– R.J Placio
I never thought a book with such shiny bright cover would turn out to be so dark inside! But then the sun rises eventually. Reason enough for it to be one of July recommendations in the Shiny Happy Book Club. August Pullman is the sun of this book. The other characters, planets revolving around him. What makes the sun different from all other planets? He’s hard to look at, like the real sun. But we can look Sun in the eye if we wear sunglasses right? The same goes for Auggie (August’s pet-name), the boy wanted to go to space, join NASA, loved Star Wars and his space helmet (for reasons other than his space interest as well)! He was born with severe facial deformities. But people could look over his appearance and embrace the 10 year old child’s personality if only they wore the shades of understanding and a little bit of maturity.
August joins middle school after years of being home-schooled and we look at his journey for one academic year. The book had too many perspectives; each having utmost significance and loveliness of its own. It was heartwarming to see every child’s mind working differently. Same school but varied backgrounds, economy and parents back home.
I loved the concept of percepts from this book, it works well when you’re reading this to a child and don’t want to push morals in them, but subtly plant it nevertheless. As always, the book was better. The movie took my surprise away. The different face was all visible, nothing left for my imagination.
“You can’t blend in when you were born to stand out.” So true and inspiring but August does blend in according to me. He blends in the school, adapts to his studies and made true friends of course.
If you’ve read this book, let’s discuss our favorite characters and of course the importance of Julian Chapter.
“After you’ve seen someone else going through that, it feels kind of crazy to complain over not getting the toy you had asked for, or your mom missing a school play. I knew this even when I was 6 years old. No one ever told it to me. I just knew it.” This is Olivia (Auggie’s sister) ,’via’ for her loved ones and I’d take the privilege to call her Via myself, because I love her the most .People like Via are my favorite kind of people. The unsung, unpraised, understanding people. People like Via need only one person, a best friend, a mother, a grandmother or even a pet would suffice. People like her learn to live and enjoy even the little appreciation they receive if they have one, just one hand on their shoulder. I wouldn’t say Via got what she deserved but just what she craved for, the lovely companionship in Justin, which made me too happy.
Julian Chapter: I know it was widely demanded, the story behind the Bully. Personally, It felt like too much. Some explanations feel like excuses, giving reasons for bad behavior, how when a child is caught red-handed in any act (immoral in the eyes of adults) he/she starts blabbering defending himself. That chapter was that exaggeration for me. I didn’t hate Julian in the very first place , the book included a time span of a few months only and we’ve all known people who seem to be unreasonable at first but end up as best of friends in the passing years. If Auggie was a kid, so was Julian. We can’t expect children to act as grown-ups.
