Wonder

Literary fiction

First published: 2012
Print length: 315 pagesAlfred A. Knopf, 2012

Description

Ten-year-old August Pullman has spent years being homeschooled in Upper Manhattan while undergoing surgeries related to his facial differences. When his parents enroll him in fifth grade at Beecher Prep, ordinary school routines become tests of how strangers respond to someone they consider unusual. August faces open cruelty from Julian and his friends, but he also finds companionship with Summer and Jack. The pressure surrounding those friendships divides classmates and forces Jack to choose between popularity and loyalty. At home, August's older sister, Via, struggles with the family's focus on him and her own wish for an identity beyond his needs. The children's novel explores bullying, courage, and belonging through the consequences of everyday choices about whom to notice, exclude, defend, or understand.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Dialogue-driven · Direct

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Earnest · Hopeful · Intimate · Warm

Structure

Braided · Linear

Focus

Character · Relationships

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

BelongingCommunityFamilyFriendshipIdentityMorality

About R. J. Palacio

R. J. Palacio is an American children’s author, illustrator, and longtime book-cover designer whose fiction examines how young people respond to difference, exclusion, and moral pressure. Her prose is usually direct and conversational, with dialogue and ordinary social encounters carrying much of the action. Wonder follows Auggie Pullman’s entry into fifth grade, but its attention extends beyond his experience to the classmates and family members whose loyalties, resentments, and private difficulties complicate the story. Palacio develops that perspectival method in Auggie & Me, shifting narration to a bully, an old friend, and a student guide so that familiar events acquire different meanings and bystanders become accountable for their choices. She also works across forms and historical settings. The graphic novel White Bird places a Jewish child in hiding in Nazi-occupied France and frames survival through an older woman’s act of remembrance. Whether using prose or sequential art, Palacio builds her narratives from clearly drawn predicaments, accessible language, and the accumulating consequences of small decisions to notice, ignore, shelter, or defend another person.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Language: English
ISBN: 9780375869020

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