Wonder

If you haven't heard about Wonder yet, then I really think you should have. It's written as a 9-12 book but it has adult cross over appeal.
The story, by R. J. Palacio, is about August, know to his family as Auggie. He's a young boy aged ten who his parents have decided needs to go to school. Auggie however isn't that keen on the idea. This is mostly due to the tact that he has been born with a serious facial disfigurement. One of the opening lines in the book says "Whatever you are thinking, it's probably worse." You are immediately sympathetic to August and his situation. You then find out about his many operations and what August looks like and you just feel for this little boy .
Auggie is invited to school before the the term starts and there he meets a handful of his new classmates who are going to ease him into the school life. This meeting is a double edged sword as one of the students, Julian, is a bully. He thinks that because Auggie is different, he needs to be alienated. We don't like Julian. At all. However there is another boy in the group Jack Wills, who is one of the good guys.
What follows starts as the typical children in fifth grade, child overcoming the odds type of book. Or you think it is. After about a third of the book, told through Auggie's eyes, we change perspectives and we have new voices telling the story. One of the narrators is Olivia or Via , Auggie's older sister. Now this is where I thought the book really got interesting. We hear about how her life has been dominated by August, his surgeries, how their parents always had to put him first. She's not resentful and she loves her brother dearly, but as she's just moved into a new high school, this allows her to be herself and not to be know as Auggie's older sister for almost the first time in her life. We have other narrators too, Jack Wills for one and Via's new boyfriend for another. I found his section is particularly annoying because Palacio chose to use no punctuation or capital letters in this section. It's a minor niggle, but it did annoy me.
As we move through these narrators we follow Auggie's year in fifth grade. There is friendship and heartbreak (not in a romantic sense) and yet the year ultimately ends in triumph for August and his friends
Wonder is a superb book. I must say that I read it after people had raved about it and I'm ashamed to say I was slightly disappointed in it because I merely thought it was superb and not mind-blowingly outstanding.
It's a very mature book for the age range, but it is one that children should be encouraged to read. Through it's pages we learn that August is a bright and sensible and sensitive child, who likes the same things that other children enjoy, It's just that he looks different to them. The more people that are able to read this book the better. It's a little sentimental in places, but that's nothing to whine about really. Just read it and you'll feel a better person. I did.