"Wonder" by R.J. Palacio

"Wonder" by R.J. Palacio

Okay, even before I get to the book, isn't this a fantastic cover?!

"Wonder" is about August, a special 10-year-old boy. Auggie is special because of a chromosomal abnormality that affects his face. When the story opens Auggie's mom introduces the idea of him going to school. The idea frightens Auggie. Because of his medical background he's been home-schooled by his mother through the 4th grade. August's dad wants to protect him from the cruelties he'll encounter in a school setting, but they decide to go through with a tour of the school. The reader meets August's new friends, sees his new school, and experiences the joys and pains of the 5th grade along side with him.

This book is such a wonderful exploration of the human heart. We have so many fears and the capacity to hurt, but also beauty within to love more than ourselves. You'll get to see this as you see the story through several different perspectives: August, his sister Via, Via's friend Monica, August's friend Jack, and a few others. Each voice is so unique, I was startled when I realized Palacio created all of them to tell August's story. She definitely has the gift of word-crafting.

This is one of those heart-warming stories that will be loved for decades. And one of my favorite things about it is that it's a book about a 10-year-old that I can proudly give to my own 10-year-old and know she can read it without offensive material creeping up here or there (that's the prudish side of me, again).

Please pick up "Wonder" next time you're looking for something soul-nourishing to read!

"Letters in the Jade Dragon Box" by Gale Sears

"Letters in the Jade Dragon Box"

Micaela recommended this to me, and she read it first, but I got my review up first!  Neener neener!  I read this one because of the biography/memoir kick I'm on.  

Chen Wen-shan is a fifteen-year-old girl living in British Hong Kong in the 1970s.  She lives with her stoic great-uncle and she likes Western culture, specifically cornflakes and rock 'n roll.  One day a messenger delivers a request for Wen-shan and her uncle to visit the Smythes, British museum curators living in Kowloon.  Wen-shan knew of her mother and grandfather still living in mainland communist China, but she had been smuggled to the safety of her great-uncle when she was five years old and she had no memory of her life there.  Mr. Smythe informs Wen-shan and her uncle he had smuggled out a box full of letters from her mother and paintings from her grandfather.  Over the next several months, Wen-shan and her uncle read the letters and view the paintings and learn of Wen-shan's past.

For me, the greatest value of this story, based on real events and people, was the story of the beginnings of communist China and the devastation wreaked  upon tens of millions of people.  It was a history I knew nothing of and I was often moved beyond expression at the horrors inflicted upon the Chinese by Chairman Mao and his socialist regime.  I wondered why on earth I don't remember studying this in school.  How come I know about Hitler and Nazi Germany and concentration camps, but I didn't know about Mao's campaign to make himself a vengeful and all-powerful god to the Chinese?  My naivete baffles and embarrasses me.  I guess that's why we must always seek learning and knowledge.