Not only a companion to Wonder, but a wonder in itself.
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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. 31, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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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. 19, 2019
Categories: GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Two sisters make an unauthorized expedition to their former hometown and in the process bring together the two parts of their divided family.
Dooley packs plenty of emotion into this eventful road trip, which takes place over the course of less than 24 hours. Twelve-year-old Ophelia, nicknamed Fella, and her 16-year-old sister, Zoey Grace, aka Zany, are the daughters of a lesbian couple, Shannon and Lacy, who could not legally marry. The two white girls squabble and share memories as they travel from West Virginia to Asheville, North Carolina, where Zany is determined to scatter Mama Lacy’s ashes in accordance with her wishes. The year is 2004, before the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and the girls have been separated by hostile, antediluvian custodial laws. Fella’s present-tense narration paints pictures not just of the difficulties they face on the trip (a snowstorm, car trouble, and an unlikely thief among them), but also of their lives before Mama Lacy’s illness and of the ways that things have changed since then. Breathless and engaging, Fella’s distinctive voice is convincingly childlike. The conversations she has with her sister, as well as her insights about their relationship, likewise ring true. While the girls face serious issues, amusing details and the caring adults in their lives keep the tone relatively light.
Some readers may feel that the resolution comes a mite too easily, but most will enjoy the journey and be pleased when Fella’s family figures out how to come together in a new way . (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-16504-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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