Pop by Gordon Korman

Publisher: HarperCollins
Copyright: 2009

Marcus Jordan moves to a small town in the summer and doesn't know anybody there. Marcus wants to be on the football season this upcoming year, so he starts practicing in Three Alarm Park. While practicing, Marcus throws the ball really far, almost to the other side of the park. He suddenly sees something while walking to where the ball landed. It was a person! This guy was running towards Marcus and he just couldn't figure out why. Then when the man was close enough to see his face, Marcus realised that this man in fact had his ball! The man stopped in front of Marcus and explained himself to Marcus. After a few minutes of tossing the ball around the mysterious man said he had to go but would see Marcus tomorrow.

When school starts Marcus immediately navigates himself to the field where the tryouts are held. When he gets there he is told that not a lot of new people get onto the team because it is a very tight-knit group who play. In spite of this, he gets on the team, just not the place he wanted.

Marcus has being seeing Charlie a few times a week; he learned that the guy's name was Charlie when they went to the store together and Charlie didn't pay. After a few more weeks of training with Charlie, Marcus realises that he seems a bit odd. Whenever Marcus tries to talk about the last time they trained Charlie doesn't seem to remember.

Marcus goes on the computer and searches diseases that can happen to football players, because when Marcus is told of Charlie's name he remembers that he used to be a famous football player. Marcus finds a site that talks about some of the symptoms Charlie seems to have and finds out that Charlie has developed early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

Charlie's family knows he has this disease but the rest of the town doesn't. When Marcus confronts Charlie's daughter at school about his disease she threatens him if he dares to tell anybody about it. Marcus drops the subject for a few weeks then goes and finds Charlie's old school buddy and tells him about what happened to him. Marcus had to tell Mac (Charlie's school buddy) about his disease because Charlie and Marcus were making trouble for one of the shop owners and Marcus was getting blamed for it because Charlie would just walk away.

Marcus and Mac also take Charlie to one of their school reunions when they hear that Charlie is going to get an award and will be put into the school's hall of fame. The only problem is that Marcus didn't tell Mac that he hadn't asked the family if he could take Charlie. The next thing they knew, they had lost Charlie in the excitement. The police found him and took Charlie and Marcus back to their town. Marcus was wondering why they were rushing back so he asked the police officer and he replied that the football team was losing and they had to get Marcus back home so that they could win the game.

Marcus was about to throw the ball to the end zone when out of the corner of his eye he saw Charlie walking towards the back of the bleachers. Marcus ran up the bleachers to Charlie but he was already standing on the bar at the back of the bleachers about to set the other team's Mascot hawk free. Marcus could see Charlie standing on the bar then Marcus blinked. When he opened his eyes again there was no charlie standing on the top of the bar. Marcus knew what had happened and ran down the bleachers and around the side to find Charlie while everybody else ran towards where he had been standing.

It was a small funeral for Charlie and some other famous football players even showed up when they heard the he had died. Even Charlie's son Troy was sort of nice to Marcus during the mourning at Charlie's house.

Gordan Korman wrote this book like a movie and made it feel like he was slowing it down when it came to serious parts but in the happy exciting parts, he wrote it like he was telling a story.

I felt that this book was truly telling both sides of the football world or any sport for that matter, that a sport can be fun and very fulfilling if you honestly love it but on the other side they can also be dangerous and a horrible experience if you don't really love it.

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