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 housewife 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, stirring up trouble.

While I was discussing this story with my mom, I realized just how difficult it is must be for this boy. I can speak so easily, but he has to think about every single movement his mouth makes and the sound that comes out. When I talk, I don’t think about that stuff. I 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 struggled to wrap my mind around this particular ‘difference’.