{"id":285757,"date":"2026-09-14T14:14:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/285757\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T14:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T14:14:34","slug":"philadelphia-teenager-author-masood-holloman-writes-book-about-his-stutter-hopes-to-inspire-other-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/285757\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia teenager author Mas’ood Holloman writes book about his stutter, hopes to inspire other kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifteen-year-old Mas’ood Holloman is a baseball player, an entrepreneur and now a published author.<\/p>\n

His first children’s book, “Finding My Voice,” is inspired by his own experience growing up with a stutter.<\/p>\n

The story follows a young baseball player who faces speech challenges but ultimately learns to embrace his stutter as part of what makes him unique.<\/p>\n

“He goes through struggles. It’s based off of me,” Mas’ood said.<\/p>\n

Mas’ood’s mother first noticed his stutter when he was about 3 years old. Because Mas’ood has a twin brother, she was able to see that their speech was developing differently.<\/p>\n

Mas’ood said his stutter has changed over the years, but so has his confidence.<\/p>\n

His aunt encouraged him to turn his experience into a book that could help other young people facing similar challenges.<\/p>\n

“[She said] we should write a kids’ book because I stutter, and for the people who stutter just like me,” Mas’ood said. “She said it would inspire them to keep going.”<\/p>\n

The book’s main character also plays baseball, just like Mas’ood. When he is not working on the field, the young author is busy promoting and selling his book.<\/p>\n

Every Thursday afternoon, Mas’ood sets up a stand at the Point Breeze Community Market<\/a> in Philadelphia. He also takes his sales pitch door to door.<\/p>\n

That determination is how Mas’ood first arrived at the CBS Philadelphia studios with his mother and a copy of his book in hand.<\/p>\n

Now, he hopes his story will remind other children that a stutter does not have to stand in the way of their goals.<\/p>\n

“It makes me proud inside that I actually wrote a book,” Mas’ood said.<\/p>\n

Mas’ood is already working on a second book titled “The Young Voice of a Muslim.”<\/p>\n

He sells “Finding My Voice” Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Point Breeze Community Market.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifteen-year-old Mas’ood Holloman is a baseball player, an entrepreneur and now a published author. His first children’s book,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4662,15328,69,71,70,7523],"class_list":["post-285757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-baseball","tag-disabilities","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-spreading-the-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}