Larkin's Book Bloggers

In Out of My Mind, a new novel by Sharon M. Draper, Melody is an 11-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. What would happen if she could make people finally hear her?

 Eleven-year-old Melody has 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 day 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. 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.

I loved this book! I read a review on the book and it made me want to read it. I found the storyline always keeping me in suspense and wanting to read more- even though I don’t read a lot of realistic fiction. That is why I read a lot of science fiction, the suspense factor, which I cannot find in realistic fiction books. Yet this book changed my view because I got inside the mind of a completely original character. I found it interesting to hear the thoughts of someone who cannot talk, when we take talking for granted. One point I really found suspenseful is where Melody was put into an inclusion class, which is where special needs kids like Melody join a classroom during a subject. This scene kept me in suspense! What if the kids didn’t like Melody? Another great part is where Claire and Molly start to make fun of Melody. I wanted to keep reading because I had to find out how the other people react. Would they join the girls? Or would they get mad at them. I had to find out. If you like suspense or realistic fiction, then I definitely recommend Out of My Mind!

To learn more about Sharon M. Draper and Out of My Mind, visit her website at http://sharondraper.com/bookdetail.asp?id=35 

You can also read a lot of commonly asked questions on this site http://sharondraper.com/homework-1-1.asp#menu

 Megan K., EMS Blogger

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2013 at 7:51 am and is filed under Fiction - drama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.