OK, I confess. I have been a Gordon Korman fan almost as long as he has been an author. Since his first novel, This Can’t Be Happening At MacDonald Hall was written as a seventh grade English project (for which he received a B+), this fandom is older than I care to contemplate. The opportunity, then, to review his latest young adult offering POP and to follow that review with an interview delighted the young reader that still lurks in my brain.
For any lover of children’s books, Gordon Korman’s work stands out. Here is someone who has literally devoted the bulk of his life to writing for kids. Or, perhaps writing with kids? While other children’s authors write about children, for children, Korman gives young readers the feeling that he is on their side, that in some place, he is still one of them. His writing makes it clear that even in adulthood, he remembers, and perhaps still feels, the complexities and fun of childhood.
With its more serious topic of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy – brain damage resulting from trauma that yields an Alzheimer’s-like dementia, POP deviates a bit from the lighter adventures “romps” that characterize much of Korman’s previous work. In the following interview he discusses the circumstances that prompted the writing of Pop and his writing life.
Q: The press release for Pop states that you are a football fan, and I also noticed that you dedicate the book to the memory of your grandmother, referencing remembering what she couldn't. Were there specific triggers that influenced your exploration of the topics of brain injury and memory loss?
A: My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s in the nineties, and while she – obviously – never played in the NFL, she was the specific trigger for Pop. She didn’t quite recognize me, yet she knew that I was a close relative somehow. She often referred to me as her brother. The fact that she was 61 years older than I was no longer registered with her. That’s where I got the initial spark – a buddy story between a kid and someone much older, who, due to Alzheimer’s, believed that he or she was the same age. The other piece – the football connection – came later.
Q: I received my review copy of Pop during the same week that the study involving chronic traumatic encephalopathy in football players made the news. Given the long-term nature of both book publishing and scientific research, this would appear to be coincidence. However, had you been tracking this research before and during your writing of Pop?
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