11 and up
This book is about an
eleven-year-old boy who lives in Memphis in 1959. He can throw the meanest
fastball in town but he can barely say a word without stuttering – not even his
own name. So when he takes over his friend’s paper route, he knows he’ll be
forced to communicate with the customers, including a house-wife who drinks too
much and a retired merchant marine who seems to know everything.
The paper route poses
challenges, but it’s a run in with the neighborhood junkman, a bully and a
thief, that stirs up trouble.
I
had to look some things up to really understand this story. I watched a video
of kids who stutter so I could understand how they sound. The thing I was more
curious about is what causes stuttering.
While
I was talking about this book, I realized just how difficult it is must be for
this boy. We can talk so easily but he has to think about every single movement
his mouth makes and the sound that comes out. When you talk, you don’t think
about that stuff, you just do it.
It’s
interesting all the tricks he uses to speak. And the situations where he
doesn’t have too much trouble speaking. I don’t know why but I had a hard time
wrapping my mind around this particular ‘difference’.
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