The Books

Paperboy

A boy and his typewriter confront a July in 1959 that will change his world forever…

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 newspaper 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.

Vince Vawter won a Newbery Honor with his first novel, Paperboy, in 2014.


“The well-crafted characters, the hot Southern summer, and the 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. . . . This paper boy is a fighter and his hope fortifies and satisfies in equal measure.”

—Booklist, Starred

Copyboy

A teenager about to start college goes on a journey that fulfills a promise and teaches a life-lesson not soon forgotten…

Victor Vollmer isn’t a paperboy anymore. He’s a copyboy now – and a good one. But his duties at the newspaper are interrupted by a last request from Mr. Spiro, the scholarly gentleman who became his mentor in the beloved novel Paperboy, a 2014 Newbery Honor Book.

Victor takes off on a journey that sends him hundreds of miles from home and toward the teeth of a gathering storm. Confronted by an unfamiliar and threatening world, he meets a girl who is strong and smart and bold like no one’s known before, and together they venture toward the place where the river meets sea. When they wind up racing to evade a hurricane, Victor finds out what the fates have in store for him.

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