R.J. Palacio's Wonder

“About five years ago I was with my two kids, who were about 11 and three at the time, and I sat down on the bench with my younger son facing me in the stroller while my older son went inside to get us some ice cream,” she remembers. “I didn’t even really get that close to look at her because it was a very quick moment, but it was severe. What ended up happening was my younger son started to really cry - like scream-cry - and my older son dropped the chocolate milkshakes, and as we were leaving I heard the mum say in a really calm voice, ‘okay guys, I think it’s time to go’. And it just kind of broke my heart, and made me start to think what life must be like for the little girl, for the mum, the sister; it made me start to think how I should have responded to the situation or what I could have done differently."

 

 

“My three-year-old responded in a way that wasn’t especially unnatural – he was frightened, and that’s a natural reaction for a three-year-old to have," Palacio says. "What I probably should have done was turn to her and acknowledge that my son was crying and try to engage her in a conversation and say 'I’m sorry, he doesn’t understand things, what’s your name?' - just talk to her on a human level instead of trying to run away from the situation and pretend that she didn’t notice all the stuff that just happened. I mean this little girl must go through this a million times a day, [and I thought] what that must be like for her and how to deal with it and I put myself in her situation and the situation of the parents as well and wonder what it would be like."

 

Palacio said she started writing the book that night after the song Wonder by Natalie Merchant came on the radio (Doctors have come from distant cities/Just to see me/Stand over my bed/Disbelieving what they're seeing/They say I must be one of the wonders/Of god's own creation/And as far as they can see they can offer/No explanation). “It was a song I’d always loved but it was something about the connection, I guess, between the incident that had happened earlier today and the song, the lyrics, just kind of came together.

 

“The first line just popped into my head – ‘I know I’m not an ordinary kid’ - and I wrote that down, and suddenly I had the first paragraph, and the first page, and it started kind of writing itself in a strange way.”

 

 

Palacio, who lives in Brooklyn, says she was trying to “make kids a little bit aware. I think at that age kids are so un-self aware, all they want to do is be part of a group. I think if you scratch behind them a little bit they’re quite decent little human beings, they just haven’t learnt to be that way - that kind of comes with time. I think it’s easier to be part of a pack - that’s how human beings evolved - and there’s the mentality of the group thing, and the test of one’s character comes when we can differentiate from the pack.”

 

August  (or Auggie, as his friends and family call him) can be seen as a metaphor, Palacio agreed: "I think anyone who’s different, anyone who’s not part of the crowd and has any sort of special need - maybe it’s somebody with autism or Asperger’s or developmental delays or any kind of outsider in a group. I think Auggie’s physical attributions really mark him and make him a very distinct person, and other people have much subtler differences, but he can really stand for anybody who’s different."

 

Palacio hopes children - and adults - "take away the notion that they’re noticed; that what they do and what they say really matters and impacts on the people around them, and that if they’re unkind the ramifications of that are far-reaching maybe beyond what they understand. If they’re kind similarly that’s exponential." One reader got in touch with her on Twitter and admitted to being a bully in school, thanking Palacio for making him aware of how his actions affected others.

 

The underlying theme of the book is a quote from Peter Pan author James Barry, who said “always be a little bit kinder than necessary", and Palacio said reader response has been overwhelming; "people have emailed me or tweeted saying reading the book makes me want to be a kinder person, which is more than anything I could have hoped for and exactly what I could dream of, the idea that if you’re all a little bit kinder than necessary.

 

“That’s extraordinary, that idea, because I think if we were all just a little bit nicer to each other in the world, I think the world really would be a better place.”

 

 

 

Wonder by R.J. Palacio is out now, published by The Bodley Head.