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Summary
Summary
An 11-year-old boy living in Memphis in 1959 throws the meanest fastball in town, but talking is a whole different ball game. He can barely say a word without stuttering, not even his own name. So when he takes over his best friend's paper route for the month of July, he knows he'll be forced to communicate with the different customers, including a housewife who drinks too much and a retired merchant marine who seems to know just about everything.
The paper route poses challenges, but it's a run-in with the neighborhood junkman, a bully and thief, that stirs up real trouble--and puts the boy's life, as well as that of his family's devoted housekeeper, in danger.
Author Notes
VINCE VAWTER, a native of Memphis, retired after a 40-year career in newspapers, most recently as the president and pubisher of the Evansville Courier & Press in Indiana. Paperboy is his first novel.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The name of debut novelist Vawter's 11-year-old protagonist, Vincent Vollmer III, doesn't appear until the very end of this tense, memorable story-Vincent's stutter prevents him from pronouncing it. Vincent is an excellent listener and a keen observer, and the summer of 1959 presents him with the challenge of taking over a friend's paper route in segregated Memphis. He engages with several neighborhood customers and characters while on the job, gaining new awareness of varied adult worlds, racial tension, and inequality, as well as getting into some dangerous situations. Vawter draws from his own childhood experience at a time "when modern speech therapy techniques were in their infancy," he writes in an endnote, calling the story "more memoir than fiction." The story unfolds as Vincent's typewritten account of the summer, and inventive syntax is used throughout. Commas and quotation marks are verboten-Vincent isn't a fan of the former, since he has enough extra pauses in his life already-and extra spaces appear between paragraphs, all subtly highlighting his uneasy relationship with the spoken word. Ages 10-up. Agent: Anna Olswanger, Liza Dawson Associates. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
In this debut novel based on the author's childhood and set in 1959 Memphis, readers meet an eleven-year-old narrator who has a substantial vocabulary and can consider many sides of an issue but who, because of his stuttering, seldom speaks. When he takes over his best friend's paper route for the summer, the task is Herculean. He can withstand the July heat, fold the papers extra tight, and throw them with precision. But he must collect payment every week, compelling him to talk to strangers. He writes the way he speaks, using plenty of ands but few commas, creating a near stream-of-consciousness narrative. With heartbreaking detail, he describes his difficulties, how he uses the "Gentle Air" method of blowing out a few breaths before certain consonants, or shouts certain words, or tosses an object in the air before uttering a sound. The only name readers know him by is Little Man, the one given him by Mam, his family's black maid. Her presence accurately reflects the times, and, to some extent, Vawter sidesteps the stereotype by combining Mam's need for personal justice with her protection of Little Man. Still, it is the paper route that Little Man must conquer on his own, and the people he meets during his journey he must understand. In a compelling climax, he, still stuttering, proudly announces his real name; the moment is as eloquent as his story. betty carter (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* It's hot in Memphis during the summer of 1959 in all kinds of ways. Things heat up for the book's 11-year-old narrator when he takes over his pal Rat's paper route; meeting new people is a horror for the boy because he stutters. He only really feels comfortable with Rat and Mam, the African American maid who takes care of him when his parents are away, which is often. But being the paperboy forces him to engage in the world and to ask for payments from customers, like pretty, hard-drinking Mrs. Worthington and Mr. Spiro, who gives the boy the confidence to voice his questions and then offers answers that wondrously elicit more questions. Others intrude on his life as well. In a shocking scene, Ara T, the dangerous, disturbing junk man tries to take something precious from the boy. In some ways, the story is a set piece, albeit a very good one: the well-crafted characters, hot Southern summer, and coming-of-age events are reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird. But this has added dimension in the way it brilliantly gets readers inside the head of a boy who stutters. First-time author Vawter has lived this story, so he is able to write movingly about what it's like to have words exploding in your head with no reasonable exit. This paperboy is a fighter, and his hope fortifies and satisfies in equal measure.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-9-Set in Memphis in the late 1950s, this tale focuses on 11-year-old Victor, who has stuttered for as long as he can remember. He volunteers to cover his friend Arthur's paper route while he is away on summer vacation. Victor knows he will be good at throwing the paper. After all, he has the best fastball in town-but he isn't so sure he will be good at collecting the money. Collecting means talking to people and that's not Victor's strong point. At first he's terrified of collection day, but throughout Vawter's novel (Delacorte) he grows to enjoy his weekly chats as the customers along his route turn out to be influential characters in his life. It is through his interactions with them that he learns to work through his stutter rather than live in fear of it. Lincoln Hoppe is a talented voice artist and masters both a stutter and a Southern accent. An excellent choice for school and public libraries, the novel is a terrific accompaniment to middle grade units on diversity.-Jennifer Furuyama, Pendleton Public Library, OR (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Little Man, whose real name isn't revealed until the conclusion, stutters badly, a situation that presents new difficulties now that he's taken over his friend's paper route for a month. Debut author Vawter depicts a harshly segregated 1959 Memphis, and since the tale is highly autobiographical, he captures a full and realistic flavor of the time. Little Man, as he's called by his brave, black live-in housekeeper, Mam, has a few less-than-effective strategies that he employs to control his stutter, but it dominates his life nonetheless. Along the paper route, he encounters three fully rounded characters who make their mark on the story: Mrs. Worthington, a young, attractive and abused wife who drinks too much and awakens in Little Man a new, albeit very safe, interest in the opposite sex; Mr. Spiro, a widely read retired seaman who offers Little Man heartfelt advice and insightful support; and scary junkman Ara T, who steals Little Man's knife and evolves into a looming threat both to the boy and Mam. Carefully crafted language, authenticity of setting and quirky characters that ring fully true all combine to make this a worthwhile read. Although Little Man's stutter holds up dialogue, that annoyance also powerfully reflects its stultifying impact on his life. An engaging and heartfelt presentation that never whitewashes the difficult time and situation as Little Man comes of age. (Historical fiction. 10-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
I'm typing about the stabbing for a good reason. I can't talk. Without stuttering. Plus I promised Mam I would never tell what happened to my yellow-handle knife. Mam might say that typing is cheating but I need to see the words on paper to make sure everything happened the way my brain remembers it. I trust words on paper a lot more than words in the air. The funny way I talk is not so much like fat pigs in cartoons as I just get stuck on a sound and try to push the word out. Sometimes it comes out after a little pushing but other times I turn red in the face and lose my breath and get dizzy circles going around in my head. There's not much I can do about it except think of another word or keep on pushing. The lady my parents hired to show me how to talk is teaching me to use a trick she calls Gentle Air which means letting out a little of my breath before getting stuck on a word. So when I feel like I'm going to have trouble saying a word I try to sneak up on it by making a hissing noise. s-s-s-s. When you're eleven years old it's better to be called a snake than a retard. Some days if I've gotten stuck on a bunch of words at school I'll come home and put a piece of notebook paper in the typewriter that someone from my father's office brought to our house a long time ago and forgot to take back. The same one I'm typing these words on now. I peck out the words that gave me the most trouble for the day. My hands know where the letters are and I don't have to think up different tricks to help me push out a word. I like the sound the typewriter key makes when it smacks the black ribbon because it's always the same. I never know what kinds of sounds are going to come out of my mouth. If anything happens to come out at all. Just so you know. I hate commas. I leave them out of my typing any time I think I can get away with it. My composition teacher said a comma meant it was time for a pause. I pause all the time when I'm trying to talk whether I want to or not. Humongous pauses. I would rather type a gazillion ands than one little comma. I type so much in my room that the white letters are wearing off the typewriter keys. But the key with the comma on it looks brand-new and it can stay that way if you ask me. L Mam came to Memphis from Mississippi when I was five to live with us and help take care of me and one thing's for sure. I wouldn't have made it this far without her. Mam's real name is Miss Nellie Avent. My mother told me to call her Miss Nellie but that didn't work for me because of the n sound coming after the m sound. Mam was as close as I could come to saying her name and she allowed as how that suited her fine. She said that we made a good pair because she couldn't write very well and I had the best handwriting she had ever seen for a little man. That's what she called me from the first day that she came to live with us. Little Man. Mam is my best friend in all the world except when it comes to playing ball and then Rat takes over. His real name is Art. He had it written in easy-to-read letters on his catcher's mitt on the first day of third grade but I had to nickname him Rat because the a sound wasn't going to come out of my mouth that day without giving me a bunch of trouble. He allowed as how Rat was okay with him and that made me like him from the start. He didn't even look like a rat but he understood quicker than most kids that Rat was the best I could do on his name because of the easy r sound. Mam calls him Mr. Rat which always cracks me up. My stuttering probably makes me the best nicknamer in Memphis. One of my hard baseball throws busted Rat in the mouth on the last day of sixth grade. That's the reason I told him I would handle his paper route for July so he could visit his grandparents on their farm outside Memphis. I didn't much want to take on the route but I thought I owed it to Rat for busting his lip. Rat says I show off too much with my hard throws and I guess he's right and I needed to pay for it. The paper route was where I met all the new people in my life and where all the bad stuff happened. And some good stuff too. At least I think it was good. I'm still trying to figure all of it out and I'm hoping that putting the words on paper will help. Excerpted from Paperboy by Vince Vawter All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
