Wonder
2001
- health
- daily living
- mainstreaming
- craniofacial abnormalities
- young adult fiction
- mark twain award
- special needs
- fiction - social themes - special needs
- diseases illnesses & injuries
- fiction - health & daily living - diseases illnesses & injuries
The story
Wonder is a children's novel written by R. J. Palacio,[2] published on 14 February 2012. R. J. Palacio wrote Wonder after an incident where her son noticed a girl with a severe facial difference and started to cry. Fearing he would react badly, Palacio attempted to remove her son from the situation so as not to upset the girl and her family but ended up worsening the situation. Natalie Merchant's song of the same name made her realize that the incident could illustrate a valuable lesson. Palacio was inspired by Merchant's lyrics and she began writing. She named the book directly after the song and used the song's chorus as the prologue of the first chapter.
What it’s like
Plain, conversational first-person prose with short chapters that pass between narrators, so the book reads quickly and with a warm, chatty intimacy. The voice is a ten-year-old's: funny, observant, a little formal, and often disarmingly honest about being looked at. Its world is an ordinary American school, with lunchrooms, hallways, sleepover anxieties and family kitchens, rendered with unfussy detail. The mood is hopeful and kind, with real sting in it: cruelty from classmates lands hard in several scenes, and there are quiet sad moments, though nothing is graphic. Violence is limited to a few bullying incidents, with no gore or sexual content and only mild swearing. The pace is steady and episodic, building through small social victories and setbacks rather than a single engine. It suits a rainy Sunday, a comfort reread, or a family read-aloud, and it fits readers who want a gentle, emotionally open story about kindness, belonging and seeing people past their appearance.
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