At the behest of a friend and a fellow book lover, I decided to read the now famous best-seller, ‘Wonder’ by R.J. Palacio. I had heard about the movie before I knew about the book, and was wary of watching it, as I knew that it was the kind that would make me cry. However, I can’t resist a well-written book and I thought that I would be safer from my over-active lachrymal glands, while I am reading a book. Visual stimuli somehow have a quicker impact on my lachrymal secretion. I was wrong though, the book moved me to tears by the end of it and I came out a better person after reading it (hopefully!).
The book, now made famous by its onscreen version starring Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts, is about a child suffering from facial deformity, who decides to end his home-schooling and join a ‘normal’ school inhabited by ‘normal’ kids whose faces look ‘normal’ to the people around. The book takes us through the first year of August ‘Auggie’ Pullman at his school where he learns to be strong, generous, and kind, imparting the same to his classmates.
And this, I feel is the biggest achievement of the writer. She has not only pulled us into the world of Auggie but has given us a three-dimensional view of his world by giving a voice to all the key characters, like his sister, his parents and his friends. We go through the emotions of each person, in their own voice. Reminding one of Kurosowa’s Rashomon and yet without the contradictions, the book makes you ponder, laugh, cry all at once. Auggie has been bestowed with an angst-ridden yet witty demeanour, and tugs at our hearts with every incident.
I would recommend this book for all grown-ups and for kids ten years and up. If empathy is what the world needs from us today, this book teaches us what empathy means in the real word, albeit, through the fictional characters of Auggie and his friends.
A note to parents – While I loved the book, I knew it would be a challenge to make my kid read it (and I so badly wanted her to read it!), as it is far removed from the fantastical worlds of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson that ten year old’s now seem to inhabit. I sounded so desperate when I repeatedly told her that the book is good, she got annoyed and exclaimed, ‘It seems that you are convincing me to read it, somehow.’ So I had to stop myself, lest she took offence and did not read it at all! However, the moment she read the tagline of the book – ‘You can’t blend in when you were born to stand out!’, she was hooked. And I think I know the reason why – her generation is strong-willed with a mind of its own, and the tag line appeals to that individualistic trait. I know that she loved the book because she wouldn’t have finished it otherwise. Not only that, she used a bookmark too, a sure sign that she loved reading it! When I asked her about the book, I got a one-word answer – ‘Nice’!
But one look at her face, and I knew that the book had affected her in more ways than one, I could see a twinkle in her eye that she did not want me to notice 🙂
Go visit Auggie, his family and his friends, it is worth it!
The Plausible Mind 