Wonder

My mom bought my oldest R.J. Palacio's novel Wonder a couple months ago. She found it at  Wonderland, our city's only independent book store. The owner there is great and she highly recommended the book. 

Wonder is the story of a child named August (Auggie) who was born with a severe facial deformity. His parents have home-schooled him to protect him from the unkindness of other kids, but decide he should attend a mainstream school when he is in fifth grade. The novel is a chronicle of this year--not only through the eyes of Auggie, but his family and peers. You come to care deeply about Auggie almost immediately in the first couple pages, which creates a drive to find out what will happen to him. Entertainment Weekly described it as a "page-turner" and at first I thought that was a bit of a stretch, but my son couldn't put it down, begging each night to stay up longer to keep reading. So yes, it really is that good. It is one of those books that makes you a little kinder and richer from having read it. In other words, a book everyone should read.

On the book tour, R.J. Palacio (right) met an 8th grade boy with a similar medical condition as Auggie's.