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Made by Mauro Veloso.

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"You can't blend in when you are born to stand out" - some guy
"When given the choice to be right or to be kind, choose kind" - Mr. Browne
"If you really want something in life, you have to work hard for it. Now quiet, they're about to announce the lottery numbers!" - Homer Simpson

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Wonder (2017 Movie) Official Trailer – #ChooseKind – Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson

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R.J. Palacio

R.J. Palacio, born July 13, 1963 in New York City is a veteran art director and book jacket designer who has transitioned into writing children's books. Her first novel, , debuted in 2012 and reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. Though her real name is Raquel Jaramillo, she wrote in under the pen name "R.J. Palacio".

Palacio was writing Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope: Being the Story of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and the Rise of the Rebellion, a young readers retelling of the original Star Wars film. However, due to scheduling conflicts, she was forced to withdraw from the project. She was replaced by Alexandra Bracken. Less than two weeks after Palacio's exit, the project was relisted as simply A New Hope Illustrated Novel. The project was eventually retitled A New Hope: The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy.

The main character in Palacio's novel Wonder is obsessed with Star Wars.

This article is a stub about a person in real life. You can help Wookieepedia by expanding it.

Bibliography Edit

Notes and references Edit

External links Edit

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R.J. Palacio, born July 13, 1963 in New York City is a veteran art director and book jacket designer who has transitioned into writing children's books. Her first novel, Wonder, debuted in 2012 and reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

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Wonder is a contemporary children's novel written by R. J. Palacio and published on 14 February 2012. Wonder is in part inspired by an incident where the author's son started to cry after noticing a girl with a severe facial deformity. Inspiration was also pulled from Natalie Merchant's song of the same name. Several spin-offs have been published, including 365 Days of Wonder: Mr. Browne's Book of Precepts, We're All Wonders, Auggie and Me, and White Bird. A film adaptation was released in 2017, and a spin-off sequel film (adapting White Bird) followed in 2023.

The book centers August "Auggie" Pullman, a 10-year-old living in North Riverside Heights in Lower Manhattan. He has Treacher Collins syndrome, which has disfigured his face and required many surgeries and special care. Due to his condition, August has been homeschooled by his mother for several years; however, wanting him to experience the world, his parents enrol him into Beecher Prep, a private school, for the start of fifth grade. Auggie has an older sister, Olivia "Via" Pullman, who is entering her first year of high school.

Before the start of the school year, Auggie's mother takes him to meet the principal, Mr. Tushman, who has asked three other students - Jack Will, Charlotte, and Julian - to take him on a tour of the school. Auggie is treated unkindly by Julian, who acts respectfully in front of adults. On his first day of school, Auggie tries to avoid drawing attention to himself, but is bullied by Julian and his friends. Auggie is approached and befriended at lunch by a classmate named Summer, and is paired in most of his classes with Jack, whom he also considers a friend.

On Halloween, Auggie, dressed as Ghostface, overhears Jack, who was expecting Auggie to dress up as Boba Fett, joining in with Julian and his friends in making fun of Auggie. Devastated, Auggie stays home for several days and isolates himself from his family, frustrating Via, who resents Auggie for the priority he receives over her from their parents. Returning to school, Auggie ignores Jack and confides in Summer about the incident with Jack. Jack presses Summer about Auggie being upset, who hints at the cause. When Jack realizes this, he is ashamed, and re-commits to his friendship with Auggie. This draws Julian's ire, and the Jack and Julian have a fight. Jack reconciles with Auggie, but is ostracized from his popular classmates, as Julian's influence divides the students into factions over the conflict. Julian's mother writes to Tushman to voice her concerns over Auggie attending the school, citing that his appearance may be too much of a burden for the other students to handle.

Via confides to her mother that she does not want Auggie to attend her school play, as she has enjoyed the fresh start her new school has given her, free of the burden of being associated with Auggie and his condition. Auggie overhears and angrily sulks in his room, hoping his mother will come comfort him, but Via comes in instead to tell him that their dog Daisy is dying. She urges him to come out to say goodbye before Daisy is taken to the vet and euthanized, which he does.

Meanwhile, Via's best friend Miranda has started avoiding her, for reasons unknown to Via. Both audition for the lead in their school play, and Miranda gets the part, with Via as her understudy. On opening night, Miranda sees Via's family in the audience and feigns illness so that Via can take her place for the evening. After the show, the two reconcile.

At the end of Auggie's school year, the fifth grade class goes on a three-day trip to a nature reserve. Auggie is initially concerned about going because of Julian, but hears that Julian will not be attending. On the last night of the trip, Auggie and Jack are walking alone in the woods when they are attacked by a group of older students from another school. Julian's friends happen to walk by, and they rush to the defense of their classmates, impressed by Auggie's boldness in standing up to the bullies. Auggie becomes accepted by his school peers.

At graduation, Auggie is awarded the Henry Ward Beecher Medal for his strength and character throughout the school year, while Julian's parents decide to send Julian to a different school the following year.

Critical reception

The book received primarily positive reviews from professional critics. Common Sense Media gave Wonder four out of five stars, calling it a "moving, uplifting tale about a disfigured boy with inner beauty." Entertainment Weekly said: "In a wonder of a debut, Palacio has written a crackling page-turner filled with characters you can't help but root for." The New York Times called it, "rich and memorable [...] It's Auggie and the rest of the children who are the real heart of Wonder, and Palacio captures the voices of girls and boys, fifth graders, and teenagers, with equal skill."

Critiques of the books by activists in the disability rights movement were more mixed. Disability activist Carly Findlay identified strongly with the story, saying, "as a reader with a visible difference, I will say that it's very well researched." Disfigured person Mike Moody, writing on the Disability in Kidlit blog, described the book as "an engaging, heart-rending story about disfigurement" but also discussed disappointment over the "missed opportunity" in the continued downplaying of the main character's disability and his persistent lack of agency. Ariel Henley, an author with Crouzon syndrome, wrote an article in titled "What 'Wonder' Gets Wrong About Disfigurement and Craniofacial Disorders"; the article focuses on the casting of a non-disabled actor for the movie adaptation, but also discusses the plot, arguing that "Auggie is used as a prop to teach those around him about acceptance and compassion."

Wonder was on The New York Times Best Seller list and was also on the Texas Bluebonnet Award master list. The book was the winner of the 2014 Maine Student Book Award, Vermont's Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award, the 2015 Mark Twain Readers Award, Hawaii's 2015 Nene Award, and the Junior Young Reader's Choice Award for 2015. In Illinois, it won both the Bluestem and Caudill Awards in 2014.

First published in 2012 by Alfred A. Knopf (now part of Penguin Random House), the novel was a top seller for the firm when the film was released in 2017, when it sold 5 million copies in combined book and ebook units in the United States.

The film adaptation was directed by Stephen Chbosky, written by Steven Conrad, and starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as Isabel and Nate Pullman respectively and Jacob Tremblay as August Pullman. It was released on 17 November 2017 by Lionsgate.

Spinoff/prequel

A film adaptation of White Bird was released in 2023. It was directed by Marc Forster and written by Mark Bomback, starring Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, and Helen Mirren as Julian Albans, Vivienne, and Grandmère respectively. The film was supposed to be released on 14 October 2022, after being initially scheduled to release on 16 September 2022. In January 2023, it was announced that the film was scheduled to debut in a limited release on 18 August 2023, followed by a wide release on 25 August 2023. It was delayed again due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, then premiered at the 43rd San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 30, 2023.

Auggie & Me is a companion book to Wonder. It contains three stories, each telling the events of Wonder from different perspectives. The first story, called "The Julian Chapter," is told from the point of view of school bully Julian, explaining why he mistreats Auggie. The second, called "Pluto," focuses on Auggie's life before Beecher Prep and is told from the point of view of Christopher, Auggie's oldest friend. The third is called "Shingaling" and is told from the point of view of Auggie's classmate Charlotte, who, in Wonder, is the first person that is nice to him at Beecher Prep; it focuses on relationships and events between some of the girls in Auggie's year, such as Ximena Chin, Summer Dawson, and Maya Markowitz.

Though originally published separately, the three stories were eventually grouped together and sold as one book.

In Wonder, Auggie's teacher Mr. Browne assigns a precept to each month. 365 Days of Wonder contains 365 of his precepts as well as some of Mr. Browne's thoughts after every month.

In this short picture book, Auggie talks about his life before the events of Wonder. He has his astronaut helmet on most of the time throughout.

White Bird: A Wonder Story

In this 2019 graphic novel, Julian's Parisian grandmother tells him stories of her childhood as a young Jewish girl living in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, when she was hidden from the Nazis by a classmate and his family. A film adaptation was released in late 2023.

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Wonder is a contemporary children's novel written by R. J. Palacio and published on 14 February 2012. Wonder is in part inspired by an incident where the author's son started to cry after noticing a girl with a severe facial deformity. Inspiration was also pulled from Natalie Merchant's song of the same name.

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"It's not enough to be friendly. You have to be a friend."

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Tweets by RJPalacio

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Nancy: What inspired you to write Wonder in the first place?My sons and I saw a child with a facial difference, and my younger son was quite young and got frightened. It got me wondering what it must be like for that child, having to deal with reactions like that. How do you face a world every day that doesn't always know how to face you back? How does bullying make you feel?Bullying is terrible, and it's something that I think people do when they feel really insecure about themselves.

Emilie, Ondine, Coco and Isabel: Is August or any of the other characters based on a real person that you know or knew when you were a child?
All the kids in the book are somewhat loosely based on people I know or knew growing up. Not specifically one person, though, but a composite of people.

Tahirou: How did you choose the name August for the main character?
It's always been a named I've loved. If I'd had a third son, I think I might have called him that.

Adam: Have you ever felt a little like August feels in the book?
Yes, definitely. Even though I don't face the same challenges Auggie faces, I remember what it's like to feel a little insecure, or like I'm the odd one out. We all have experienced that feeling to some extent or other, I think.

Summer: I'm called Summer, where did you get the name Summer from?
I knew a little girl named Summer who was one of the sweetest kids I've ever known. I bet you're like that, too!

Toni and Abdulhayy: How long did it take you to write Wonder?
It took me about a year and a half to complete my first draft.

Max and Alana: What were your influences in writing the book?
My older son had just finished 5th grade when I started writing, so middle school was very fresh in my mind, and a lot of the things that happened in the book were drawn from real life.

Naja and Malachai: Why and how did you want to be an author?
I've always loved to write, and I adore reading, so I think becoming a writer was in the cards for me.

Finn and Tahirou: Was there anyone who inspired you to become an author?
My mom. She believed that I would be a writer someday. She was convinced of it.

Group questions: It's quite unusual to publish an extra chapter to a book after it's been published. Why did you write the Julian chapter?
I had purposely avoided writing from Julian's point of view in Wonder because the book's focus is August Pullman, and I felt like Julian's story took away from that. So I didn't want to include Julian in Wonder. But I also knew Julian had a story to tell on his own, and that his story would shed some light on his character. Hence the additional chapter.

What do you hope the Julian chapter adds to Wonder?
I think it's always important to remember that everyone has a story to tell, and though we shouldn't forgive Julian for all the meanness he brought to Auggie, we also need to find some compassion for the things he was going through which brought him to that point. I don't believe there's such a thing as an "unredeemable" kid, not at that age certainly, and I knew Julian had another side to him that was worth exploring.

Can you tell us more about your new book (365 Days of Wonder) on the precepts?
In Wonder, Mr Browne uses precepts as a way of introducing his students to lofty concepts having to do with the way they interact with the world. I decided to publish a book that includes one of his precepts for every single day of the year. They're quotes that are meant to inspire, motivate, and remind readers that human beings are capable of so much good. As Thomas Browne said, "the wonders we seek around us are already within us".

What message do you hope people will take away after reading Wonder?
I hope that readers will feel inspired to really be kind to one another, to remember that we're in this world together.

What's your next book going to be about?
I'm working on two other short ebooks in the Wonder world, and then moving on to something completely new (which is still top secret!).
Help us celebrate 365 Days of Wonder by joining in on the Words of Wisdom to Live By campaign. Watch the trailer and tell us on twitter your words of wisdom using @RHKidsUK #choosekind

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RJ Palacio: I remember what it's like to feel insecure, or like I'm the odd one out

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Nancy: What inspired you to write Wonder in the first place?My sons and I saw a child with a facial difference, and my younger son was quite young and got frightened. It got me wondering what it must be like for that child, having to deal with reactions like that.