The sequel to the Newbery Honor-winning novel Paperboy and a Fall 2018 Junior Library Guild selection Victor Vollmer isn’t a paperboy anymore. He’s a copyboy now, but his duties at the newspaper get interrupted by a last request from Mr. Spiro, the old man who became Victor’s mentor and helped him take on his stutter in the beloved novel Paperboy, a Newbery Honor Book. Victor takes off on a journey that sends him hundreds of miles from home—toward the teeth of a gathering storm. Confronted by an unfamiliar and threatening world, he meets a girl who is strong, smart, and bold like no one he’s known before, and together they venture to the place where river meets sea. When they wind up racing to evade a hurricane, Victor finds out what the fates have in store for him. Q&A with the author. Black-and-white maps.
Topics Automobile travel. Death. Coming of age. Interpersonal relations. Stuttering. Newspaper employees. Self-esteem. Family life. Memphis, Tennessee. Twentieth-century US history. Hurricanes. Louisiana. Mississippi River.
SRC Level 5.600000
SRC Points 16.000000
Lexile 840L
Trim Size 8 1/4" x 5 1/2"
JLG Span Fall
Language English
Rights type Print
Publication date 2018-07-31
JLG Release Date Sep 2018
Minimum grade 6
Maximum grade 8
Reading level Middle
Format Print
Upper Middle School Fiction Plus (Grades 6-8)
Upper Middle School Fiction Plus
Upper Middle School Fiction Plus (Grades 6-8)
For Grades 6-8
This collection features fiction titles selected for older middle school readers who are ready for longer, more layered stories that explore growing independence and changing perspective. Selections include realistic and speculative fiction with increased emotional and narrative complexity, offering stories that look beyond immediate experience and invite readers to engage with broader questions about identity, belonging, and the world around them.