Wonder-Pdf 6198478 PDF
Wonder-Pdf 6198478 PDF
Wonder-Pdf 6198478 PDF
ebook file resource Wonder.pdf|Read online Wonder.pdf|Where to download Wonder.pdf|Read file Wonder.pdf
RECOMMENDED FOR
Upper primary and secondary
11+ years
CONTENTS
1. Introduction 1
2. Plot summary 2
3. About the author 2
4. Author’s inspiration 2
5. Writing style 3
6. Key study topics 5
7. Key quotes 9
8. Further reading 9
9. Worksheets 13
Visit www.randomhouse.com.au/teachers for His story of going to school for the first time, after
information on other Random House Australia being home-schooled for years, coincides with his
teachers’ resources and great books for the elder sister Via going to high school. Both
classroom. experience major emotional changes, and their
family dynamics change as well.
Copyright © Random House Australia 2013
PDF ebook file resource Wonder.pdf|Read online Wonder.pdf|Where to download Wonder.pdf|Read file Wonder.pdf
The story is told in first person by Auggie, but also ABOUT THE AUTHOR
includes parts told in first person by Via, and their
friends Summer, Jack, Justin, and Miranda.
RJ Palacio lives in NYC with her husband, two sons,
and two dogs. For many years, she was an art
Auggie’s irrepressible spirit has been nurtured by the
director and book jacket designer, designing covers
love which has cocooned him all his life. This hasn’t
for countless well-known and not so well-known
come without penalties, though, because now he has
writers in every genre of fiction and non-fiction. She
to face the world outside that world which has been
always wanted to write, though. She kept waiting for
constructed by his family, in which neighbourhood
the perfect time in her life to start writing, but after
friends, and those who’ve given him medical
more than twenty years of designing book jackets for
treatments, have offered him sanctuary, and they all
other people, she realized that the perfect time
know that this new world won’t be quite as kind to
would never really present itself. It's never the
him. Fortunately, love, and a sense of humour help
perfect time to start writing a book. So she decided
him through some of the darkest times.
to just go for it. Wonder is her first novel. See her
website: http://rjpalacio.com/
‘I mean, I don’t want to brag or anything, but I am
actually considered something of a medical wonder,
you know.’ (p 130)
AUTHOR’S INSPIRATION
PLOT SUMMARY
On her website there is an insightful FAQ section
which answers a lot of the questions you might have
Auggie is terrified of going to school and facing the
asked RJ Palacio yourselves.
inevitably bad reactions from kids and their parents.
Even his parents can’t agree on whether it will be a Some of her inspiration can also be found in the
good or bad thing for him. But he does go to interviews below:
Beecher Prep and almost immediately finds a friend 1. Hodgson, Heather ‘Interview with RJ Palacio’
in Jack and an enemy in Julian. He is also befriended Daily Telegraph
by Summer, who shares her lunch table with him. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/a
Things seem bearable until he overhears a uthorinterviews/9086974/Interview-with-RJ-
conversation which plunges him into despair. Palacio-author-of-Wonder.html
Meanwhile, his sister Via has started high school and
is relishing being anonymous. The trouble is that her 2. ‘RJ Palacio in interview with Chip Kidd,
two best friends, Miranda and Ella, seem to be designer, Random House’
avoiding her, and she’s not sure what’s going on with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4psz--
them. ziXB4
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/a
Via finds a boyfriend in Justin and understudies to uthorinterviews/9086974/Interview-with-RJ-
Miranda in the school play opposite Justin as the Palacio-author-of-Wonder.html
lead. Auggie makes things up with Jack, and all the 3. The book has also engendered the ‘Choose
kids who were against him gradually come round. Kind’ campaign
The school camp proves a turning point, though, and http://choosekind.tumblr.com/
Auggie finds he has more friends than he knew.
Andain’s ‘Beautiful Things; Part 8 quotes Christopher Nolan’s Under the Eye of the
Eurythmic ‘Beautiful Child’. Discuss ‘beauty’ in Clock (p 300). Discuss these quotes.
relation to physical and moral or mental
attributes. There is a touching scene where Nate Questions
confesses to Auggie that he threw out the
1. Auggie and Nate have fun reciting the lines
astronaut helmet because he missed looking at
from a favourite song The Luckiest Guy on
his face. ‘I love this face of yours, Auggie,
the Lower East Side written by Stephen
completely and passionately.’ (pp 290-2) How
Merritt and performed by The Magnetic
should beauty be defined?
Fields (pp 289-92). What does this song
4. Identify any other literary devices (e.g.
mean to them?
Personification/ simile/ metaphor) used in the
novel. e.g. ‘Like I had my own emperor’s guard’ (p 2. What literary reference or quote had most
272). resonance for you?
Questions
1. Were there any literary devices which Characterisation
seemed most evident in this text? August, his sister Olivia (Via), his parents Nate and
Isabel Pullman are a loving family with a much-
2. What symbols or motifs did you notice in
loved dog named Daisy. When the two siblings go to
this text?
new schools, though, Via’s old friendships are tested,
and Auggie finds new friends, and new enemies.
character experiences a ‘ritual’ event which 4. Study the background to Auggie’s affliction
changes the way he/sees himself and assists (pp 103-4), and the seemingly random
him/her in making a transition to maturity or origins of such deformities in a complex
towards adulthood. Arnold van Gennup in Les gene pool. What have you discovered about
rites de passage (1909) described this ‘rite of the origins of such conditions?
passage’ as having three phases: ‘separation, 5. Summer is described as a ‘saint’ for hanging
transition, and reincorporation’. Consider the out with August (p 90.) Why is it ‘saintly’ to
novel and how these three phases are illustrated be friendly to someone with a disability?
in it. Read about this concept at ‘Rite of Passage’ 6. The book opens with a long quote from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_passage. Natalie Merchant’s song ‘Wonder’ and then
Does Auggie’s sense of his own identity change Part One opens with another shorter quote
in the course of the novel? from the song: ‘Fate smiled and destiny
laughed as she came to my cradle’. Watch
Questions
the music video of her singing the song:
1. Auggie has been so protected by his family, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zpYFAz
that he is really still living the life of a hAZY How does this song relate to August’s
toddler when the novel opens. How do situation?
things change when he goes to Middle
School? Questions
2. Does Via gain any new insights into herself 1. When Auggie wins the Henry Ward Beecher
during this same period? Medal (p 304), everyone is thrilled for him.
Auggie accepts, and loves the adulation, but
3. Which of the students (apart from Auggie),
expresses a truer feeling: ‘But hey, if they
matures in the course of this narrative?
want to give me a medal for being me, that’s
Choose quotes to support your answer.
okay. I’ll take it.’ (p 306) Would such an
award please everyone who suffers such an
affliction? Might it also have been traumatic
Physical Deformity and Self-Image to have one’s pain put on public display?
Activities
2. Once, it would once have been very difficult
1. ‘I eat like a tortoise, if you’ve ever seen a for a child like Auggie to have the surgery or
tortoise eating. Like some prehistoric the special care he needed, in order to
swamp thing ‘ (p 50) Throughout the novel, breathe and eat while he was recovering
such similes and comparisons to animals or from countless operations. How much is
lesser lifeforms suggest that Auggie has medical science responsible for Auggie’s
been enculturated to think of himself in this living as long as he has?
way. ‘At Beacher Prep I’m the old moldy
3. Via writes: ‘Countless babies who’ll never be
cheese.’(p 72) Discuss.
born. Like mine.’ (p 106) She doesn’t expand
2. Via describes what it is like to live in a
on this but it is a sad statement. Why?
family with a child with special needs (pp
82-3). Discuss the effects which such a
deformity or other disability might have on
the siblings of the afflicted. (Teachers need Bullying
to handle this with care, and to be sensitive Bullying is another key topic in this novel. Not only
with regards to the possible experiences of is Auggie bullied, but his friend Jack is as well. The
students in their class.) novel reveals the ways in which bullying manifests
3. ‘Here’s what I think: we’ve all spent so much itself and some strategies for dealing with it.
time trying to make August think he’s
Activities
normal that he actually thinks he is normal.
But the problem is, he’s not.’ (p 90) Discuss 1. Julian is sometimes overt in his bullying, but
Via’s statement. Can parental over- is often secretive or ‘covert’ in his bullying,
compensation leave a person vulnerable as well. For example, he makes a reference
when strangers encounter him/her? to Darth Sidious (p 44) which Auggie
realises is aimed at him. Discuss the two