Guest Post: Phil Bildner on The Soccer Fence

By Phil Bildner
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations

"Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does."

-- Nelson Mandela

I don’t have many heroes.

 There are many people I admire, but few I consider to be personal heroes.

Nelson Mandela is one of my heroes.

The same goes for Jesse Joshua Watson, the illustrator of The Soccer Fence (Putnam, 2014). For Jesse, Nelson Mandela was something of a genesis in his...