Wonder, R. J. Palacio

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

Ten-year-old August Pullman is off to school for the first time, after being taught at home all his life. It would be a scary time for anyone, but Auggie draws attention. He has severe facial disfigurements that no one can help noticing. And for the first time, he will be constantly surrounded by people noticing, or trying very hard not to notice how he doesn't look like the other kids. Wonder is a simple, heartwarming story that follows Auggie and his friends and family through his first year at Beecher Prep School.

I defy anyone to read this book and not love Auggie. He is a bright spark, a good-natured and generally optimistic kid, although of course his situation gets him down at times. But with the support of a loving family, kind teacher and good friends, he gets through fifth grade and comes out the other side. Wonder is told from multiple viewpoints, a character-driven rather than action-filled novel that portrays the ups and downs of being ten - a ten-year-old with a particular and unusual set of difficulties, certainly, but one that can resonate with anyone who's been ten. I remember vividly the woes of still being a child when my classmates fancied themselves all-grown-up, just like Auggie and his friend Summer:

One of the things I'm not loving about this year is how a lot of the kids are acting like they're too grown-up to play things anymore. All they want to do is 'hang out' and 'talk' at recess.

After a lifetime of putting Auggie first, saying to herself, "hey, at least I don't have things as bad as him," his sister Via has her own worries. She, too is struggling with life at a new school, with friends who have drifted apart, a new boyfriend, and trying to find her own identity away from being "Auggie's sister."


Wonder is a superb book, and I would recommend it to anyone from about ten years old upwards. Although it shows that kids can be thoughtless, and adults can be ignorant - which is worse - it also reveals the best in human nature: kindness, family, friendship and loyalty. We can all learn a lot about acceptance and tolerance - not just from the characters around Auggie, but also in his attitudes to them. He is wise and forgiving, aware that people will double-take when they see him, no matter how kind they might be.

Like, it's okay, I know I'm weird looking, take a look, I don't bite. Hey, the truth is, if a Wookiee started going to school, I'd probably stare a bit! 

It was easy to love Auggie by reading about him on the page - but I was challenged to think about how I would treat him or think about him if I were to meet him in the street, or interact with him on a daily basis. Because, after all, Auggie is just a kid like anyone else. He may face challenges that others don't have to deal with, and that's not fair, but behind his face, he's just a ten-year-old boy with a Star Wars obsession.

To me, though, I'm just me. An ordinary kid.But hey, if they want to give me a medal for being me, that's okay. I'll take it. I didn't destroy a Death Star or anything like that, but I did just get through the fifth grade. And that's not easy, even if you're not me.

I was sent this book by Ellie from Musings of a Bookshop Girl. Thanks Ellie! :)

Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery

I've decided to review the concluding two books in the Anne of Green Gables series in a single post, as I've already said a lot about Rilla of Ingleside three years ago. (You can read the original post here. Caution: It's long and full of spoilers.)

Rainbow Valley follows on from Anne of Ingleside, but by this point the Anne books aren't really about Anne Blythe, nee Shirley, any more. Rainbow Valley isn't even a Blythe family book, but instead is centred on a new family, the Merediths. John Meredith is the new Presbyterian minister, a young widower with four children. Although academically brilliant, Mr Meredith is completely at a loss when it comes to bringing up his children, and Jerry, Faith, Una and Carl cause scandal in the community by their wild behaviour.

I found Rainbow Valley to be much more enjoyable than Anne of Ingleside. The Blythe children, who befriend the Merediths, are a little older, and their escapades are less cutesy-poo and more heartfelt. Under the children's silly scapes is their real longing to get their father's attention, and to become respectable members of the community. Although I didn't feel that I got to know the boys very well - I would get Jerry Meredith confused with Jem Blythe, both being the eldest of their respective families, and having similar names - there was real character in the girls: impulsive, big-hearted Faith, and shy, thoughtful Una. We also got to know Walter Blythe better, who is growing to be an extraordinary, unearthly boy with his own battles.

Then there's Mary Vance, a runaway orphan "adopted" by the Merediths. Mary's story has strong parallels with Anne's own childhood, but a very different character - maybe an insight into what Anne could have been like without her imagination? Mary's language and attitude horrifies the minister's children, and even after she is being "brought up properly," she has a sharp tongue and too high an opinion of herself. I don't exactly like Mary Vance, but there is no denying she is a living character.

Perhaps I felt more interested in Rainbow Valley than its predecessor because L. M. Montgomery herself was more interested. Ingleside and Windy Willows, which are less of a joy for me to read, were written at a later date when I understand Montgomery had fallen out of love with Anne, and it shows. In Rainbow Valley there is stronger characterisation, with some newcomers who are more than gossippy old women and match-making subjects, but who take on a valuable role in the story. We meet intelligent, argumentative Norman Douglas, the West sisters imprisoned by their own vows to each other, and of course Mary and the Merediths, all of whom are as knowable as the Avonlea residents of old.

Anne's story concludes in Rilla of Ingleside, when her children are grown up, and so has the story. For the first time the timeless, slightly other-worldly, other-time classic is brutally placed into an exact place in history: World War One. I found it interesting to read about Canada as part of the British empire and the characters' patriotism towards a country most of them had never seen. I felt uncomfortable noticing that Rilla, who was so set against her brothers going to war, addressed a meeting about dying for one's country being glorious, and helping to persuade young lads to join up.

But this book does not allow idealism to overshadow the ugliness of war. We don't get to see the action first-hand - although one of Jem's letters home was reminiscent of some of war poet Wilfred Owen's writing - but Montgomery focuses in on the agony and helplessness of the people on the home front; the families, friends and lovers of the soldiers. Though full of comic and heartwarming scenes, through Rilla, Anne and Rilla's friend Gertrude, we feel the relentless agony of life, love and loss at such an unpredictable time, the fear that must underscore every aspect of life "Till the boys come home." And, of course, many never would return, including one of the Blythes' most beloved friends-and-relations. To Gertrude, Rilla, Una Meredith and me as a reader, it seemed that such loss could not be borne, but of course they survive and carry on. They must. But Rilla of Ingleside made it clear that for all who lived through the fateful years, the world had changed forever in a way that one can never quite get over.

Rilla of Ingleside is a guaranteed tearjerker, a bittersweet ending to the story that started off as such sweet escapism. In some ways I am glad that Anne retreated into the background in the later stories, as it seems so terrible that her story should take such a turn. By this point, this is far more than just a children's story, but a unique piece of World War One literature that deserves a place in the canon.

Anne of Windy Willows/Poplars, L. M. Montgomery

The fourth book in the Anne series is a bit of an oddity, sandwiched in between the Avonlea stories and the Blythe Family stories, covering the three years between Anne's graduation and her marriage to Gilbert Blythe. She takes a job as the principal of Sunnyside High School, but finds an obstacle in the form of the vast Pringle family and friends-and-relations. It seems that the clannish Pringles resent Anne for taking the position of principal, which the Pringles had expected to be offered to one of their own.

Like the "Patty's Place" scenes of Anne of the Island, a lot of the pleasure comes from the cosy domesticity of Anne's everyday life. In Sunnyside, she boards with two elderly widows, the austere "Aunt" Kate and timid, over-sensitive "Aunt" Chatty (Charlotte.) The workings of the household are seemingly dictated by housekeeper Rebecca Dew - a veritable Mary Quite Contrary, who is allowed to believe she is in charge by the widows, Anne and possibly even Dusty Miller, the cat, who manage Rebecca Dew by suggesting the opposite to their desired end result. Anne has an adorable little bedroom with a tower and a memorable blue cushion with an uncanny resemblance to a doughnut. Windy Willows (or Poplars, if you prefer) is as homey a house as you can hope to find.

In my opinion, Anne of Windy Willows is one of the weaker books in the series. It was written after some of the chronologically later books, and I think it shows that the author's enthusiasm was waning at the time. It suffers a little for being set in a place and with people we don't have much chance to get to know. Not too much can happen in Windy Willows because it might impact the plot of the later-set but earlier-written Anne's House of Dreams. As such, there is a lot of padding, a lot of "hello-goodbye" characters who have never been mentioned before their moment in the limelight, are never heard from again, and have little to no relevance to the main plot. I've said before that I love the Anne series for its episodic nature, but the hello-goodbye characters don't get enough development for me to care very much. Mainly they are either pessimistic, cantankerous old women who look for the worst possible outcome in every event, from weddings to weeding, or they have endless gossip of friends-and-relations we've never heard of, or they are half of a young couple waiting for Anne to help - sometimes with some hindrance along the way - to find their way to the altar. After a few such incidents, they all start to blur together.

But Anne is still the same imaginative, big-hearted girl, a little older, perhaps a little wiser. Her greatest strength is her empathy with lonely people. In Windy Willows, Anne reaches out to hostile, dowdy teacher Katherine Brooke, and to little Elizabeth Grayson, a small girl living next door to Windy Willows (or Poplars) who lives waiting for "Tomorrow" when her father will come back and take her to live with him. Anne knows what it is to be unwanted - until her adoption by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert she lived a very unhappy existance, seen as a burden by those who viewed it as their duty to bring her up. Instead of letting herself be embittered by the hardships, Anne's imagination helped her to rise above them, even as a child, but as an adult, those early experiences lend her the kind of compassion that imagination alone can't supply.

Follow Me Down, Julie Hearn

When Tom's mother is recovering from breast cancer, she takes him to London to visit his grandmother. While upstairs, Tom is aware of the tension as his mum and gran try to repair a long-damaged relationship, he finds himself called downstairs by the voices only he can hear. In the basement is a gap, which takes him back in time, when the house was home to the "freaks" and "monsters" of the Bartholomew Fair: Astra, the tiny "Changeling Child," Angel, the "Gorilla Woman," Malachi Twist the "Bendy Man" and others.

Follow Me Down is a very evocative novel, well-written and poetic, but in such a way that brings to life the murkiness of 18th century London. From the very beginning, when Tom's mother is driving around, looking for the old house, there is a sense of something not being right, in the description of the stink of Smithfield Meat Market on a hot day, while Tom's mother who "could recognise anything from gas to a bunch of flowers through several closed doors," can't smell anything. The Black Raven, the pub next door to Tom's gran is adorned with an "evil-looking bird" on its sign which appears to swing without any wind. When Tom gets taken through "the gap" back in time, we find ourselves in a dark underworld, seen through the eyes of the outsiders in the freak shows, with menacing villains in the "freaks'" masters and the grave robbers who would go to any lengths to procure bodies for experimentation. This is the nasty side of historical London. But the menace is not restricted to the past. In the present day, Tom's gran's house is haunted by the spectres of what isn't spoken. There is Tom's mum's illness, his gran's implied alcoholism and the mystery of his dead grandfather looming over like a shadowy figure that can't be seen, but neither can he be ignored.

Read as part of the Support Your
Local Library challenge

One theme I found interesting was that of memory. First of all we see Tom remembering how, as a toddler, he was fascinated by the railings outside his gran's house, "tall and sharp as spears. He had wanted one to play knights of old with; hadn't understood that you couldn't just pull one up and put it back after slaying a few imaginary dragons." But when he arrives, the railings don't fit his memory, being somewhat dulled and tarnished either by the passing years or by his growing up. When he gets into the basement and sees the gap, Tom suddenly remembers it from before, when he was just two years old. You'd think that a magical experience such as being pulled into the past would not be forgotten, but when you're two, perhaps you haven't yet worked out what the rules of the world are, and what is an unusual experience, what's just matter-of-fact. It means that when Tom is pulled into the seventeenth century, no time is wasted in telling us about him working out what's going on, but instead we are plunged straight into the story.

If you enjoyed this book, you may like

Kids'/YA

Tom's Midnight Garden, Philippa Pearce

Celandine, Steve Augarde

Adult

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

The Company of Liars, Karen Maitland

Follow Me Down is published in the USA as The Sign of the Raven.