October 13, 2015
When I was in middle school, there was a girl at my church who was a year ahead of me at school. She was clearly born with some sort of abnormality, because she didn't look "normal." I remember sitting in chorus class on one of the last days of school, as our director made us watch the seventh graders' concert performance from the previous week. As the camera panned across the faces of our older peers, this girl's face came on the screen. There was a lot of cries of "ew!" and laughter around the room. It pissed me off, since I knew her from church and knew she was all right, but I just shook my head and didn't say anything. It made me think that this girl probably had to deal with stupid shit like that every day of her life.
Auggie Pullman, the main character of this book, has different abnormalities than my old schoolmate, but fundamentally they have the same situation: their looks always have, and always will, be the main thing that most people know them for. Ignorant people are disgusted or scared. They're called many ugly names, not always to their faces, but still. Jack's right when he says it would be tough to be Auggie, but it's other people who make it tough for him. As though dozens of surgeries before the age of 10 just to be a functioning person weren't enough to deal with.
Auggie attends school for the first time as a fifth grader. He's smart and his parents are well off, so he goes to a private school. Still, he only makes a few friends at the start, and is mostly seen as a pariah by most of his classmates. They won't even touch him. It's nice to see that most of them get over this as they get to know Auggie, and some come to his defense when he's bullied by some bigger, older kids on a field trip. It's a good ending for Auggie.
I appreciated that the book presented other perspectives besides Auggie's. His sister Olivia isn't exactly bitter about not getting nearly as much attention from her folks, but it's clear that it hurts her, even just a little. Jack seemed like a little jerk until his perspective is presented; then it's clear that he's a decent kid who, like any decent kid, says and does stupid things sometimes. I imagine that even Julian would look decent if he'd told any of the story. He came by his bad attitude honestly; his mother actually had Auggie cropped out of her copy of the fifth grade class photo. Dumb bitch!
The only perspective I didn't "get" was Olivia's boyfriend. He's quirky; he's a fiddler with Tourette's. But his POV is so short that it kind of just felt tossed in, and it didn't really give me a new frame through which to view Auggie. Knowing that Palacio has written more books about these characters, I wonder if this guy's story will be told.
I got really emotional when Daisy, the Pullman family dog, died. I mean, like, sobbing and crying, "no!" I can't even handle dogs dying. My Dog Skip? Forget about it. The second to last episode of Wilfred? Hot mess alert. Seymour from Futurama? Don't even talk to me. People dying can be touching, but a good, sweet dog? Shut up.
I felt like this was a fantastic book, and one I hope many kids in middle school (or even older "kids" like me) read. We're told that looks don't matter, and for everyone, that's bullshit. But this book has a great message about seeing beyond looks. Auggie was not just his face, though that does have a lot to do with how he approaches and views the world. He's a Star Wars fanatic, a brilliant student who loves science, and overall, in spite of it all, a normal kid. I think if this book were meant for older readers I'd expect a more complex plot, especially more inclusion of Olivia's boyfriend, but for younger readers, this book is perfect.
