Author: Sharon M. Draper
Illustrator: N/A
© Date: 2010
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Pages: 295
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: No
Publisher Recommended Age: 10 years and up
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No
Summary from Book: Eleven-year-old Melody has a photographic memory. Her head is like a video camera that is always recording. Always. And there’s no delete button. She’s the smartest kid in her whole school—but NO ONE knows it. Most people—her teachers and doctors included—don’t think she’s capable of learning, and up until recently her school days consisted of listening to the same preschool-level alphabet lessons again and again and again. If only she could speak up, if only she could tell people what she thinks and knows. . . but she can’t, because Melody can’t talk. She can’t walk. She can’t write.
Being stuck inside her head is making Melody go out of her mind—that is, until she discovers something that will allow her to speak for the first time ever. At last Melody has a voice. . . but not everyone around her is ready to hear it.
From multiple Coretta Scott King Award winner Sharon M. Draper comes a story full of heartache and hope. Get ready to meet a girl whose voice you’ll never, ever forget.
Note: This review is done from memory. I originally read this awhile ago.
Page Pig Thoughts: I loved this book right up until just before the end. Then I finished it and felt rather disappointed. I loved the overall theme of everyone having a desire to belong and fit in with the people around them. That desire does not change when you don’t have control over your body. Giving a voice to someone with cerebral palsy as a main character was a compelling narrative that makes you pause and reflect on what may really be going on in the mind of those without a voice. It also made me curious about Stephen Hawking’s story.
NOTE: Use caution reading this paragraph, it spoils part of the dramatic ending….I fell out of love with this story when ability and inability were pushed a bit hard and the mother backs over the younger, toddler sister with the car (Penny was okay after a surgery for internal injuries and a broken leg). The parents had been golden to this point in the story, ever patient and caring with Melody and her younger sister, Penny. Before putting the car in gear, the mother got uncharacteristically upset (understandably based on the circumstances) and angry with Melody (who had been making lots of noise to make her mother not put the car in gear) to the point of hitting Melody on the leg to quiet her down. The mother had never struck Melody before. The mother stays by Penny’s side in the hospital. But when life was moving back along with Penny back at home, no mention was made of any conversation between the mother and Melody or Melody’s feelings toward her mother. Running over the child with the car was a traumatic moment to read about, but not having any further part of the mother in the story was rather disappointing for me. I also do not think that this was a necessary part of the story. In my opinion, the Quiz Kids narrative with the missed plane/being forgotten was sufficient drama for the story.
While I appreciated Melody’s wittiness, some of her comments surprised me. She makes fat jokes about her mother to her mother and makes snarky comments about her teacher’s aide’s clothing. The characters in the book all take it in stride and find it amusing, but I did not find all of her comments overly kind. Maybe she just knows those people well enough that those sorts of comments can be made, but Melody was not the most sensitive in her comments to others.
After the trauma and disappointment of the ending, despite loving the story until that point, I am reluctant to pick up the next book in this series.
Family Unit: Melody (11yo) lives at home with her mother, father, and younger sister, Penny (3yo)
Conflict/Social Issues:
- Melody wants to fit in with her classmates and have friends.
- Melody’s younger sister has no challenges, so Melody watches Penny learning and growing and doing things that Melody will never be able to do.
- Melody’s computer gives her a voice, but she is still slower than the other kids.
Positive Items:
- Melody is able to participate on the Quiz Kids team.
- With a foundation of the basic feeling of wanting to be included, this book is amazing for learning compassion and empathy for others that are different from ourselves and that we may not understand.
Items of Interest:
- Melody has cerebral palsy and is unable to control her body. She cannot feed herself or go to the bathroom herself.
- Melody’s family’s neighbor, Mrs. V, helps watch the girls and helps Melody learn how to navigate life in and out of her chair. Mrs. V is no-nonsense, but very loving.
- The teachers in Melody’s school classroom have varying levels. of kindness and ability to teach the children of varying challenges. One teacher treats the children like babies and plays grating nursery music while reviewing the ABC’s super slowly. Melody makes a frustrated fuss at school, so her mother comes to check on her. Melody’s mother takes in what is happening, tells the teacher off and breaks the CD. The next year brings a better teacher for Melody’s classroom.
- Melody’s school has some classes that integrate the challenged children in her room with the other children in the school.
- Melody gets a computer that gives her a voice and enables everyone to hear all of the intelligence that has always been in her head. The computer eases the frustrations in her life because she can clearly ask for things that she wants and have conversations.
- After she gets her computer, one of the first things that Melody tells her parents is that she loves them.
- Melody watches her younger sister navigate the world with relative ease, the mobility and the words.
- Melody has plenty of sass. She makes joking comments to her mother about her mother’s weight, which her mother doesn’t seem to mind. Melody also makes jokes about her teacher’s aide’s clothing, which the aide is amused with, but are definitely not comments that you would make to just anyone.
- While Melody seeks empathy from others in life, that is not really one of her strong suits.
- Melody earns a spot on the school’s Quiz Kids team. The teacher was skeptical that he had made the questions hard enough when Melody gets a perfect score.
- The rest of the Quiz Kids team has varying levels of support and understanding with Melody. They try to include her in a celebratory dinner, but are taken aback by Melody’s lack of ability to feed herself.
- Melody was super excited for the trip of a lifetime to compete in the national Quiz Kids competition in Washington DC. Her plane was cancelled due to weather and there was no other way for her to get to her destination. Her parents are upset with her that the rest of the team had gone out for breakfast and managed to make it to an earlier flight. The team does not do as well in the competition without Melody. The team later tries to apologize, but Melody doesn’t want their half-hearted apology.
- As mentioned above, there is a big drama at the end of the story regarding the mother running over Penny with the car.
Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):
- Out of My Heart
- Out of My Dreams