Remembering Mal Peet's work

I was so sad to hear that Mal Peet died recently. I discovered his books late in my life, and was sorry I hadn't found them earlier. I was hoping our VCFA students might get to hear Mal speak at Bath this summer, but sadly that is not to be.It's been a few years since I read it, but I can still remember Tamar, his Carnegie Medal winning historical novel set in the 1944 “Hunger Winter” with two undercover Dutch operatives parachuting into Nazi-occupied Holland. Small things turned the story. A box inherited by the 15-year-old character from her grandfather. A broken plate. The unraveling of an old story by a girl with all the energy and anguish that only the young can feel in quite that way. He nailed it all.And the soccer books--in lesser hands those stories with their interweaving narratives would have crashed and burned. Soccer and "dream-like"? Would those two thoughts not seem to be at odds? But Mal Peet had me riveted with his quick wit and keen eye and deft story turns. I am only sorry our paths never managed to cross in real time.