overall, it was an ok book to read that someone else might hav...more
Rebecca
Tangerine by Edward Bloor
Harcourt, 1997, 303, $6.95
Topics: Sports, relationships, honesty and integrity
ISBN: 015201246X
Rebecca Dulaney

Paul Fisher, a legally blind, 12-year-old middle school goalie, moves to Florida and joins the War Eagles—Tangerine County’s best and toughest soccer team. He makes new friends, battles the stigma of being visually impaired, and begins to recover suppressed memories of abuse by his older, football playing brother Erik. Muck fires burn continuously, mosquitoes swar...more
Mahrya
Nov 06, 2008 Mahrya rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 9 to 14 year olds
Shelves: juvenilia
Bloor, Edward, Tangerine, Scholastic Signature, 294 pages. Fictional chapter book, realistic story.

Description: Paul and his family move to a strange Florida town where daily thunder storms and an underground "muck fire" add a vague menace to Paul's quiet suburban neighborhood. Paul excels at soccer, even though he is nearly blind, and he tries to come to terms with the true nature of his family.

Review: This book is complex and character-driven, with a lot of atmospheric writing about a town a...more
Linda (Librarian)
Sep 11, 2007 Linda (Librarian) rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone
Paul is the goalie for his soccer team despite the fact the he is practically blind. His parents hardly notice that he is a gifted soccer player becasue he is completely overshadowed by his older brother, Erik. His father is particularly obsessed by Erik and his chances of getting a football scholarship at a big college. Paul is the only one who notices that Erik is not a nice person, to say the least. The book begins as the family moves to Tangerine, Florida. One of the things that I particular...more
Jackie "the Librarian"
Oct 14, 2007 Jackie "the Librarian" rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: 6th-10th graders
I hate sports, and I loved this book. Paul has worn thick glasses ever since a mysterious accident that happened when he was five, but he's not blind, and he is seeing more clearly every day. He loves soccer, and is determined to play goalie at his new school in Tangerine, Florida. But his mom registers him as disabled, and he is disqualified to play. So he switches to the city school. Paul remains undaunted by everything he is faced with in weird Florida - muck fires, lightning striking everywh...more
Mitch Komp
THIS BOOK WAS SO BAD I CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN IT. IT WAS THE WORST BOOK I'VE EVER READ. IT IS SO BORING AND DRY. I WILL NEVER READ AN EDWARD BLOOR BOOK AGAIN. I THINK THIS BOOK ACTUALLY MADE ME THROW UP AND I STARTED BLEEDING OUT OF MY NOSE.
Rebecca
I thought it was going to be about a social-outcast kid who wears really thick glasses, playing soccer. And I thought it would make me sad. But it's actually about a kid who wears really thick glasses, and his nasty (like, psychotic) older brother, and moving to florida, and lightning, and muck fires, and mystery! What was the accident that caused his loss of vision--and why can't he remember it? And what it going on in Tangerine county?--Why are the muck fields ablaze, why does lightning strike...more
elissa
One of my favorite-ever booktalks, mainly because it has a lot of boy appeal. A great middle school title about sports and dysfunctional families.

Fall 2011: Re-reading with Jesse & Leo. We're not reading it really quickly, but we're all motivated to keep going even when we miss a few days. **We're finished now, and I still liked it as much as I did the first time. It's a very exciting and jam-packed ending. Jesse went away for a few chapters, and we had A LOT to fill him in on when he came b...more
Keya K
Jan 17, 2013 Keya K added it
I think that the Fischer family seems pretty misunderstanding of each other. For example Paul's mom and dad don't know how he feels about never living up to their expectations while Eric probably feels like his dad may be forcing his dream onto him. I think that the mom seems pretty distant from both of them. I wouldn't want to be Paul in this family because people ignore him and don't listen to what he has to say about the Eric Fishcer Football Dream. This family could use lots of improvement a...more
Zoe
Dec 10, 2009 Zoe added it
finished it!! really liked it, but there was a lot of sports play-by-plays that i couldn't understand. otherwise very good!
Tracy
The sibling conflict in "Tangerine" is raw, heartbreaking, frightening, and maddening. Bloor reveals the pivotal source of the conflict in slow, re-captured memories, until the climax, when the main character, Paul, understands both the past and the present. Bloor wrestles with the past and present throughout the book -- in form and content; at times, he loses command of past-tense and present-tense forms and the sense of timing and narrative flow falls out of whack. Paul's first-person POV acce...more
Karen Henspeter
o Your full name: Karen Henspeter

o APA citation: Bloor, E. (2007). Tangerine. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.

o Genre: Sports

o Format: Print

o Selection process:
Crowe, C. (2005). Going deep. School Library Journal, 51(3), 42-43.

o Review:
Paul Fisher, a seventh-grader with thick glasses due to a baffling eye injury, moves with his family to an equally strange location known as Tangerine County, Florida. As he struggles to remember his past and understand the present, Paul comes face to face with his own f...more
Ruth
For this week, I read Tangerine by Edward Bloor, the story of 7th grader Paul Fisher, writing journal entries, whose family has just moved from Texas to Tangerine, Florida, a town that was once filled with orange groves, but is now just developments and imported white sand. Paul was the best soccer goalie at his school back in Texas, and plans to do the same in his new town. However, he is constantly overshadowed by his older brother Erik, and his dad’s Erik Fisher Football Dream. Although his...more
Comfort
Tangerine
By: Edward
Review By:Comfort Fapohunda

Characters
Eric: A mean self-centered, jerk, who only cares about football not his family, except Dad.
Dad: Only cares about the “Eric fisher football dream.”
Paul: Is a normal middle school kid who makes lots of friends.
Arthur: Is the wing man of Eric, if Eric has a problem Arthur takes care if it.
Mom: Is over-reactive, she takes care of something when it needs to happen
Joey: Is Paul’s best friend. Ever since Paul moved to Tangerine Joey was there to...more
Lucas
Lucas Pires Morais
Ms.White
Independent Reading
16th December, 12
Tangerine
By Edward Bloor, E-Book, 306 Pages
Tangerine is an e-book that I enjoyed reading at times, but I could not realy stay focused because it was online and I kept getting distracted .This is a story about a young boy named Paul, who lives in the shadow of his older soccer start brother Erik. He, along with his family, moves to a small town in Florida called Tangerine, and Paul starts to attend a school called Lake Windsor Middle S...more
Brock Robertsen
Paul is a teenager who lives at home with his distracted dad and his mean brother and his mom. He has just moved to this home in Tangerine and has started the school year. What is special about Paul is that he is legally blind. He can see with his glasses on, but without them he cannot. His brother told him that he stared into a solar eclipse when he was a kid and that is what messed up his eyesight. He tries out for soccer at his school, and makes the team, only to be told he cannot play becaus...more
Adam
Jan 08, 2013 Adam added it
Paul is a teenager who lives at home with his distracted dad and his mean brother and his mom. He has just moved to this home in Tangerine and has started the school year. What is special about Paul is that he is legally blind. He can see with his glasses on, but without them he cannot. His brother told him that he stared into a solar eclipse when he was a kid an that is what messed up his eyesight. He tries out for soccer at his school, and makes the team, only to be told he cannot play because...more
Niko Mosley
In a good book, the author should always point out the title and author in the beginning so you can know what the book is called. You should write until you get your basic outline of your story intact but you can always go back and revise and edit things. Make sure thoughts and feelings vs. action and description are leveled out because that is what intrigues you more into the book. One of the first things you would think about is if the point of view would work best for your story. Never forge...more
Chris Donaldson
What can I tell you except my daughter Phoebe is reading this. She's in 7th grade up here in Washington State and she brought it home and laid it down with a big thud and a groan and "Here it is, Dad. I can't believe you want to read it too." Which is something I'm trying to do: read all the books my two daughters are reading, which is surprisingly easy since kids these days don't do much reading it appears at all in school. Novels anyway.
So I dug in and was immediately swept up in this story a...more
Bryce
The novel is about a family who moves to texas with two children. One brother is erik and he is a kicker for the football team. The other brother is paul and he plays goalie for the soccer team. Pauls vision is damaged and has been since he was young. The book runs us through their lives and hardships that they face such as making friends, getting in trouble, natural disasters, and the challenges of getting along. Paul works hard at earning respect and a spot on the team and eventually succeeds....more
Chelsea Ellis
I loved this book because it was about a boy Paul that wasn't the coolest kid but his brother was our normal athlete. His family moved from Texas to Florida. In the beginning as him and his mom leaves the house he has a flash back on someone coming towards him with a baseball bat and the person holding the bat looked like his brother. The part of Florida they lived in wasn't like your normal Florida with a beach it looked like the country. One day they smelled smoke and called the Fire Departmen...more
Neil Chambers
Paul, the main character, and his older brother, Erik move from Texas to Florida and struggle to get used to certain changes. There are a lot of minor issues like muck fires and not finding a soccer team to play on, as this is Paul's favorite past time. But, the main issues in this book revolve around Erik and the trouble he gets into without consequences. The issues with his brother stay in Paul's mind every day, especially since his father does not believe him. Paul grows closer to his mother,...more
Eli Nasatir
Tangerine, by Edward Bloor is a great book about a kid Paul Fisher who is sightly challenged. His brother Erik who in truth is a egotistical jerk has consumed everyone but Paul Fisher of erik's football aspirations. Paul is neglected often by his family, but he has a sport of his own, soccer and he plays goalie. His family moved from Houston before where he was a great goalie but erik took all the fame with his placekicking. Paul tries out for the soccer team at his first middle school but is th...more
Lisette
It seems that publishers think: "Ah, teenage protagonist. Okay, put this out as a YA novel." That's all there is to it. From my own experience as a high school teacher, luckily, I know there are plenty of books labeled "Young Adult" that are just as interesting to adult readers. These coming-of-age/who-am-I stories do have universal appeal. Tangerine is one of those YA novels which doesn't dumb down the language and whose plot complications are interesting while not centered around some monster-...more
Linda Lipko
This is more than a coming of age story. It is a tale of awakening to the reality that family members can indeed harm, both psychologically and physically.

Thirteen year old Paul Fischer wears super duper coke bottle glasses. His family repeatedly tells the story that unfortunately he looked at a solar eclipse too long thus resulting in his impaired vision. Somehow Paul knows this just isn't true.

When his family moves to Tangerine Florida his life changes dramatically. A nerd, a geek and a quiet...more
Leigh Isley
I decided to read this Sport Fiction book because it was a 1998 pick by YALSA for best book for adult readers. This book would be a great read for really any age from 12-18. It is a very inspiring book full of courage and self-reliance.

Paul is a teenager who lives at home with his distracted dad,his mean brother, and his mom. He has just moved to this home in Tangerine, Florida and has started the school year. What is special about Paul is that he is legally blind. He can see with his glasses o...more
Patrick
This story is a good mystery. The text releases fragments of information, the reader is figuring out the dark secret as the character is. The main character is chasing blind spots both in his memory and in the history of his brother. Infusing murky flashbacks, the author creates the back story for the tension and fear the plot relies upon. The story includes a wealth of information and sidelights: a soccer season, tangerine growing information and a lesson in building codes. Of course, a YA nove...more
Amy
Tangerine
By: Edward Bloor


Promising to keep a secret from someone is not the nicest thing to do, but you promised them. This book is about sports and usually I do not read sports related books but I was introduced to this saying that it is a good book so I decided to read it.

The protagonist, Paul Fisher, is a legally blind soccer player who just moved to Tangerine, Florida with his parents and brother, Eric Fisher; a star football player. But Tangerine is not a place that is weather friendly; muc...more
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Erik or Paul 6 13 Nov 24, 2012 06:17pm  
A Boy who has bad eyesight is determined to be the best soccer player in the county. 11 78 Nov 21, 2012 11:23am  
Tangerine (Paperback)
Tangerine (Paperback)
Tangerine (School & Library Binding)
Tangerine: Tenth-Anniversary Edition (Hardcover)
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51535
Edward (William) Bloor

Personal Information: Born October 12, 1950, in Trenton, NJ; son of Edward William and Mary (Cowley) Bloor; married Pamela Dixon (a teacher), August 4, 1984. Father to a daughter and a son. Education: Fordham University, B.A., 1973.

Career: Novelist and editor. English teacher in Florida public high schools, 1983-86; Harcourt Brace School Publishers, Orlando, FL, senior editor...more
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