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by R.J. Palacio ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 25, 2015
Not only a companion to Wonder, but a wonder in itself.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
Google Rating
New York Times Bestseller
In the companion novel to Wonder, (2012) three students at Beecher Prep middle school tell stories that connect with Auggie Pullman’s dramatic arrival into their worlds.
“Sometimes friendships are hard,” and friendship with Auggie Pullman is a special challenge. He is different. He looks different, and that’s not easy in middle school. He has a “severe craniofacial difference,” facial features that, even after many surgeries over the years, look like “the drippings on the side of a candle.” Now, Palacio zeros in on three characters: Julian, the bully; Auggie’s oldest friend, Christopher; and Charlotte, the girl who is nice to Auggie but never especially friendly. Auggie is the common thread in their stories, but he’s behind the scenes here, peripheral to their first-person narratives. Each character relates a story that includes an epiphany about friendship, family, and life. Auggie is the catalyst for transformations in their lives, but readers will see sides of characters Auggie never would have known. Originally published as short e-books, the stories are explorations of kindness, each character demonstrating how it takes bravery to be kind, how, in the tricky business of navigating new situations, “it’s always better to err on the side of kindness.”
Not only a companion to Wonder, but a wonder in itself. (Fiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-93485-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2015
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by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
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More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
by Katherine Marsh ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 7, 2018
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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