3.5 stars
Official book description:
August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary – inside.
But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don’t get stared at wherever they go.
Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, he’s being sent to a real school – and he’s dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted – but can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, underneath it all?
This is a middle-grade book, so it’s not like the characterisations of all the various people we meet are terribly deep, nuanced and subtle. While a lot of difficult topics are covered, I find I have to agree with some of the reviews I’ve seen, that point out that some of the ways in which the book approaches serious matters is a bit simplistic and not necessarily as nuanced as one might have wished. Because the POV characters are children, some of their thoughts and observations are a bit naive.
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