Wonder by R.J. Palacio

After hearing many friends rave about Wonder, I finally picked it up when my book club read it last fall. It started out pretty rough for me. It's the fictional story of a young boy with a severe facial deformity. The story begins as he prepares to enter school for the first time, in 5th grade. And here we reach my first hang-up with the story. Why in the world would parents who have kept their child out of school his entire life choose to have him start in middle school??? I was a normal kid and felt like I got eaten alive in middle school. This poor kid has a facial deformity that makes him look like a monster, and his parents decide to throw him in the lions' den of middle school.

After about 100 pages of reading about this poor boy get picked on and stared at, I looked at how much of the book was left and set it down. A few days later, I realized I really needed to finish it before book club, so I picked it back up. Shortly after my re-entry in the story, a new narrator picked up. Hallelujah! I didn't realize (until this point) the story is actually told from many perspectives: first, August himself, then his family members and friends. Once the narrators started shifting, I actually enjoyed the story. Instead of just seeing one, very painful point of view, I started to see the whole picture.

This book is all about character development. August himself grows by leaps and bounds. But the real story of change is in the people around him as they learn to live alongside this little "Wonder". I still think this is a very strange topic for an author to pick for a fictional story, but Palacio does a great job of revealing the good, the bad and the ugly of human character from a child's perspective.

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Content Warnings: Many people in the book, both kids and adults, say rude, hurtful and downright nasty things to August. It wouldn't be appropriate for very young children, but I think there are things in the story that are great conversation starters for older elementary kids. I know some 5th grade teachers use this as a read-aloud, which I think is a great starting age for this one.

Target Audience: upper-elementary to middle school kids and their parents