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Pay it Forward

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Pay it Forward

By: Catherine Ryan Hyde
Narrated by: William Dufris
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About this listen

An immediate bestseller when first published, Pay It Forward captured hearts all over the world, became a wildly popular film, and spawned a generation of increased altruism. This anniversary edition includes a new introduction by the author. It takes an inspiring and moving tale of a young boy who believed in the power of kindness and brings it to a new generation of readers.

Twelve-year-old Trevor McKinney accepts his social studies teacher’s challenge: come up with a plan to change the world. His idea is simple: Do a good deed for three people and ask them to “pay it forward” to three others in need. He envisions a vast movement of kindness and goodwill spreading beyond his small California town and across the world. The project, however, appears to falter. Jerry, a bum who receives some allowance money from Trevor, returns to a life of dissolution. Trevor wants his pretty, hardworking mother—a woman who raised him lovingly despite struggles with alcoholism—to marry his teacher, Reuben St. Clair. Reuben is a scarred, bitter, untrusting man with a disfiguring injury from Vietnam. He seems to come alive only when in front of his class. For a time that matchmaking brings nothing but problems. Ultimately, though, unusual things start to happen. Crime rates dip across the nation, and nobody seems to know why. Then a journalist tracks down the source: an epidemic of random acts of kindness.

Anyone who has ever despaired of one person’s ability to effect change will rejoice in Trevor’s courage and determination to see the good in everyone.
Contemporary Family Life Genre Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Funny
All stars
Most relevant

If you could sum up Pay It Forward in three words, what would they be?

Great listen, and a fab concepts...I'd like to start paying it forwards but how?

Who was your favorite character and why?

The teachers...encouragement

Have you listened to any of William Dufris’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Fine

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Already a film

Would love this in practice!

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having loved the film I searched for the book. I found it on cd but gave up on it because of all the different narrators reading the parts.
I was so happy to find this version on audible, just one narrator who did a good job of performing the book. his female voices were passable because having a deeper voice it is harder for him to do them.
the only big difference from the film is that the teacher in the book is black.
if you like the film you won't be disappointed by the book. if you haven't seem the film I can recommend the book. good characterisation and plot.

book film was based on.

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