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Author: Sharon M. Draper
A wholesome story about a pre-teen with Cerebral Palsy, who learns to communicate with the world around her.

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The story takes place in the end of the 2000s and beginnings of the 2010s. Technology is portable and electronic, and without small, specialized computers, someone like Melody wouldn't have access to adaptive technology, or inclusive classrooms. If we moved this story into a early period, like the 1980s, text to speech wasn't widely available or readily accessible to anyone without extreme wealth, if it existed at all. Someone like Melody would be hidden away in shame, cared for at home as well. Schools would not try to be inclusive in previous periods of time, and it would be quite a miserable experience for many people with similar conditions. The setting is quite essential to this story progressing the way it does.

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What really amazed me about Melody was how she drew throughout the novel. Melody has a wonderful support system, that could only be described as miraculous. However, Melody did as much work as everyone else. When challenged to move by Ms. Violet, Melody wanted to give up, but then eventually, she learned what she could do even in her limited body. Melody was the first person to come to the idea that she could use technology to communicate with other people and she persisted through the struggles of trying to communicate with her rudimentary system, until she had a full computer system that gave her much more freedom and flexibility in communicating with the outside world.

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Out of My Mind, had some excellent characters, between the resilient Melody and her family's friend Ms. Violet Valencia, we are given wonderful characters to follow throughout the book.
Melody is a pre-teen girl born with Cerebral Palsy.
We spend most of the book in her head, as the story is narrated by her. Melody spends her entire life in a wheelchair and communicates through a rudimentary system of letters and words on a tray in front of her for most of her life. Though through the intervention of Ms. V and Melody's assistant at school, Catharine, Melody gains a text to speech assistant that opens her up to a whole new set of experiences in school and with her family.

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Melody was born to a loving Mother and Father who supported her through her disability, and refused to belief that Melody was so disabled that she could not attend public school. Melody struggled to learn to communicate, but by the time she was seven her next door neighbor, and secondary caretaker, Ms. V, had helped her set up a rudimentary set of letters and numbers, and basic words to communicate with her teachers and caretakers. Soon, Melody gained two new companions in her life. A younger sister comes into Melody's life around second grade, and a puppy that Melody named, Butterscotch. Most of the book, we see Melody interacting in her head with the world around her. The main two areas that we see Melody in are her school, and home. We see the struggles and successes of Melody's family, and her teachers in a special needs program at her public school.
However, things really start happening for Melody when she starts 5th grade. Melody's school starts a program of trying to integrate the kids in her class of students with special needs with mainstream students. This is when Melody meets her first friend, her own age, Rose, and it is this relationship, that leads to Melody's significant, life changing event.

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Melody sees Rose get a new laptop right around Thanksgiving, and then the idea strikes her, that she could get a text to speech device, and it allow her to communicate faster, and more accurately with everyone. This device drastically improves Melody's life and shows her innate intelligence to everyone around her. Up until this point many people thought Melody was very slow to form thoughts and such, but that was strictly the limitations of her physical body. The computer allowed her to really shine though in both conversation and academically. This massive change also led to Melody's first major academic success in a academic competition, WhizKids, but it also led Melody to experience the harshness of socializing, as her friend, and teammates turn on Melody as soon as it became convenient to leave her behind. After all of this Melody holds her head up high and returns to school. However, Penny is outside when Melody and her mother go to leave, and Melody tries to alert her mom to the danger. In the end, Penny is fine and Melody returns to school, holding her head put high. Sadly, the story ends abruptly, and we don't get to see any more of Melody's journey, but we get the idea that Melody will do just fine as her world evolves and she grows within it.

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The Author is trying to make some really great points. First and foremost, Melody has just as wonderful of an internal life as we would want any child to have. What the Author wanted to convey is that every child deserves a chance to be seen as normal, and given every chance to shine. Melody's mother goes ballistic after one teacher loses complete control of her classroom, for continuing to fail to get Melody back to her previous level of learning. I am so glad the Melody's mother pushes for every effort to be made to help Melody and other kids in her class experience some form of enrichment.

I think, my absolute favorite line, was "That music was cruel and unusual punishment." Melody's mother delivered that to Ms. Billups, the third grade teacher. The music in question was a preschool children's cd that had Old MacDonald Had a Farm on it and played it over and over again for the children in the class, making them all visibly miserable. I love that Melody's mother took one second to assess the situation she saw, and immediately assessed the problem. It also has a lot to do with the reoccurring themes of music within the novel. Melody, the name alone makes in apparent, experiences synesthesia and she has a deep love of country and classical music. It was the music class that first was used to integrate the students of Melody's class with other students, and it was one of Melody's worst moments, not just her best. That all inclusiveness of music in the story really resonated well with me, a musician.