Pay it forward

Eugene Simonet, a social studies teacher, hands his junior high class a challenge: devise a way to make the world a little better, then carry it out. Trevor McKinney, one of his students, comes up with a plan built on paying forward favors. Trevor's efforts reach his struggling single mother and ripple outward, sparking a nationwide surge of generosity that he never anticipated.

The novel follows the chain of kindness from a single schoolroom into everyday life, looking at how one good deed can reshape the people who receive it and the people who pass it along. Its tone is warm and hopeful, and its characters are ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary idea.

Catherine Ryan Hyde's book was adapted into a 2000 film starring Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment.