Pay it Forward

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.

The movie was choppy. The book made the story flow much more smoothly. A great concept and well done.

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.

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.

"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.

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

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.

At first, I didn't like it much, but I decided to keep going until I got a little more hooked. There are very predictable moments, but the ending is unexpected and very sad. ? (Translated from Spanish)

I found it very hard to read, and in fact, I haven't finished it because I found it heavy and slow, even though I was looking forward to reading something set in the American West. (Translated from Spanish)

This book is very good as a teacher assigns a task to his students in which they have to do something that changes the world. And a boy proposes an idea and carries it out, and he succeeds, but what he actually proposes is to do favors. (Translated from Spanish)