How does R. J. Palacio Write?

The book, Wonder switches characters during every part.  The first part was written in August's point of view, the second in his sister, Via's, the third in his friend Summer's, and so on and so on until part eight where it goes back to August.  I think this is very interesting because you get to see how everyone around August feels about his situation and how it affects them.

R. J. Palacio also writes according to how that person would talk, which is interesting.  For example, when the book is written in August's point of view, there are a lot of grammatical errors such as, "I think she's too busy taking care of me and Via" where instead it should be Via and me (Palacio 4).  I think Palacio chose to write this way because August is a 5th grader, and you wouldn't expect a 5th grader to have perfect grammar.

Via's section is free of grammatical errors.  Via is a freshman in high school so she's expected to know more grammatical conventions and is less likely to have those errors.

I think it is really interesting how based on the character's age, she writes differently.  It makes you feel like the characters are real and the whole book as a whole is more realistic.  I think her writing was really well done.

Auggie Hates School

"'You have to go back to school.  Everyone hates school sometimes.  I hate school sometimes.  I hate my friends sometimes.  That's just life, Auggie.  You want to be treated normally, right?  This is normal!  We all have to go to school sometimes despite the fact that we have bad days, okay?'  'Do people go out of their way to avoid touching you, Via?' he answered, which left me momentarily without an answer.  'Yeah, right.  That's what I thought.  So don't compare your bad days at school to mine, okay?'  'Okay, that's fair,' I said.  'But it's not a contest about whose days suck the most, Auggie.  The point is that we all have to put up with the bad days"  (Palacio 114).

While reading Wonder, I came across this quote and it really made me stop and think about it.  I never realized how true it was, until I read this.   We all have bad days.  Its inevitable.  We all have those days where nothing seems to go our way.  Maybe something embarrassing happened.  Maybe your friend is mad at you.  Whatever it is, we all have those days where we just want to hide from the world.  What gets us through them is knowing that tomorrow is another day with a clean slate.

Auggie takes his sister's advice and goes back to school.  He ignores the kids that were talking bad about him, and gets through it.  Now, he's happy in school.

About the Author

As you may know, I began to read Wonder by R. J. Palacio a few weeks ago.  R. J. Palacio is an American author, who's career has just taken off with her hit Wonder.  She has not written any other books, besides Wonder.  She has always wanted to write, she just had to wait for the perfect opportunity for her career to launch.  After 20 years of being an art director and a book jacket designer, Palacio realized that she had to initiate that "perfect time" herself.  She considers home in NYC with her husband, two children, and two dogs.

For more information, visit her website.