Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a pop-up book. Why is it being reviewed here? First, it has many panels with enough text to fill a regular kids' book. Second, it's a marvel of design and engineering-an amazing creation one might not want to let a child read unsupervised for fear that clumsy little hands might cause damage.
Nine-year-old Trisha becomes separated from her mother and older brother while on a hike on the Appalachian Trail that runs between Maine and New Hampshire. Lost in this vast, forested part of Maine, Trisha decides to follow a stream on the principle that "water leads to people." In this case, water leads Trisha deeper into the wilderness, which she bravely continues to negotiate despite thirst and hunger, diarrhea and fever, and the ever present, ravenous mosquitoes. Bruised, bleeding and dizzy, Trisha walks on, terrified in the knowledge that she's being followed by the same animal that had torn the head of a deer. A Red Sox fan, and an admirer of Tom Gordon, she listens to her radio for comfort and imagines Tom Gordon watching her progress and giving her guidance. She begins to think of her trek as a baseball game. After many days of walking, just as she is about to collapse and with the beast close behind, she pictures herself at the bottom of the ninth inning, and gathers her remaining strength to make the play with which she will either be saved or lost. The pop-up features are ingenious and help to make Trisha's ordeal amid giant trees, clouds of mosquitoes, with a monster in steadfast pursuit, seem more harrowing.