This book was absolutely adorable. Think Mary Poppins and Madeleine with just a pinch of Snicket weirdness and a healthy amount of adventure. Think biThis book was absolutely adorable. Think Mary Poppins and Madeleine with just a pinch of Snicket weirdness and a healthy amount of adventure. Think birthday cake on the regular, corgis with clipboards, and indoor blizzards.
I absolutely loved this book. It had all of my favorite Dahl elements - hilarity, fantastic imagination, adventure, and wonderful characters - but wasI absolutely loved this book. It had all of my favorite Dahl elements - hilarity, fantastic imagination, adventure, and wonderful characters - but was also surprisingly tender and even serious at times. It was beautiful.
MY ONE QUALIFICATION OF MY OTHERWISE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR THIS BOOK: (view spoiler)[The story centers around poaching, and one particular poaching expedition. All of the sympathetic characters are involved with/approve of poaching. The excuse given is that the man they poach from is a truly awful person - and he is. I was a bit surprised by all this, given that Dahl also wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which has obvious morals. I would simply recommend that if you are reading this book with/giving this book to a young reader, you discuss whether the poaching is truly justifiable. Since the focus of the book was on the relationship between Danny and his father, this element in no way spoiled the book for me, but I was disappointed by it and thought it important to mention.(hide spoiler)]...more
WHAT I LIKED This book won the RI Children's Book Award last year, and I can see why. It grabs you and pulls you in right away - the first 20 pages arWHAT I LIKED This book won the RI Children's Book Award last year, and I can see why. It grabs you and pulls you in right away - the first 20 pages are still my favorite part. I was fascinated by Auggie Pullman and his struggles, and I loved the whole Pullman family.
I appreciate the depth and roundness of each of the main characters, but especially Via and Jack. I love that Palacio writes in several characters' voices, so that I got to see what was going on in multiple heads and got to understand how knowing and loving Auggie affected his family and friends. Again, I especially appreciated being able to see through Via and Jack's eyes, because they struggled sometimes with accepting Auggie, they acknowledged it wasn't always easy to do the loving/kind thing. They were particularly real to me.
Palacio also created a very real little boy in Auggie: not a perfect little "angel" but a real child, with flaws and frustrations, sometimes selfish and sometimes sweet. She didn't blame his frustrations solely on him, but showed how society treated him like a little freak and pushed him into his shell. She didn't entirely victimize him, either, but allowed him growth and strength to learn to bask in the love of good people, and open up despite the cruelty of outsiders. Overall, I thought Palacio struck a good balance in Auggie.
WHAT I DIDN'T Palacio is clearly trying to give each character a distinctive idiolect, and I respect her commitment to that. However, there are several points in the novel where I found myself rolling my eyes a little bit, points where the young characters sounded like a middle-aged person trying to sound like a kid. Sometimes I think it's better for an author just to write a slightly-advanced child than to try to represent children's slang. Just - don't fake it, guys, anyone who spends a lot of time with children can tell you're faking it.
I was also a little distracted by the ending. It felt over-the-top and not especially realistic.(view spoiler)[The award Tushman presents Auggie with was just a little... unbelievable, I guess. And it's one thing for more kids to accept Auggie, and for him to grow braver, but it's another for him to suddenly be the school celebrity. I don't know, perhaps I'm being cynical, but the ending just felt like a bit of a stretch. But it was a happy stretch, and satisfying when I allowed myself to just go with it.(hide spoiler)]
Finally, I was a little disappointed at the flippant attitude all the characters have toward lying. And I mean all of them: they all lie at the slightest inducement to do so - Mom, Dad, Via, Auggie, Justin, Jack, Miranda, Summer. At times I wondered why any of them would trust any of the others.
OVERALL,I would definitely recommendWonder.It will pull you in and make you love its characters and move you. It will give you a few (new?) perspectives to think about.
OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT:instances of "mild" profanity, which are few and far between and easy to ignore.
Recommended for elementary school (grade 3-ish) and up. ...more
Loading...
