The sixth grade book club got underway today with our first ever book meeting. We’d all read about half of R.J. Palacio’s Wonder and met to talk about it over lunch and chocolate chip cookies in the library.
This story of August, a disfigured boy leaving the safety of a home schooling environment to attend “real” middle school gave us lots to think and talk about. Should someone in that position go to school? What does school offer? Friends, connections, real teachers. What are the fears? Bullying. And what happens? You’ll have to read the book with us to find out!
The story also made us think about what makes a person lucky, what makes August lucky, and what makes each one of us lucky in our own lives.
Fun fact: Although the story is set in a fictionalized Hudson Heights, a Brooklyn-like community in northern Manhattan, R.J. Palacio lives in Brooklyn and is widely believed to have modeled the neighborhood of Wonder on Park Slope, with Beecher Prep a thinly veiled reincarnation of Berkeley-Carroll.
We’re going to stick with this story and meet again to talk about the conclusion on Friday Dec. 6th.
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