Senor Parrot's Perch

Pop
by Gordon Korman

Pop by Gordon Korman is an excellent book about High School football and growing up. It’s ideal for YA readers, especially football loving boys.

Marcus Jordan is new in town and wants to play quarterback on the football team. His reception couldn’t have been cooler. Just off their perfect championship season, and led by star quarterback Troy Popovich, no one on the team offers any sort of welcome to the new kid in town. And it seems like more than just a cold shoulder, its an all out campaign to drive him from the team, lead by Troy, the golden boy who led the team to all its victories the prior year. When Marcus does get to take some snaps in practice, the offensive line dissolves and the defense thunders in unhindered. Panicked, Marcus is unable to connect with his passing.

After practice, Marcus heads to the park to practice his throwing at targets he sets up. Tossing one long he sees a middle-aged man suddenly sprint for the pass and make an amazing catch. They begin playing together and the older man surprisingly gives Marcus a bone crunching tackle. Furious, he protests, but he’s rebuffed and the tackling continues. The older man encourages Marcus to have at him, as well. The afternoon, crazy and intense, becomes a turning point for Marcus. He begins to enjoy the hard hitting style of football the older man, Charlie, likes to play. It transforms his game, no longer fearing a tackle, but preferring to deliver the bone crushing pop to his opponent, instead.

This is the beginning of a very unusual friendship with the older man. Marcus can’t quite figure out why Charlie calls him Mac, as though he were someone else. He begins to wonder if Charlie thinks he is still sixteen. Charlie’s behavior is sometimes completely erratic and constantly puzzling to Marcus. In time, though, Marcus begins to unravel the puzzle of who Charlie really is, exposing family secrets along the way.

I have to say I loved this book. There is a great deal more than only football that gets covered in these pages. Marcus’ rivalry with the quarterback Troy is at the center of much of it, complicated by the interest in Marcus that Troy’s ex-girlfriend displays. And there is Charlie, the teen-aged kid in a man’s body, and the discoveries that Marcus makes about his past and the reasons behind his current condition. The writing is straight to the point, fast moving, and full of emotional punches without any melodrama.

I have one reservation for this book. Some sites indicate that kids 9-12 would be interested in it, but the sexual content level should make it higher than that, maybe 14 or older. It’s too bad, too. There is one incident, really just some language, in an early chapter and there is a strong amount of sexual tension between Marcus and Alyssa, the cheerleader. As the book progresses, this isn’t as overtly portrayed, yet nevertheless exists and continues to work as a strong driver to some plot elements. Had the tone of the first few chapters been at the same level as the rest of the book, I wouldn’t question the appropriateness for younger readers. I do think that Korman could have easily changed the early comment from his book and not lost any of the plot driver of the relationship between Marcus and Alyssa.

Fifteen year old Denn Doyle, fresh from surviving a near brush with death where he was hit by a city bus while on his skateboard, lets himself get talked into playing poker. His first time, he wins big. His next time, he loses bigger. Stung by losing, and convinced that he should be able to play better than them, he studies the game. His studies pay off and he’s on to winning. He start’s losing, too, most everything else he’d valued.

No Limit‘s original title was Stone Cold, that’s what you have to be to win, says Cookie, the older card player that Denn Doyle becomes acquainted with. Stone Cold is just what Denn becomes. Just like his excellent book Rash, which Pete Hautman published in 2006, this earlier book, originally published in 1998 under the title Stone Cold, the original book title takes on new meanings as you read through the book. And though Denn plays poker, at its heart, the book is about consuming obsessions. Denn’s own obsession is reflected in contrast to the obsessions of� his father’s and the priest of the church.

At its heart, No Limit is an engrossing, fast moving story of a young man who learns and obsessed with winning. The story moves quickly and is clean and tight. (I’m left wishing that Hautman could give some lessons in self-editing to J.K. Rowling, who could have greatly improved her books just by trimming them down). The trail his plot follows is always fresh. The ending climax is both surprising and haunting and thought provoking.

No Limit, as with other books by Hautman, is an excellent book for young adult readers, especially boys, who would read if only they encountered something better, more suited to their interests, and not weighed down by tons of minutae or that don’t involve fantasy and magical powers. While I’m at it, I’ll recommend Rash, as well, a sort of dystopic view of our future. Over the years separating these two books, Hautman’s writing and storytelling has only improved.

Hautman has also written a sequel to this book, All-in. The first chapter is available on his website.

Coffee adds zing, even to good books. From Snatched, by Pete Hautman and Mary Logue:

Brian took another gulp of coffee. The top of his head was vibrating. He could grow to like the stuff.

That was certainly my own reaction when I started drinking that bitter elixir.