This Book Is One Emotional Rollercoaster

This is one of the most frustrating books I have ever read, and it’s made me feel so many emotions at once as well. Out Of My Mind by Sharon M Draper is about a girl named Melody who has cerebral palsy which restricts melody from being able to speak or walk and use most of her limbs. The other thing about her is that she has an incredible memory she describes as photographic, she can remember everything from birth but it’s frustration because she can’t say anything. As the reader we get to see her life and how she interacts with her parents, teachers, mean kids at school, classmates and with her sister. She is completely underestimated when it comes to how smart she is and her life changed when she gets a Medi-Talker.

I think this book would be a great book to use in a classroom because it would teach kids about people with disabilities so that we wouldn’t have another Claire and Molly who thinks that it’s funny to imitate there disabled classmates. I don’t think that at anytime in school I was really taught about people with disabilities and definitely never read anything from their point of view. I think the book really wants people to get educated about disabilities and give them a better understanding about what it is like. Never have a read a book that is anything like this before, Melody is such a unique character. During the whole book you really feel for her especially when she’s unable to really speak her mind and when she’s left out from the Washington DC competition. Melody is really an extraordinary girl and she also feels really normal emotions even though much in her life isn’t that ordinary. She feels jealousy at her sister because she sees her sister go from not being able to talk as a baby to saying her first words and ongoing. The whole book seemed realistic for somebody who had cerebral palsy, like the mean girls making fun or her, but it also touches on fantasy because not everyone is going to be extremely smart and have a photogenic memory. That’s what I love about this book, it’s mostly realistic and then it adds that aspect of Melody that makes her extraordinary.