Book Review: WONDER by R.J. Palacio

The story is about a boy born with microtia and hemifacial microsomia.
It is surprisingly uplifting and a very fast read.

Guest post book review by Sally Wendkos Olds

This #1 best-selling book for middle-schoolers, which has held its top place on the New York Times list for four months, is a wondrous novel that deserves its popularity. One reason for its prime place is the fact that so many adults are reading it. It was recommended to me by one adult – my daughter, who works with the Little Baby Face Foundation, a remarkable charity that provides free corrective surgery for children with disfiguring birth defects. She’d learned of it from another adult. I couldn’t put the book down, and I cried, laughed, and rejoiced in its message of the importance of kindness and the triumph of a boy faced with so many obstacles.

The novel’s central character, August Pullman, was born with a severe facial deformity that, despite 27 operations, still produces horrified reactions from almost everyone he encounters. Previously home-schooled because of his surgeries, his other medical problems, and his appearance, now Auggie is starting fifth grade at Beecher Prep, a mainstream private school. Auggie wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid, but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. The book is reminiscent of the movie “Mask” and the play “The Elephant Man,” and is even more moving since it is a story of a child.

WONDER begins from Auggie’s point of view and then, Rashomon-like, expands to speak in the voices of his older sister and her friends, his classmates, and then comes back to Auggie. The only person we don’t hear from is the class bully – it would have been illuminating to hear how he justified his meanness to Auggie and those who befriend him – but this is a minor cavil in a wonderful portrait of a community’s struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance.

One of Auggie’s teacher’s precepts, “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind,” is the overarching theme of the book, and even if you don’t know anyone like Auggie, you will be moved to lead your life with a greater awareness of the need to be kind. The book is also a good, fast, and suspenseful read.

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Sally Wendkos Olds has written extensively about intimate relationships, personal growth, and developmental issues throughout the life cycle, and has won national awards for both her book and magazine writing. In addition to her classic, The Complete Book of Breastfeeding, first published in 1972 and revised for its fourth edition in 2010, she is the author of ten other books, including Super Granny: Great Stuff to Do with Your Grandkids, and hundreds of magazine articles for major publications.

A former president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, she received the ASJA Career Achievement Award in 2010. She is currently writing a book for people whose life partner died a year or more previously. You can find out more about her on her website and blog.

1 thought on “Book Review: WONDER by R.J. Palacio”

  1. I wanted to touch base about this book, as my 8yo and I are halfway through in anticipation of a discussion with parents and children in May at my daughter’s elementary school. Everyone seems to like it, and the NYT review was also positive. But I am at a loss, as I find it really poorly done. The characters all speak in the same voice. For example, three characters independently of each other call August a “zombie.” Adults and children are speaking in the same slang. It’s got a lot of negative language I wouldn’t want to promote. And it’s just not believable or logical that two children would give up other friends full time like the two who befriend August do. I had a brother with a milder disability, and though his appearance was fine, he went through his school years with ridicule and almost no friends, just one child really came to the house that I remember until I went to college…I feel like the book doesn’t ring true and is hollow. It has nothing to do with raising my child to accept and be kind to others, especially the underdog or the person who is different. But my daughter and I have both discussed how the book is “over the top.” I find the underlying attitude to be snide toward authority as well, the jokes about the principal’s name and the principal’s letter putting down a board member’s son, an act that in reality would probably cost him his job.

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