Synopsis: This book has been receiving rave reviews from all over the place. And since it's appropriate for virtually every audience, it's been reviewed from a lot of angles. Teachers seem to be loving it...using it as a read-aloud or class novel for anywhere from 3rd grade on up. And since the themes of self-esteem, friendship, family, and bullying are so important throughout life, there really isn't a person out there I wouldn't recommend this book to.
August Pullman was born with a facial deformity. In this story, he's 10, and he's entering public school for the first time. But, 5th grade isn't all it's cracked up to be. August has a tough time making friends and convincing his classmates that he's ordinary just like them.
Being accepted for who we are - that's what this story is about. No matter what we look like.
Genre: realistic fiction
Pages: 320 pages
Level: easy/intermediate, any
Author website
I know I'm not an ordinary ten-year-old kid. I mean, sure, I do ordinary things. I eat ice cream. I ride my bike. I play ball. I have an XBox. Stuff like that makes me ordinary. I guess. And I feel ordinary. Inside. But I know ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming on playgrounds. I know ordinary kids don't get started at wherever they go.
If I found a magic lamp and I could have one wish, I would wish that I had a normal face that no one ever noticed at all. I would wish that I could walk down the street without people seeing me and then doing that look-away thing. Here's what I think: the only reason I'm not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.
But I'm kind of used to how I look by now. I know how to pretend I don't see the faces people make. We've all gotten pretty good at that sort of thing: me, Mom and Dad, Via. Actually, I take that back: Via's not so good at it. She can get really annoyed when people do something rude. Like, for instance, on time in the playground some older kids made some noises. I don't even know what the noises were exactly because I didn't hear them well myself, but Via hear and she just started yelling at the kids. That's the way she is. I'm not that way.
Via doesn't see me as ordinary. She says she does, but if I were ordinary, she wouldn't feel like she needs to protect me as much. And Mom and Dad don't see me as ordinary, either. They see me as extraordinary. I think the only person in the world who realizes how ordinary I am is me.
My name is August, by the way. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.
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