Paperboy

Paperboy by American author Vince Vawter explores themes of The Acceleration of the Civil Rights Movement, The Treatment of People With Speech Disorders, and Independence in Childhood through its singular voice. Published in 2013, Paperboy was a Newbery Medal Honor Book in 2014. Vawter, who worked for more than 40 years in the newspaper business, wrote Paperboy as a lightly fictionalized version of his own childhood, which contributes to the text’s authenticity.

This guide references the Kindle edition of the book.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss racism, violence, alcoholism, and self-harm.

Plot Summary

In 1959 Memphis, Victor Vollmer is an 11-year-old boy with a stutter. Victor has few friends due to his difficulty communicating, and the two people he is closest to are a boy nicknamed Rat, who is a teammate of Victor’s, and his nanny, Miss Nellie Avant, whom Victor calls Mam. Victor is white, and Mam is Black; a significant portion of the novel concerns Victor’s growing understanding of the oppression Black Americans faced in the 1950s. On the final day of sixth grade, Victor throws a baseball that hits Rat in the mouth and injures him.