As a person that loves watching movies, I was completely devastated when I ran out of choices! I spent two weeks exploring different movie apps, rental apps but I just could not find anything ! There was no new movie to watch! I was stuck at the end. Part of me wondered if I would ever find a new movie ever again. Everyday I checked what was playing in the cinema, hoping to find anything that would bring me peace for a little while. At least till a new movie came out, if there ever would be, but all of the movies were just old ones that I had already watched. I thought I would be stuck in Boredom land forever until just recently, a friend from school recommended to me a book called Wonder.
Challenge accepted! I searched every platform, movie sitings there ever was for a movie named Wonder, but I had no luck. Finally, I had no choice but to just read the…, I gulped. Book! As I slowly picked it up, I read chapter one, then two and before I knew it, the book was finished in two days. Personal Record! I just couldn’t help it! The book was too good. I was so jubilant with myself. I was hooked, after everything I wanted to read more and more, But the reason I loved this book was because it was so unique. The book was about an ordinary boy that did ordinary things but turns out, he was not so ordinary.
August Pullman, Auggie has had 27 surgeries ever since he was born so the doctors could fix his face a bit more. Auggie has been homeschooled for all his life. A disease called Mandibulofacial dysostosis has made him a laughing stock at his new school, and it is starting to affect everything he does. His knowledge, hair, likes/dislikes and Auggie is being underestimated. Until he has made a couple of friends, and that changes everything for him. With Auggie getting talked bad about, people are laughing and making jokes about him. But with his new friends, he can definitely get through the year. Now this Sublime author, R.J Palacio has some unique skills and talent. She is sixty one years old up to this day and is still in her best condition.
R.J Palacio was born on 13 July, in the year 1963. She grew up in New York, and went to college at the American University of France. She started off as an illustrator, designing books for other authors like Paul Austor, Thomas Pynchon and others. For the first two decades of her career, she started writing novels after her day job as a designer. Then on February 14, 2012 she published Wonder. Rj Palicio said that Wonder is partly inspired by an incident where her son started to cry after noticing a girl with severe face deformity in an ice cream shop.
Later that night she heard the song on the radio, Wonder by Natalie Merchant, making her think about the ice cream incident, and something about those words inspired her to write a novel about a similar story with different impacts. That very night, she got started on Wonder. That’s how Wonder was created. Personally, I love the book Wonder because it includes the most positive lessons like dont judge a book by it’s cover, given the choice to be right or kind, choose kind, stand up to others, be brave and fight your own battles, and stand out and own yourself. These are just a few life lessons from the book but there are plenty more.
Other than these life lessons I truly liked the book because it was an unexpected plot, something that one in a million authors would decide to write about. I loved the story because R.J Palacio added realism to the story like no one else could. She used a different style of writing to really touch people’s hearts, but the reason I really loved the story was because it changed the way I thought about people. That’s why I really loved reading Wonder.
I would recommend this book to every single person in this world as soon as they reach the age of eight years old. Although if I could just pick a few people/ schools I would recommend it too….., Middle & High school students because, in lots of teen years with growth hormones and mood swings people can use anger as a sign of bullying to others. So I think that if teens could read this book it could give them a fresh perspective, alongside ready for the future. To be prepared for any case scenario.
I would also recommend this to any school counselors to help them show students that everyone faces challenges. Some might be big and others not as much, but no matter how big in size there will always be solutions to everything. You just have to stay calm and ignore or stand up for yourself. I think that we, as a community can learn lots from this book. If I was the main character, August Pullman I would learn about how to be resilient and learn how to stand up for myself in the real world.
I would also be exposed to some solutions of how to solve these problems instead of just avoiding them. We live in a community that is very opinionated, and it is always good to know and listen to others to see both sides of the story. As we can then understand the reactions and decisions people make about how they would want to treat me if I was August Pullman. And now finally, I think that in the book, people should not have seen Auggie as a weird kid in any way. Even though he looked different, people should have not automatically judged him, without even looking into his shoes. This lesson is not just to be taught based on the book, but should be worldwide. I love Wonder.
By- Tanvi Kalani
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