24 Oct / Pop by Gordon Korman
Parents, don’t let your kids grow up to be football players! If ever you needed convincing, read this book … Gordon Korman is a clever storyteller (the title alone provides fun discussion fodder: King of Pop, one son’s deadbeat absent Pop, another son slowly losing his Pop), so you’ll enjoy it for the story for sure, but the final lesson you’re left with is football can and will kill you.
Marcus Jordan is not in Kansas anymore. The high schooler has moved with his newly single photographer mother to Kennesaw, New York. His first and only friend in his new town is Charlie, a middle-aged man who turns out to be quite the football partner, and Marcus gets the training of his young life.
When school starts, thanks to Charlie, Marcus makes the Varsity team, threatening golden boy Troy Popovich who took the team to major victory last year. Troy’s on-and-off-again girlfriend Alyssa is the school’s übercheerleader; while she and Troy are temporarily off again, she makes a beeline for Marcus, making him an instant enemy of the golden boy.
While Marcus practices with the team, he continues to get his real football education with Charlie every afternoon at nearby Three Alarm Park. Marcus can’t believe his luck when Charlie turns out to be Charlie Popovich, retired NFL star … which means the ‘King of Pop’ is also angry Troy’s father.
Here’s the spoiler (so stop right here, if you don’t want to know …). Unstoppable Charlie has taken too many powerful pops to the head; at just 54, he’s developed early Alzheimer’s. As supportive as Charlie’s distraught family tries to be, it’s Marcus – whom Charlie is convinced is his childhood best friend Mac – who turns out to be Charlie’s most reliable ally …
So remember when I posted The Blind Side? [Just nod and pretend you saw it.] That post had a reference to a college football player whose suicide earlier this year was linked with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, an Alzheimer’s-like brain disease caused by too many hard hits to the head. CTE has been found mostly in veteran NFL players, and not –until recently – the young ‘uns … or so they thought …
Pop will show you exactly how CTE can happen, sooner than later! Which makes me have to add the warning yet again: Say NO to football for your kiddies. Better now than when it’s too late! Read Pop. Then keep them in the stands, and definitely off the fields!
Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Published: 2009