I was wonderfully surprised by this book. The writing kind of held me in a gentle way; each time I put it down (to go get tea, to make dinner, to go to work), it called out to me, encouraging me to spend just a little more time in it. I really enjoyed its gentle but insistent pace, and the details of the story framed the boy's thinking quite effectively. Thumbs up for Paperboy.
But wait: what does it remind me of? Funny you should ask. While I read it, I searched out The King's Speech, a movie I loved, connecting two stutterers. And I searched out The Stuttering Foundation, an organization centering on supporting those who stutter, their families, and research. And I connected with John Green's book Will Grayson, Will Grayson, another stellar read that I reviewed earlier.
The main character takes over his friend's paper route for a month one summer. As he moves through the tasks connected with being a paperboy, he learns all sorts of details about his subscribers, his nanny, and his parents. I appreciated how he struggles to become both more independent as well as no longer childlike, both in respectful and thoughtful ways. I also appreciated the small town energy of this read, that slower, focused, important energy that comes with a read like this. Rich, definitely, worth reading for sure, and maybe even worth returning to for another read.
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