Children's Book Committee

The Children's Book Committee was founded more than 100 years ago to help parents, teachers, and librarians choose the books that children will find captivating and transforming.

One of the most comprehensive annotated book lists for children, aged infant-16. The Committee reviews over 6000 titles each year for accuracy and literary quality and considers their emotional impact on children. It chooses the best 600 books, both fiction and nonfiction, which it lists with annotations, according to age and category.

The Committee's Monthly Pick:
May 2012
  
Wonder
by R.J. Palacio
Published by Knopf
2012

Auggie's fifth grade classmates--and the rest
of his school--grow to appreciate the bright,
witty boy masked by a frighteningly disfigured
face. (9-11)

From a young reviewer:

I loved Wonder. It is a wonderful novel about
kindness and not judging people by their looks. 
The reader forms an incredibly strong bond
with the main character, August Pullman.
August is not an ordinary ten-year old. As he
says, “ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary
kids run away screaming in playgrounds.” 
August was born without a jaw, with eyes too
far down his face and missing external ears.
Sheltered his entire life by his parents, he did
not attend public school to avoid the shock
and disgust on other children’s faces. 
However, his parents force him to enter fifth
grade because they cannot homeschool him
well enough for him to take advantage of his
superior intellectual capabilities.

The plot so captivates the reader that Wonder
must be read in one sitting. Wonder is inspiring
because it shows that regardless of a person’s
looks, a person should be treated the same
as everyone else.

Wonder explains life through the eyes of a
person whom society casts as an outsider and
the book reveals that, even today, looks are
given far too much importance. Also, Wonder
describes how people interact with people
with disabilities and how they overcome
their prejudices.

Reviewed by Foster, age 12, Anchorage, AK.

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