Shelf Life: RJ Palacio’s ‘Wonder’ Is a Crash Course in Kindness

RJ Palacio’s Wonder is all heart, even in its saddest moments.

“Why do I have to be so ugly mommy?”, Auggie asks with tears rolling down his face. She replies with belief in her eyes, “You are not ugly Auggie”. He snaps back, “You just have to say that because you’re my mom!”

“Because I’m your mom, it counts the most, because I know you the most.”

RJ Palacio’s Wonder is probably the most brutal children’s book you’ll ever read, and for that reason, the most real too. A story about a fifth grader, who was born with a facial anomaly that makes his face look like it melted in a fire even after 27 corrective surgeries, is all heart even in its saddest moments.

But the message at its core is what makes it truly special - you can’t blend in when you’re born to stand out.

While most parents push their kids to be extraordinary, here’s a family that couldn’t love the idea of ordinary more.

August Pullman is about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep. He’s never been to a mainstream school before. He doesn’t like being around people, because they stare, or worse, scream and run away, like they’ve seen a ghost. If there’s one superpower Auggie would give up everything for, it is to be invisible. His parents are even more petrified about him starting school. Not only are they raising a child who has a battle to fight in the world every single day, but they’re raising him to be a good human being too.

Palacio breaks down compassion and kindness for kids like never before, by revealing what motivates meanness and bullying.

What’s truly beautiful is that Wonder tells the same story from a range of perspectives. While the main narrative is Auggie’s, Palacio flips the situation to explain for example, the complexes that Olivia, his sister, fights everyday to be able to love him, and even how Julian, the bully in Auggie’s life, thinks and feels.

In fact, why you love Auggie is because he finds it in his heart to accept the world (and the jerks in it), for what it is.

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Up until the Julian chapter, you perceive this ‘normal’ 5th grader as a rather one-sided character, who makes school a very wounding experience for Auggie. But thereafter, one begins to understand that the nasty kid at school has his own battles to fight.

Wonder feels like being in a mirror maze. But as you’re walking through the minds of the six main characters of the story, something that might even remind you of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, what you see in the reflections is your own self.

If you’re a parent, Wonder will change your world even more. While life’s hard for Auggie, but it’s his parents who are on an excruciating journey of letting go. The clear-eyed intelligence of Palacio’s story never descends into cynicism.

“Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams.”

In fact, it’s proof of the fact that we’re born with an inner voice that we systematically learn to drown out as we grow up, only to fit into the world, which never ceases to judge.

The parents of some of the other kids at school, including Julian’s, think it is unfair for Mr Tushman, the chirpy principal, to have allowed Auggie into a non-inclusion school like Beecher Prep. But he stands up for Auggie and explains to the grown ups that his facial disformity is in no way a disability. Julian, for the very first time, realises that his ‘supermom’ is being unkind to a harmless fifth grader.

Wonder talks of kindness as a boomerang and what a wonderfully easy though that is for a child to wrap his/her head around. The book is already being made into a motion picture starring Jacob Tremblay, Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, and it’s trailer captures the spirit of Auggie with as much charm, heart and humour as Palacio’s book.

Wonder will leave you uplifted as Auggie makes the almost impossible journey from “I wish we could all wear masks all the time” to “I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.”

(We all love to express ourselves, but how often do we do it in our mother tongue?
Here's your chance! This Independence Day, khul ke bol with BOL – Love your Bhasha. Sing, write, perform, spew poetry – whatever you like – in your mother tongue. Send us your BOL at [e-mail] or WhatsApp it to 9910181818.)