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    Pay it Forward
    Pay it Forward
    Pay it Forward
    Audiobook8 hours

    Pay it Forward

    Written by Catherine Ryan Hyde

    Narrated by William Dufris

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJan 3, 2012
    ISBN9781442350069
    Pay it Forward
    Author

    Catherine Ryan Hyde

    Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of thirty-three published books. Her bestselling 1999 novel, Pay It Forward, adapted into a major Warner Bros. motion picture, made the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults list and was translated into more than two dozen languages for distribution in more than thirty countries. Her novels Becoming Chloe and Jumpstart the World were included on the ALA’s Rainbow List; Jumpstart the World was also a finalist for two Lambda Literary Awards and won Rainbow Awards in two categories. The Language of Hoofbeats won a Rainbow Award. More than fifty of her short stories have been published in many journals, including the Antioch Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and the Sun, and in the anthologies Santa Barbara Stories and California Shorts, as well as the bestselling anthology Dog Is My Co-Pilot. Her short fiction received honorable mention in the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, a second-place win for the Tobias Wolff Award, and nominations for Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize. Three have also been cited in Best American Short Stories. Hyde is the founder and former president of the Pay It Forward Foundation. As a professional public speaker, she has addressed the National Conference on Education, twice spoken at Cornell University, met with AmeriCorps members at the White House, and shared a dais with Bill Clinton. An avid equestrian, photographer, and traveler, she lives in California.

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    Reviews for Pay it Forward

    4.5/5

    42 ratings7 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A wonderful story about a boy who sets out to change the world. Treavor takes a school assignment set by his Social Studies teacher to come up with an idea that will make a positive change in the world. At first his attempts seem to fail, only he doesn’t realize that his idea really is making a difference. Be sure you have a box of tissues handy at the end.
    • 4/5
      The movie was choppy. The book made the story flow much more smoothly. A great concept and well done.
    • 4/5
      PAY IT FORWARD review, by NicPay It Forward, by Catherine Ryan Hyde, is a feel good story with a lot of substance. After being given a class assignment to find a way to change the world, 12 year-old Trevor McKinney creates the ingenious idea of ‘paying it forward’. He proposes that if he does good deeds for three people, and each of them does the same (and so forth) the world would most certainly change. I like that this story isn’t saccharine-sweet. It shows the diverse problems of society as well as the good. I don’t want to give too much story-info that might affect the surprises, twists and turns; but make no mistake, they are there! I rarely prefer a movie over a book, but in this case, I felt the movie was just a tad better.
    • 3/5
      The phrase "Pay it Forward" is common enough. But I hadn't ever read the book, so when I found it at the thrift store, I thought it looked like it was worth a try. I'm glad I picked it up.
    • 5/5
      "Pay It Forward" is a really good book. I absolutely loved it. I liked it so much, because it shows the good and the bad sides of human nature. It shows the good side, by having Trevor come up with the idea of "paying it forward" and helping people out in a big way to them and having them "pay it forward" to other people. It shows the bad side of human nature by having Jerry, the first person Trevor helps, go to jail as soon as Trevor gets him back on his feet. Another example of bad human nature, is at the end of the book. I will not tell what happens at the end, because I want people to read the book to find out what happens. The book has a depressing mood, throughout the book, which will explain itself when people read the book and get to the end. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves books to make you feel good, cause it does make you feel better about things.
    • 4/5
      Themes: helping others, race, family, changeSetting: California 1990sTrevor is a 12 year old junior high student and nice kid. Arlene is his mother, a recovering alcoholic and single mom. Reuben is his teacher, a Vietnam vet with physical and emotional scars from the war. And Trevor has an idea that will change the world.This book and the movie are pretty much a part of popular culture. The phrase "Pay it Forward" is common enough. But I hadn't ever read the book, so when I found it at the thrift store, I thought it looked like it was worth a try. I'm glad I picked it up.The story is pretty straight forward. I haven't seen the movie, but I have to admit that I kept picturing Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment as Arlene and Trevor. But Reuben was nothing like Kevin Spacey, being a Black man who is missing an eye. I can see that the disfigurement would be hard to leave in the movie and make it convincing, but why did they change his race? That was an important part of the book.As a story, I enjoyed it. As a believable recipe for social change, I'm not buying it. People are not that altruistic. It's too bad, but there it is. In the book, gang violence drops by 80%. In a book, that might work. In real life? No way. Still, it was a nice feel-good story. I'd call it a fantasy. 3.5 stars
    • 3/5
      I liked everything about the book but for the use of profanity. Using the Lord’s name in vain didn’t add anything to the story and made me decide to not listen to another one of her books.