Richie's Picks: POP by Gordon Korman, HarperCollins/Balzer+Bray, August
2009, 272p., ISBN: 978-0-06-174228-6; Libr. ISBN: 978-0-06-174230-9
It's summer vacation and Vespa-riding teenager Marcus Jordan is the new kid
in town, having just moved with his mom from Kansas to Upstate New York. The
previous fall, back in Olathe, Marcus had been the record-setting star
quarterback on the JV squad. He's planning to try out for the varsity team at his
new high school in Kennesaw, a team that completed a perfect 11-0
championship season last year. In preparation, Marcus has found a deserted park
in
town -- home to a modern art statue that looks like "a titanic paper airplane
had fallen from the sky" -- where he has been practicing by himself with a ball
and an empty picture frame suspended on a rope as a target.
"Sucking in a lungful of moist, heavy air, Marcus pumped once and unleashed
the longest pass of the day, a loose spiral that nevertheless seemed to have
a lot of power behind it. It sailed high over the apex of the Paper Airplane
before beginning its downward trajectory toward the hoop.
"Suddenly, for the first time in four days, Marcus spied another human being
in the park. The figure was just a blur across his field of vision. It
leaped into the air, picked off the pass, and kept on going.
"The receiver made a wide U-turn and, grinning triumphantly, jogged up to
Marcus.
"Marcus smiled too. 'Nice catch, bro--'
"He was looking at a middle-aged man, probably around fifty years old. He
was tall and built like a redwood. But the guy ran like a gazelle and had
caught the ball with sure hands, tucking it in tight as he ran. He had
definitely played this game before."
So begins the story of Marcus Jordan and Charlie Popovich. Charlie, it
turns out, is a beloved hometown hero, having returned to Kennesaw to raise a
family after completing a long career as a linebacker in the National Football
League. Charlie is a man with the heart of a kid.
"This Charlie character might be weird, but his enthusiasm had sucked Marcus
in.
"The ball plunged down, and Marcus gathered it into his arms.
"Something hit him. The impact was so jarring, so unexpected, that there
was barely time to register what was happening. It was Charlie -- he'd rammed
a rock-hard shoulder into Marcus's sternum and dropped him where he stood.
The ball squirted loose, but Marcus wasn't even aware of it. He lay like a
stone on the grass, ears roaring, trying to keep from throwing up his breakfast.
"Gasping, he scrambled to his feet, squaring off against his companion.
'What was that for?'
"'I love the pop! Sometimes you actually hear it go pop!'"
Charlie is now paying a steep price for all those years of putting hits on
opposing players. He often seems to believe that he is still the old mischief
making high school football star he'd been in the early Seventies.
Literally.
Charlie's family is desperately trying to hide their knowledge of what is
behind his peculiar behavior, and there is conflict with Charlie's own teens
when they find out that Marcus has been hanging out in Three Alarm Park with
their father.
I have often had good things to say about Gordon Korman's storytelling, but
POP is really something else. It is pretty intense to have read the book
within days of Natasha Richardson's untimely death from a brain injury suffered
in a fall while skiing down a beginner slope. It has me recalling the
current condition of my childhood hero Muhammad Ali. It makes me think of my
younger brother whose life has been colored for the past twenty-five years by the
long-term effects of a near-fatal skull fracture suffered in a crash when his
friend fell asleep behind the wheel and wrapped the car around a tree. And
I think about watching Steve Young suffer concussion after concussion during
his reign as quarterback of our San Francisco 49ers, and wondering whether
he'd someday suffer long-term effects from them.
I also think about the kids in our town who come flying down hilly roads on
skateboards without helmets.
"The park wasn't as empty as it had been during the summer. There were a
few young mothers pushing babies in strollers, and an elderly couple chatting
on a bench in the shadow of the Paper Airplane. Remembrance -- what a name
for the sculpture that marked his first meeting with a guy who couldn't
remember at all.
"No, that wasn't quite right. Charlie did remember. He remembered what
still made the most sense to him -- being young and wild and invincible, taking
on the world with his best friend."
POP goes well beyond the story of Marcus and Charlie. There is also Marcus
struggling to become a part of the David Nathan Aldrich High School football
team and dealing with the hot shot quarterback who led last year's
championship team; there is Marcus matching wits and locking lips with Alyssa
Fontaine,
the gorgeous head cheerleader who "designs zone blitzes in her sleep;" and
there are the repeated references to Marcus's relationship with his own
estranged father back in Kansas (a.k.a. Comrade Stalin).
But in the same way that teens will easily identify with Marcus Jordan and
his struggles, I feel a deep emotional connection with Charlie, the
good-hearted, at-risk, fifty-four year-old fellow Class of '73 graduate who -- in
his
mind -- is reliving his youthful glory and antics from all those years ago.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/)
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/)
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