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Summary
Summary
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Millions of people have fallen in love with Auggie Pullman, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face -- who shows us that kindness brings us together no matter how far apart we are. Read the book that inspired the Choose Kind movement, a major motion picture, and the critically acclaimed graphic novel White Bird.
And don't miss R.J. Palacio's highly anticipated new novel, Pony, available now!
I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.
August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid--but his new classmates can't get past Auggie's extraordinary face. Beginning from Auggie's point of view and expanding to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others, the perspectives converge to form a portrait of one community's struggle with empathy, compassion, and acceptance. In a world where bullying among young people is an epidemic, this is a refreshing new narrative full of heart and hope.
R.J. Palacio has called her debut novel "a meditation on kindness" --indeed, every reader will come away with a greater appreciation for the simple courage of friendship. Auggie is a hero to root for, a diamond in the rough who proves that you can't blend in when you were born to stand out.
Reviews (7)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Auggie Pullman was born with severe facial deformities-no outer ears, eyes in the wrong place, his skin "melted"-and he's learned to steel himself against the horrified reactions he produces in strangers. Now, after years of homeschooling, his parents have enrolled him in fifth grade. In short chapters told from various first-person perspectives, debut author Palacio sketches his challenging but triumphant year. Though he has some expectedly horrible experiences at school, Auggie has lucked out with the adults in his life-his parents love him unconditionally, and his principal and teachers value kindness over all other qualities. While one bully manages, temporarily, to turn most of Auggie's classmates against him (Auggie likens this to becoming the human equivalent of "the Cheese Touch," a clever Diary of a Wimpy Kid reference), good wins out. Few first novels pack more of a punch: it's a rare story with the power to open eyes-and hearts-to what it's like to be singled out for a difference you can't control, when all you want is to be just another face in the crowd. Ages 8-12. Agent: Alyssa Eisner Henkin, Trident Media Group. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
"The universe was not kind to Auggie Pullman." Auggie was born with a facial anomaly: his face sags; his eyes are asymmetrical, below the expected placement, and bulging; his oversized nose protrudes; and he lacks ears, eyebrows, eyelashes, and cheekbones. Having been homeschooled all his life, this fifth-grader is now entering school for the first time -- going, as his dad says, "like a lamb to the slaughter." Auggie is used to people looking away, or even recoiling, when they see him, and he's well aware of some of the names he's called: "Rat boy. Freak. Monster. Freddy Krueger. E.T. Gross-out. Lizard face. Mutant." First novelist Palacio shows readers Auggie's feelings and, in various chapters from multiple narrators (his sister and various classmates, for example), how others react to him. But there's also a lot of telling; as in, we're told Auggie is a lot of fun. What we're shown is that he makes a host of self-depreciating remarks, but these comments don't a fun guy make, and they render his characterization fairly one-dimensional. As Auggie seeks friends, we are told how desperately he wants them but little, beyond being the object of kindness, of what he might offer in return. Still, this novel is a heartbreaker, and one that for many readers may redefine bravery in the face of adversity. betty carter (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Kids' books about befriending somebody different could fill a library. But this debut novel rises to the top through its subtle shifting of focus to those who are normal, thereby throwing into doubt presumptions readers may have about any of the characters. Nominally, the story is about 10-year-old August, a homeschooled boy who is about to take the plunge into a private middle school. Even 27 operations later, Auggie's face has what doctors call anomolies; Auggie himself calls it my tiny, mushed-up face. He is gentle and smart, but his mere physical presence sends the lives of a dozen people into a tailspin: his sister, his old friends, the new kids he meets, their parents, the school administrators the list goes on and on. Palacio's bold move is to leave Auggie's first-person story to follow these increasingly tangential characters. This storytelling strategy is always fraught with peril because of how readers must refresh their interest level with each new section. However, much like Ilene Cooper's similarly structured Angel in My Pocket (2011), Palacio's novel feels not only effortless but downright graceful, and by the stand-up-and-cheer conclusion, readers will be doing just that, and feeling as if they are part of this troubled but ultimately warm-hearted community.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
BORN with several genetic abnormalities, 10-year-old August Pullman, called Auggie, dreams of being "ordinary." Inside, he knows he's like every other kid, but even after 27 surgeries, the central character of "Wonder" bears facial disfigurations so pronounced that people who see him for the first time do "that look-away thing" - if they manage to hide their shock and horror. "Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse," he says of his face as the book begins. He's used to the stares and mean comments, but he's still terrified to learn that his parents have gotten him into middle school at Beecher Prep and want him to go there rather than be home-schooled. But they persuade him to give it a try -and by the time this rich and memorable first novel by R. J. Palacio is over, it's not just Auggie but everyone around him who has changed. Stories about unusual children who long to fit in can be particularly wrenching. At their core lurks a kind of loneliness that stirs primal fears of abandonment and isolation. But Palacio gives Auggie a counterweight to his problems: He has the kind of warm and loving family many "normal" children lack. Among their - and the book's - many strengths, the Pullmans share the, um, earthy sense of humor that all kids love. Over the years his parents, Nate and Isabel, have turned the disturbing story of Auggie's birth into high comedy involving a flatulent nurse who fainted at the sight of him, and they persuade him to go to Beecher by riffing hilariously on the name of the school's director, Mr. Tushman. It also helps that the Pullmans' world - they live in a town house in "the hippie-stroller capital of upper Upper Manhattan" - is the privileged, educated upper-middle class, that hotbed of parents who hover and micro-manage the lives of their perfectly fine children. It's somehow weirdly satisfying to see what happens when something actually alarming enters this zone of needless anxiety. Palacio carves a wise and refreshing path, suggesting that while even a kid like August has to be set free to experience the struggles of life, the right type of closeness between parents and children is a transformative force for good. But it's Auggie and the rest of the children who are the real heart of "Wonder," and Palacio captures the voices of girls and boys, fifth graders and teenagers, with equal skill, switching narrators every few chapters to include Auggie's friends and his teenage sister, Via, who wrestles with her resentment, guilt and concern. "We circle around him like he's still the baby he used to be," she observes ruefully. And we see the vicious politics of fifth-grade popularity played out as the class bully targets Auggie and starts a campaign to shun him, culminating in an overnight school trip that turns scary and shuffles the social deck in ways no one could have imagined. While I sobbed several times during "Wonder," my 9-year-old daughter - who loved the book and has been pressing it on her friends - remained dry-eyed. She didn't understand why I thought Auggie's situation might upset her. "I like kids who are different," she said. I realized that what makes her cry are stories in which children suffer because they have missing or neglectful parents and no one to take care of them. Perhaps Palacio's most remarkable trick is leaving us with the impression that Auggie's problems are surmountable in all the ways that count - that he is, in fact, in an enviable position. Maria Russo is a frequent contributor to the Book Review.
School Library Journal Review
August, nicknamed Auggie, is a 10-year-old with a facial deformity that causes others to avoid and even shun him. When he enters a mainstream school, Auggie must learn to cope with difficult new situations and new people. The narrative is told from the perspectives of Auggie, his new friends, his sister, and her boyfriend. Steele's Auggie is raspy, quick, and delivered in a conversational tone, while Rudd and Podehl give a full range of vocal performances that bring the remaining characters to full light. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
"'Yeah, it's no big deal,' he said casually. 'The main thing I have is this thing called man-bi-du-lo-facial dys-os-tosis - which took me forever to learn how to pronounce, by the way. But I also have this other syndrome thing that I can't even pronounce. And these things kind of just morphed together into one big superthing, which is so rare they don't even have a name for it. I mean, I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm actually considered something of a medical wonder, you know.' He smiled. 'That was a joke,' he said. 'You can laugh.'" It is curious how the gravity of serious subjects can be best expressed through humour. Comedy humanises: the light touch gives weight. It's a tactic RJ Palacio has used to great effect in her remarkable story of a year in the life of 10-year-old August Pullman, a boy without a "normal" face. "I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse." As the book opens, he has just agreed - after years of home-schooling and despite his understandable anxiety - to attend a regular school. After encountering ignorance, discrimination and hostility, the sweet-natured Auggie will gradually win sympathy and acceptance, and ultimately triumph over circumstances. Wonder does not depart from this basic model. All the more impressive, then, that it finds ways to make the story hugely compelling as well as moving. It makes ordinary things extraordinary. Simple events of the school year - Halloween, science projects - become unpredictable dramas, some desperately upsetting, some triumphantly joyful. But more striking still, it makes the extraordinary ordinary again, allowing the "Freak" to become Auggie Pullman, a kid at a school. There are technical reasons for this success. The radically short chapters inject speed into the narrative and keep the focus on telling incidentals. The decision to tell the story from the perspectives of several characters opens up startling new views on Auggie and shifts him from centre stage to where he much more interestingly belongs - among his peers. It's a pity, perhaps, that Palacio didn't give voice to Auggie's worst tormenter, the stuck-up bully Julian Albans, but there are terrific contributions from Jack, who has problems becoming Auggie's best friend; Via, Auggie's older sister, struggling with her first year of high school; and Miranda, Via's ex-best friend, who has powerful but barely understood feelings for Auggie. Each account is different but all are vivid. Palacio has a great ear for dialogue, a sharp eye for detail and an instinctive sense of comedy. All this makes her an expert chronicler of ordinariness - and this, paradoxically, is what makes her story of an extraordinary boy so wonderful. There is didacticism - perhaps inevitable - popping up in the quotations that open the sections and in the "precepts" of Mr Browne, the popular English teacher ("Your deeds are your monuments"), but it is done with a light touch. Wonder certainly delivers what it promises - an emotional roller-coaster ride in which tears, laughter and triumphant fist-pumping are mandatory. But it is better than that. In its assured simplicity and boldness (reminiscent - it seemed to me - of To Kill a Mockingbird), it also has the power to move hearts and change minds. Simon Mason's Moon Pie is published by David Fickling. To order Wonder for pounds 8.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Simon Mason There are technical reasons for this success. The radically short chapters inject speed into the narrative and keep the focus on telling incidentals. The decision to tell the story from the perspectives of several characters opens up startling new views on [Auggie Pullman] and shifts him from centre stage to where he much more interestingly belongs - among his peers. It's a pity, perhaps, that [RJ Palacio] didn't give voice to Auggie's worst tormenter, the stuck-up bully Julian Albans, but there are terrific contributions from Jack, who has problems becoming Auggie's best friend; Via, Auggie's older sister, struggling with her first year of high school; and Miranda, Via's ex-best friend, who has powerful but barely understood feelings for Auggie. Each account is different but all are vivid. Palacio has a great ear for dialogue, a sharp eye for detail and an instinctive sense of comedy. All this makes her an expert chronicler of ordinariness - and this, paradoxically, is what makes her story of an extraordinary boy so wonderful. - Simon Mason.
Kirkus Review
(Fiction. 8-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.