KidLit Forum

"When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind."(Dr Wayne W. Dyer) – these are the words that Palacio’s novel reveals. As my colleagues said, the novel tells the story of August Pullman, who is a ten-year-old boy that loves science but looks different than other children – he was born with a major facial deformity. Therefore, because of this, August has to face people’s prejudices and is often bullied by some pupils at school. However, as the story moves forward, the pupils learn to accept August and become friends with him.

As Selena suggested, the novel is about a profound kindness and sends a powerful message to everybody, whether the readers are children, teenagers, adults, or old people. While you are reading the book, you realize how important a simple act of kindness might be in a person's life. The story leads you to the idea that if you are a little bit kind, you can change somebody's life forever, and I think this is the most beautiful thing that a person can do, and this is actually what makes us human: the acts of kindness.

Besides this powerful message, the novel promotes a sense of empathy for the child in that cause, and especially for the family members. In my case, while I was reading the book, I wondered about what would have been like for me to be in Olivia’s place, or Augusts’ parents. According to the author, after she had encountered a girl with a facial deformity and had had to deal with her children’s reactions to the girl's look, she was keeping wondering about what had been like for the parent’s girl to face with those reactions to their daughter. This seems to be the for Palacio’s novel that became a requiring reading in some schools.

Wonder was one of my favourite ones that we have studied this semester, and I think everybody should read it once in life. Also, I truly believe that Palacio’s novel should be a must-read for pupils, and why not introduced in our school too.

"Wonder" is a moving story and I think it should be a "must read" book on any list worldwide. I liked the simplicity of the language and I think the use of 1st person narrative makes it seem authentic. It is so touching to read his declaration that his one wish was to be "normal".
Reading it I remembered another novel that I read when I was a teenager and which impressed me a great deal. The French writer, Guy des Cars, wrote a book "La brute" in 1951 about a boy who was born blind, deaf and dumb. He had three major disabilities that made impossible to communicate with him and he was considered a monster. Later on, when a murder occurred in the neighborhood he was made the escape goat because there was no way he could defend himself. If you want to see how challenging can be growing up with so poor cards, read that book. It got translated into Romanian. There was a British movie made after the book "The Green Scarf" in 1954. Guy des Cars is a great writer and his novels are quite popular. He shows the depth of human psychology and his characters are impossible to forget.