Last Updated on February 27, 2023 by ellen
I used to love paper dolls when I was a child. I had a whole folder of them and they had different outfits and accessories. I used to spend hours imagining the adventures they’d go on and what kind of life they would live if they were real. But, what if they really could have adventures?
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Paper Paulie by LR Claude
Paper Paulie starts out as a school project in Iroquois Falls North Dakota before heading out to the war in Vietnam to meet a soldier named Isaiah Venney, Paper Paulie’s journey doesn’t end in Vietnam but rather continue on to the Desert Storm conflict and then on to the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Follow the journey of a small paper doll made to keep a soldier company and see how he becomes the good luck charm of an entire family.
My thoughts:
Isaiah is a young soldier that’s sent to Vietnam. While he’s there, he receives a letter addressed to “Soldier” from an eight-year-old boy in North Dakota that was written as part of a school project. Along with the letter, the boy sends him a “friend” made of paper named Paper Paulie. He writes back to Georgie (the boy that sent him the letter) and a friendship is formed. Isaiah keeps Paper Paulie in his pocket and starts to think of him as a good luck charm.
Throughout the time that Isaiah spends in Vietnam, Paper Paulie and the letters from Georgie give him a connection to home and his life back in the United States. After he returns home from the war, he finds that the country he left has changed quite a bit and he struggles to find his place. Isaiah marries and they have a child who grows into a man and is sent to fight in the war in the middle East and Paper Paulie takes another journey.
Paper Paulie is more than a story about a paper doll that follows a soldier to war. It’s a story about our country and our changing values. It’s a story about race relations and our changing values. It teaches a lesson that we all need to read.
Ellen is a mom of a 25-year-old son and 30-year-old daughter. She is Grandma to one adorable toddler. In what little spare time she has, she loves to read, watch movies, and check out the latest toys and games.