25 March 2009 POP by 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

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