{"id":12190,"date":"2014-02-24T20:17:57","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T02:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=12190"},"modified":"2014-02-24T20:17:57","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T02:17:57","slug":"book-review-wonder-by-r-j-palacio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2014\/20140224-12190.htm","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Wonder<\/em> by R.J. Palacio"},"content":{"rendered":"

August Pullman has only ever been homeschooled, with only a few friends outside of his family. So when his parents decide it’s a good idea to send him to a local private middle school for fifth grade (go figure), he’s understandably nervous.<\/p>\n

Except August isn’t just nervous because he’s a sheltered homeschooler. He’s worried because…well, his face…<\/p>\n

August was born with a rare genetic anomaly (never given the name Treacher-Collins in the book, but that’s what it is) that resulted in a slew of “craniofacial abnormalities”. That’s the nice way to say it.<\/p>\n

Most kids just call him “freak”.<\/p>\n

My church’s book club selected this book for their February discussion, so Daniel and I listened to an audio version on our way up to and back down from Lincoln this last weekend. <\/p>\n

Let me tell you first that the women in the bookclub were almost unanimous in loving this book. I felt a bit like a sore thumb, as the newest member of the group (it was my first discussion with them) and as one who just wasn’t crazy about Wonder<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It was a nice story. It was cute. It was the first book I’ve read in which the main character had craniofacial abnormalities. But it wasn’t great.<\/p>\n

The story was told from the perspective of a half dozen kids, alternating narrators every few chapters (with a bit of overlap on key scenes). I liked seeing from multiple limited viewpoints. But the kids all sounded alike (that is, there wasn’t anything in the writing<\/i> to make them different–the voice actors were VERY different.) A couple of high schoolers who gave their perspectives added elements I didn’t like, that I thought were too mature for a novel about a fifth grader. <\/p>\n

Furthermore, I felt like both the story and the characters were there to serve a moral. The author was trying to make a point first and the story was just there to make that point. <\/p>\n

I feel bad, writing such a negative sounding review. So many others loved this book–and I concede that it’s not a bad book.<\/p>\n

But my perspective is likely clouded by my experience reading Tony Abbott’s Firegirl<\/em><\/a> (link to my review). Like Wonder<\/em>, Firegirl<\/em> is a middle grade novel about a child with a “deformed” face. Both are told from a child’s perspective. Both have a moral of sorts. But Firegirl<\/em> outperforms Wonder<\/em> in every way (assuming my memory of Firegirl<\/i> is accurate.) <\/p>\n

Firegirl<\/em> is very suitable for a middle grade audience, with little besides necessary discomfort with the topic to give any pause. Firegirl<\/em> has dynamic, well-formed characters. And Firegirl<\/em> doesn’t make obsessive mention of popular culture, making it suitable for more than just the next two years (I got so frustrated with the “product placement” in Wonder<\/em>. Just off the top of my head, we’ve got mention of an iMac, an X-box 360, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Star Wars, some brand name jacket\/hoodie, and a cartoon I didn’t recognize. And that’s with me not being a detail person–especially not when listening versus actually reading.)<\/p>\n

So, yeah. Um. <\/p>\n

Read Firegirl<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

Rating:<\/b> 3 stars
\nCategory:<\/b> Middle Grade Fiction
\nSynopsis:<\/b> Fifth Grade August Pullman, whose face is disfigured by a rare congenital condition, goes to school with other kids for the first time.
\nRecommendation:<\/b> Clearly not my favorite book. It wasn’t awful, but Tony Abbott’s Firegirl<\/i> did a much better job with a similar story.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August Pullman has only ever been homeschooled, with only a few friends outside of his family. So when his parents decide it’s a good idea to send him to a local private middle school for fifth grade (go figure), he’s understandably nervous. Except August isn’t just nervous because he’s a sheltered homeschooler. He’s worried because…well, … Read more Book Review: Wonder<\/em> by R.J. Palacio<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[36],"tags":[47,432,1280,1163,1279],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12190"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12193,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12190\/revisions\/12193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}