WONDER, by R.J. Palacio

Quick Facts:
- 320 pages
- New York Times Bestseller

Authors who depict characters with any sort of physical or mental health impairment inevitably are faced with a decision: whether or not to name the affliction. Though a seemingly trivial point, giving name to a character's illness can actually undermine the author's original message, if not handled carefully. Naming an illness, after all, requires that the author depict it authentically, and too often I've witnessed the poignancy of a character's struggle get lost in the medical research crammed in to ensure the condition is not misrepresented.

In Wonder, the reader is introduced to Auggie, a child who's physical deformities have kept him within the protective fold of his family since he was born. The story begins as Auggie enters his fifth grade year, attending for the first time a school with his peers. Though there are glimpses and hints into the specific nature of Auggie's condition throughout the book, the most illuminating line (both in terms of Auggie's physical appearance and his own perspective on it) is on the very first page of the book:

"My name is August, by the way. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse." - Wonder, page 3

R.J. Palacio never tells her reader specifically why August looks the way he does, and this allows the focus of the novel to rest not on the gratuitous medical details of his condition, but on the very real struggles (and joys!) he and his family encounter as a result of it. This choice does great service not only to the characters of the novel, but to the reader as well. Auggie can be anyone we've ever seen who's visibly different. For young readers in particular, still learning to navigate their social worlds with compassion, leaving Auggie's condition ambiguous makes it easily transferrable to situations they have encountered and will encounter in the future.

One of the things that Wonder does very well is highlight the way in which Auggie is not the only one affected by his differences. Though she begins the story from Auggie's perspective, Palacio propels the story from the point of view of several important people in Auggie's life, including his sister, his friends, and even his sister's boyfriend. Though Auggie remains always the central protagonist of the story, this insight in to the minds of the people surrounding him drives home the message that compassion and understanding are things we must choose. Told purely from Auggie's perspective, the novel would have been a moving account of a unique child's experience. With the accompanying perspectives, it becomes an exploration into the very real challenges of treating honestly and fairly someone so visibly different from the norm, and a call for all of us to look inside ourselves and to be better.

Aside from Auggie himself, two of the most compelling perspectives are those of Auggie's sister, Via, and his best friend, Jack. I say this because both of these sections give very legitimate exploration of the characters' less noble feelings. Take, for example, this section from Via's section:

"But as [Auggie] was kissing me with all his heart, all I could see was the drool coming down his chin. And suddenly there I was, like all those people who would stare or look away. 
Horrified. Sickened. Scared."
- Wonder, page 86

Via is a fiercely protective and loving older sister to Auggie, though she has recently become more distant. The quote above describes the first time she saw Auggie without the lens of protective and loving sibling, and it's pretty wrenching. Having already read Auggie's section, the reader knows how much he adores Via, and how this would hurt him. And yet, Via is a child, too. She's a child struggling with what it means to be kind and good and to take care of her little brother, and this quote is a very legitimate expression of that struggle. Too often, children are told to be compassionate of those different than themselves without any guidance about what that compassion really means. They are told to be better without any allowance that they are encountering these things for the first time and are going to have reactions of which they are less than proud. What Wonder does is tell kids: Hey, you're feelings are valid. But that doesn't mean they are right or fair. It's up to you to choose compassion over indifference, love over hate.

The same goes for Jack's section, in which he struggles with the very-real middle school dilemma of whether to be popular or kind. As adults it's easy to dismiss this struggle as a superficial one- but that's only because we've already come out the other side of it. The power of Wonder is the way in which it validates its characters' feelings while still asking them to step up and choose to be better.

Wonder is a beautiful, funny, and heartbreaking book that (unsurprisingly, given all I've described) had me in tears a fair bit of the time. Upon finishing it, I was reminded of a quote from another story that consistently makes me teary in its honest exploration of human emotions:

"I said you need to strive to be better than everyone else. I didn't say you needed to be better than everyone else. But you gotta try. That's what character is. It's in the trying."
- Friday Night Lights, "The Right Hand of the Father" (Season 5, Episode 3)