Book Title – Wonder
Author – R.J.Palacio
Published By – Penguin Random House
Recommended Age Group – 10+ years

When I finally finished Wonder, it was hard to stop thinking about how it inspired and refreshed me. The positive feedback covering the inside pages and back cover of the book could only begin to describe the great emotional journey that is Wonder. It is a book that I can guarantee will leave any reader feeling better.

“My name is August. I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.”

August is ten years old, and he does the normal things that other ten-year-olds do. He likes ice cream and riding his bike. He plays ball and has an Xbox, but despite 27 operations, he will never look normal.

Things are tough for August and his family, too. His protective big sister, Via, feels angry when people stare, and his parents love him yet cannot help but argue about whether August should go to school.

“Honey, we need to send him to school,” Isabel said. “We can’t just send him there like a lamb to the slaughter.” Nate said.

What were the chances that Auggie’s face turned out the way that it did? The face of a boy who was unlucky enough to get a double dose of a mutant gene that makes him and his family not so ordinary after all.

When August begins middle school, he is nervous. Not only is he nervous for the same reasons as every other child in his new class, but because August cannot walk down the corridor without being the subject of stares and cruelty.

August lives in a brutal world. So surely, middle school is the last place he could ever hope to be treated normal, right?

This book gives the readers a realistic look at the frankly brutal reality that is a hugely hushed topic in children’s books. Wonder is about something that we don’t like to talk about because it is so rare and so sad. But August is a boy who can’t be hushed into silence or invisibility in his world simply because of the way he looks.

This book is bold, funny, and engaging. If someone had told me about the topic of this book before I read it, I think I would have mostly chosen to read it because I did not want to walk away from the sad truths, and I owed it to people who have similar problems to August. However, I found instead that I enjoyed it because it is written with such charm and heart, even in the sad parts. It manages to be about a person with an unlucky and rare syndrome, whom we love not out of sympathy (although this book oozes reality and raw emotion), but out of love for him. No one could say that Wonder creates a nice world for the unfortunate protagonist, but something even more deeply rooted than the sadness in the book definitely prevails, and that is the sense of love and goodness that leaves you infused with inspiration and appreciation for the good things.

I would give this book five stars and consider it to be equally good for boys and girls. I think that Wonder deserves to be the international bestseller that it is, as it can hook everyone who reads it. It is a bold, brilliant book that is well worth a read by anyone who is prepared to be amazed and can appreciate a good book. 

You can get your copy of the book from here.

Cover Image Credit – https://aizelmacaldo.blogspot.com/

// This book review has been penned by 10-year-old Aarna Juneja as a part of a book reviewing writing workshop conducted by Beyond the Box //