She loves her brother a lot but sometimes feels angry and jealous about all the attention Auggie gets from their parents.

Their perspectives are also very relatable. She does this by fleshing out the supporting characters and making them human with their own flaws, giving them parts of the book with their own perspectives. Palacio also grounds her book deeply in reality, making us feel like Auggie’s family could easily be your next door neighbours. What makes Wonder so inspiring and uplifting, even though it may be marketed to a younger audience, is that Palacio makes the main character Auggie so likeable, smart and personable even with the struggles that he goes through in the novel. This is exactly what she does and she does it very well, making me feel really positive and inspiring a smile after finishing the book.

Palacio hoped that by writing her book, she could spread valuable lessons to children and young adults about acceptance, the importance of good friends and family, tolerance and not giving up when things get bad. Palacio was then further inspired by Natalie Merchant’s song ‘Wonder’, a song about a child with a congenital disease. Palacio makes the main character Auggie so likeable, smart and personable even with the struggles that he goes through in the novel Palacio wrote Wonder after an incident with her son who noticed a girl with a severe facial difficulty. What would already be a difficult thing to do at that age is made harder by the fact that Auggie has a facial disfigurement. Wonder is the story of 10 year old August ‘Auggie ’Pullman and his experience of integrating into school after being homeschooled by his parents. I already had high hopes for this book when I read the title and it didn’t disappoint. The latter is what happened to me when I read Wonder, a 2012 young adult novel by R.J. I love reading and we all read for different reasons: to escape from reality to entertain ourselves to learn something new to fall in love with characters to make ourselves smile.

Rj palacio novel