Pop

Moving to a new town and hoping to make the upcoming tryouts for the high school’s winning football team would be challenging for any 16-year-old. Arriving in the dead of summer and not knowing anyone, Marcus Jordan heads to the park to practice, and there he encounters Charlie, a man in his fifties and the best football player Marcus has ever seen. As their friendship and practice sessions evolve, Marcus discovers that Charlie Popovich was an NFL linebacker who earned the title ‘the King of Pop” for his heavy hitting, i.e., the ‘Pop’. Marcus soon realizes that the effects those hits have had on Charlie explain his erratic behaviour. When school starts, so does the rivalry between Marcus and the team’s star quarterback, Troy Popovich, and this rivalry includes Marcus’ role on the team, Troy’s girlfriend Alyssa and Charlie, Troy’s father. As the story unfolds, Marcus feels that he knows what is best for Charlie and is willing to risk everything to help his friend.

Pop reads like an exciting football game filled with a running back’s execution of clever, often risky moves toward a winning play. The brisk pace with unexpected twists and turns in the plot will captivate the young adult reader. The friction between Troy and Marcus, together with Marcus’s growing loyalty and commitment to help Charlie, adds to the story’s captivating conflict. Balancing this tension is Korman’s renowned use of humour which, in Pop, is most often provided by Charlie’s antics.

Korman, author of over eighty children’s and young adult novels, provides his audience with an engaging story that goes beyond sports fiction. While football enthusiasts will be thrilled with the fast-paced sports action, Pop is also a story about relationships, family secrets and making choices. There is suspense in the plot that keeps the reader engaged. But Pop also deals with the hard realities that result from concussions associated with contact sports such as football and hockey.

At the core of this novel is CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) which is dementia resulting from head trauma and displayed by NFL veterans. Korman highlights the dangers of multiple concussions as well as the danger of playing when injured. The portrayal of Charlie in the throes of CTE provides the reader with the reality of how concussions can affect the human brain. This reality can hopefully lead to valuable discussion on head injuries and the need to err on the side of caution when a possible injury presents itself.

Pop is a novel that will have great appeal for sports fiction lovers but also for any young adult reader who enjoys a fast paced story with interesting characters, drama, suspense and humour.