Wonder

Wonder by R. J. Palacio (audio book)

Wonder is the book I was hoping against hope would win the Newbery award because I wanted to read it most desperately. After reading the scholarly reviews, I couldn’t understand why we had ordered only one copy for our shelves. I was positive it would fly off said shelves and never be available. I was determined to purchase more. No, it didn’t win the Newbery. In my opinion, it won bigger. It is on BOTH the 2014 Caudill Nominee list AND the 2014 Bluestem Nominee list. And of course I’m talking it up all over the place!

I’m going to call this a “walk-in-another-person’s-shoes” book. We had a couple of them on the Caudill list last year. There was Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper about a quadriplegic girl in special education, but with an amazing, photographic mind. There was Anything But Typical about the autistic boy who could communicate well through writing, but not in person. Wonder is about ten-year-old Auggie, a boy born with a cranial facial abnormality. For those of us who don’t understand subtleties – his face is deformed. He suffers from a form of Treacher-Collins Syndrome with additional, unspecified complications. He is hard to look at and he knows it.

This novel is told in six voices. Auggie begins the book and ends the story. His is the voice that we most want to hear. Very few of us have any idea whatsoever what it feels like to be substantially different. I know that when I have even a fever blister on my lip, I feel as though everyone is looking at me in disgust. It is the only thing they look at – stare at. It makes me feel like I want to stay in bed. I go to great lengths to cover it up. Auggie states, “I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.” Auggie is used to people looking at him in horror and disgust and fright. It breaks my heart that a child would have to go through life this way. That is the uniqueness of the book. We get to hear his story without having to face him. We fall in love with the child he is inside. And our own lives are put into perspective.

Other voices we hear from include his big sister, Via, her childhood best friend, Miranda, and Via’s first and new boyfriend, Justin. We also hear from a couple of kids, true friends, from his new school, Summer and Jack. Theirs are the voices that we most need to hear. I readily admit that I have a hard time seeing/finding the real person behind the unfortunate circumstances. It is hard to look, but it is also hard to look away. The person becomes the syndrome and loses their individuality. They become a tragedy rather than a miracle. Kids have testified to me that they are scared to look at someone who looks so different. I am ashamed, but I am afraid we are only human until we find the humanity. This book gives us the opportunity to see the person.

So Auggie has been homeschooled up until the age of ten. Part of the reason that his parents kept him home was because of the tremendous amount of painful surgeries Auggie had to go through. They had to protect him from pain and infection. But the obvious reason was to protect his young heart from the stares and the cruelty and the ridicule. His mom decides that he needs to socialize and perhaps she has taught him all that she can, as well as she can. Auggie’s father is blunt. He thinks sending Auggie to a school, even a private school, is like leading a lamb to the slaughter. Auggie is not thrilled, but eventually warms to the idea. And the rest is in the book. Auggie makes his mark. Not with everyone, but with enough people to change the atmosphere of the school. This is an ace in my book! Recommend to 3^rd through 8^th grade kids and their parents.

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