It’s Monday! What are you Reading?

This week I chose to read a juvenile fiction book called Out of My Mind by Sharon M Draper. This book is amazing! A little girl, Melody, is eleven years old and has cerebal palsey and has had it ever since she was little. She talks about her struggle with not being able to walk, or talk or doing anything else on her own. She has to be fed by her mom at every meal and is totally dependent on people to help her. Since she can’t talk, she uses a communication board to interact with people. Her neighbor, Mrs. V., has helped Melody and her family for years and helped Melody create the communication board but Melody soon realizes that she has too many thoughts in her head and the communication board isn’t cutting it. Melody finally gets a Medi-talker which is able to store so many different words and phrases which will help her communicate better with everyone around and opened so many doors and opportunities for her. At school, she is in room H-5 which is the special needs kid’s room. They are separated from the rest of the school but some days they are able to participate in the “interaction” classes which allows them to go to regular classes with the “normal” kids. Melody refers to them as the “normal” kids because she wants to be able to walk and talk like they do even though she is perfect the way she is, she just can’t see it yet. Something big happens when she goes to her interaction classes one day. I’m not going to spoil it for the rest of you because I want you to read the book yourself! In this book Melody thinks she is weird and tries so very hard to be like the other normal kids but at the end, she realizes that normal isn’t always that great. It’s a great book that will teach kids to love themselves no matter what. I would recommend this book to anyone but be prepared to shed a few tears!