Ever wonder how it feels to watch the movie of a book you just finished reading? The movie and book are usually very different because one uses words and the other visuals to tell the same powerful story. Wonder by R.J. Palacio is no exception. It is a book that every grammar school student between 4th-6th grade needs to read to be more sensitive of how differences in appearance can cause hate, bullying and fear. While the plot, the characters and the lessons are similar in the book and movie, there are differences that I noticed that changed my experiences with this thought-provoking book. In the book, Auggie, the main character is a disfigured child trying to have a normal life in school while being bullied by some and building good relationships with others in his class. The book and movie are both told from the perspective of different characters, something I have never before encountered. The movie, however left out Summer’s point of view, and she was an important friend of Auggie’s who played a very significant role in the story and in Auggie’s life. A factual error that did not translate well in the movie version was the development of the friendship with Summer. Summer, in the book, sits with Auggie on the first day of school while in the movie, she does not form a relationship with him until several days later. The time line is not quite right. The movie may need extra time to build these relationships, whereas in the book, the author is able to build the characters’ personalities more easily. I found myself crying several times while reading the book. The death of Auggie’s dog was a big loss for Auggie, who has a deformity that keeps people from getting to know him. In the beginning of the book, he does not have friends and the dog is all he has. The emotions I felt were very strong because the author uses vivid descriptions to explain how Auggie feels. Auggie’s feelings are a big part of the written version of Wonder. The movie relies on dialogue to show us Augie’s emotions and it is not as powerful or memorable. The book, Wonder, is something every child should read to make one more aware, sensitive and understanding of the differences that exist in us and how our own choices can make a big difference in someone’s life. The movie takes Auggie’s disfigurement and shows it to us. I think seeing it is very different from reading about it. Watching Auggie, his face, his pain, and his sadness makes the book real. It makes Auggie real. It makes all his friends real. It makes the ugliness of the bully, Julian, real. Watching the movie after reading this book made the author’s message even more powerful. Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2012. Buy the book here and support Stone Soup in the process!
book review
Thankfulness: a review of “Where the Mountain Meets the Moon” by Grace Lin, by Daniel Zhu, 10
I have heard the following thought experiment countless times, albeit from different people: you can save your family (including you), or you can save everyone but your family (with the exception of you). Hard choices like this, although usually not as dramatic, often draw out one’s true personality. In the book Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, the main character, Minli, and her friend Dragon are trying to change both their fortunes by visiting the Old Man of the Moon; a mythological figure who is said to control the fate of all humans. However, when she discovers that she can only have one question and one answer, Minli is forced to make a choice: she can either change her own fortune, or she can change that of one of her closest friends. Minli and Dragon both didn’t have very good fortunes. Minli’s village never saw any rain, so farming was extremely hard; the villagers barely got by in everyday life. Dragon was a little more lucky – he was a dragon, after all – but for some reason unbeknownst to him, he couldn’t fly like other dragons could. Both wished to change the bad conditions they felt they were living in. When they finally get to the Old Man of the Moon, however, he delivers some grave news: Minli can only ask one question. Now Minli is faced with a choice: she can either change her own fortune, or Dragon’s. Although this was forshadowed when Dragon found that the bridge to the Old Man of the Moon could not hold her weight–only Minli’s–it still came as a shock to her when the Old Man of the Moon revealed the grim truth. However, Minli suddenly remembers the words of her friends Da-Fu and A-Fu: “Why would we want to change our fortune?” Then she sees the legendary paper which supposedly held the secret to happiness: and it read “thankfulness.” She realizes that perhaps why Da-Fu and A-Fu didn’t want to change their fortune was because they were already satisfied with everything they had; they didn’t need more. Minli finds herself thinking that perhaps her fortune doesn’t need to be changed either. So, without doubt or hesitance, she asks the Old Man of the Moon, “Why can’t Dragon fly?” It turns out, the pearl on top of Dragon’s head was somehow weighing him down. Minli pulled it off his head, and together, they flew home. Coincidentally, Minli’s father had told her mother a story about a dragon pearl, so the next morning, they were shocked that Minli actually came home with one. And then, after their happy reunion, the villagers’ lives took an even better turn when the Fruitless Mountain started blossoming again. Why? Well, a story that people once thought was just a legend said that a dragon called the Jade Dragon was the master of all rain. However, when her children sacrificed themselves because Jade Dragon was being cruel and holding grudges, she was filled with grief and descended to the ground as a river, hoping to reunite with one of her children. However, this never happened, which is why Fruitless Mountain remained fruitless; it had been cursed by Jade Dragon. Long story short, it turned out that Dragon was one of Jade Dragon’s children, and since he had been reunited with one of his children, the curse on the Fruitless Mountain was lifted. Minli’s village began to prosper again, and after her parents sold the dragon pearl to a king–The Guardian of the City of the Bright Moonlight, to be exact–the village was able to get the material it needed to properly farm. Minli thought to herself, “I had not asked the Old Man of the Moon any of my questions; yet, they have all been answered.” I’m sure that if Minli had asked her question, the Old Man of the Moon would have told her to be thankful. When we make choices, it shows a lot about us. One of my favorite trilogies, Divergent, centers on this topic. At the top of every book, there’s a catchphrase that relates to choices, and on the cover of the last book, Allegiant, the words written on it are: “One choice will define you.” And it will– this is demonstrated in Minli’s story. When Minli chose to ask Dragon’s question instead of her own, she demonstrated that she had attained arguably one of the most important virtues in everyday life: thankfulness. If you had truly mastered this virtue: you could make a choice when asked thought experiment questions in a second. For example, the thought experiment at the beginning: if you were truly thankful, you would be satisfied with how you had lived your life, and you wouldn’t want more. So, you would obviously go with the second choice. This not only demonstrates the importance of thankfulness in itself, it also shows that thankfulness is a crucial part of making good choices: one of the most important skills to master in life. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. New York: Little Brown Young Readers, 2009.
Thoughts on reading “Bomb” by Steve Sheinkin, by Daniel Zhu, 10
The successful use of the first atomic bomb greatly relieved many scientists, because it meant that their years of work on it had not gone to waste; yet it also caused them to experience pain and grief like never before. Los Alamos was the base of the first American atomic bomb program, and it was there that the first three atomic bombs, two of which were dropped on Japan, were created. When scientists there received news that an atomic bomb had successfully been dropped on Hiroshima, at first, they felt overjoyed that their creation had worked. However, that soon turned into worry and sadness after they found out how much destruction the bomb had caused. When scientists unleashed the deadliest weapon ever known to man, it gave them a heavy burden of responsibility for the rest of their lives. American scientists’ first reaction on August 6, 1945, when they got the news that the atomic bomb had successfully been dropped on Hiroshima, was extreme happiness, pride, and relief. The scientists at Los Alamos had taken nearly 7 years to reach this milestone; the atomic bomb project had started in America in 1939, adopting the name “The Uranium Committee.” In the beginning, the committee struggled to get the operation going, but when Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer took charge, new technologies began to be uncovered. As the team approached the end of the road, they began working harder than ever, often working 24-hour days to satisfy the seemingly impossible deadlines President Truman had set. In addition, it is important to note that the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was made from uranium. Many scientists were uncertain if it would work since they had only tested the plutonium bomb; there simply wasn’t enough uranium to use in tests. When it did work, many scientists were relieved; had it not, many years of work would have gone to waste. However, after getting a more detailed report of what happened at Hiroshima, many scientists were horrified. A wave of fear, worry, sadness, and guilt rolled into Los Alamos. During night parties on August 6 to celebrate the success at Hiroshima that morning, Oppenheimer showed an official report on the effects of the bomb around. One scientist that worked at Los Alamos, Otto Frisch, recalls “the feeling of unease, indeed nausea.” And nausea it was indeed: as Oppenheimer walked away from the party, he turned back to see someone vomiting into a bush. And it wasn’t just the scientists at Los Alamos. The German scientist that discovered fission, Otto Hahn (who, at the time, was being held in custody in England) “was completely shattered by the news,” said a British officer named T.H. Rittner. He felt responsible for the destruction caused at Hiroshima. When it came time to drop a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, many of the scientists’ attitudes were very different from what they had been at the time of Hiroshima. However, nobody but the scientists seemed to be carrying this great burden. Many presidents and political leaders at the time didn’t seem to care about how much destruction was being caused by atomic bombs. When Robert Oppenheimer brought his concerns to President Truman, saying that he felt “he had blood on his hands” and would not support the creation of another atomic bomb, Truman took this as a sign of disloyalty and kicked him out of the atomic bomb program, when really all Oppenheimer wanted to do was to prevent MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Truman also demanded that twenty more atomic bombs be created as soon as possible, regardless of the cost. Soon, atomic bombs turned into hydrogen bombs, and as America and Russia competed to build up their arms, many other countries decided to join the race. Soon, there were so many nuclear warheads on Earth that 0.5% of them could, by themselves, wipe out all living things on Earth. Many countries simply refused to consider how much devastation all these bombs could cause. The atomic bomb not only affected many people physically, it also drastically changed many people, especially scientists, mentally. Many scientists at Los Alamos would never recover from the guilt or pain that being a part of the creation of the most lethal weapon ever known to man brought about. There’s an unforgettable quote from the renowned physicist Albert Einstein that concisely sums up this situation: “Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.” Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin. New York: Roaring Book Press, 2012.
