#8. Out Of My Mind by Sharon Draper

I don’t read a lot of truly “children’s” books for fun. This probably makes me a terrible student of children’s literature/future children’s librarian-type-person… but I’m really just in it for the YA. So it’s probably bizarre and inaccurate of me to be so shocked by how amazing of some of these books for younger readers are, but I did not expect Sharon Draper’s Out Of My Mind to keep me tethered to the couch the day I picked it up. It was one of those books you speed through, finish and say…

“woah.”

(Note: my book reactions for this round of reviews are getting closer and closer to irrelevant. I acknowledge this.)

So, the premise/protagonist/amazingness of Draper’s novel is Melody. Melody is eleven. She’s amazingly smart with a photographic memory, she has synesthesia which gives her this multisensory passion for old country music, and she was born with cerebral palsy. She’s this awesome little girl who can’t express her awesomeness. Her parents believe in Melody – in her capacity to learn and improve and participate – but with work and her baby brother, they don’t have the time or money to explore her condition medically or socially. But when Melody gets the chance to sit in on the “regular kids” fifth grade class, she realizes all that she is missing – learning, friendship, etc – she starts devising ways to get more attention, so that maybe she can participate with the real world.

I don’t want to give much more away because I enjoyed some of the plot surprises here, but trust me – there is a surprising amount of plot in this book. Although Melody’s cognitive capacities are speculative (as far as I can research and as far as Draper acknowledges in interviews), Draper paints Melody with such a rich inner life that I didn’t care. And the ending? Hearbreakingly ridiculous.

Again:

“woah.”