Paperboy

The narrator notices a woman on his route has a black eye and overhears an awful fight she has with her husband. He also breaks into a man's house and knocks him down when the man comes home. A boy imagines throwing a rock at a kid who bullied him; later he does throw a bottle at a man strangling his nanny. His nanny returns to work after being severely beaten. A man is stabbed in a fight at a seedy bar. A woman reveals that her brother was murdered over a bag of sugar.

The paperboy has a bit of a crush on a lonely and beautiful woman on his route, and she flirts with him while she's drunk. The narrator learns his father isn't named on his birth certificate.

One use of "ass" and two uses of "bitch." A boy calls the nanny the "N" word, though the paperboy says it was only a "bad word...with a hard N sound."

Adults drink, and one character is an alcoholic. Characters smoke, and a woman chews tobacco.

Parents need to know that Newbery Honor Book Paperboy, set in the segregated South, involves situations and attitudes typical of that era and calls for some maturity on the reader's part. A friend of the narrator's mother complains about a plan to integrate the schools, and his African-American nanny has to sit in the back of the bus unless she's with him. The story includes violence and questionable behavior: The narrator notices a woman on his route has a black eye and overhears an awful fight she has with her husband; he also breaks into a man's house and knocks him down when the man comes home. His nanny is severely beaten. A character fantasizes about throwing a rock at a bully and later does throw a bottle at a man who's strangling a woman. A woman reveals that her brother was murdered over a bag of sugar. Learning that his father's not named on his birth certificate, a boy wonders about his mystery parent. Adult characters drink and smoke; one's an alcoholic, and another chews tobacco.