SuitabookWonder
R.J. Palacio
- Reading
- If the insults, assault or pet’s death may be upsetting, read alongside the child and pause to discuss feelings and choices. Revisit different characters’ viewpoints rather than treating August’s experience as universal.
- Themes
- Difference and belonging: August enters school after being homeschooled and faces reactions to his appearance, including exclusion and later greater acceptance. The story presents prejudice as harmful while also showing August as a full character with emotions, flaws and agency.
- Friendship, harm and repair: A friendship is damaged by mockery, while other conflicts lead to social division, fighting and eventual reconciliation or renewed support. The book recognises that kindness and loyalty can require changed behaviour, but also depicts the emotional cost of betrayal and exclusion.
- Family attention and competing needs: August’s needs affect family relationships; Via feels that he receives priority, while family members also face separate changes and losses. The family is shown as loving and supportive, but not free from resentment, competing needs or painful misunderstandings.
- Worth knowing
- Be aware of hateful insults and discriminatory language, bullying, a physical assault causing bruises and scrapes, the death of a family pet, smoking observed by children, and brief teenage kissing.