This book review is about Out of My Mind, by Sharon M. Draper.  It takes place in no named state.  All we know is that it is in the USA.  The time is the present.  Melody is the main character and she is mute and disabled.  She has cerebral palsy.  The only thing in her body she can control is her thumbs.  Rose is Melody’s only friend.  Melody lives her life misunderstood.  A doctor asked her questions to figure out how smart she is.  She knew the answers but could not speak.  She had to be put in the “disabled kid” room.  In the book she says,“Doctors. Where do I start? Doctors really don’t get me.  Mom’s a nurse, so I guess she speaks their language, but they sure don’t know how to speak to me.”

Melody is smart, emotional, friendly, and probably fun to be around.  She is smarter than everyone in H-5, her class.  And she can’t tell anybody, but her mom knows, “Melody laughs at my jokes, right at the punchline!” and “Melody is able to figure out things, communicate, and manage in a world where nothing works right for her.  She’s the one with the true intelligence!”  Melody can get emotional, like when everyone thought she was dumb just because she has cerebral palsy.  She felt bad.  She was crying.  “I stuck out my lip and stared at the wall.  ‘Leave me alone!’ I said.” Melody is friendly and almost never gets mad at people.  She took Rose on a trip, even though Rose can be mean to Melody sometimes.  But Melody took her anyways.  Being put in the “disabled kid” room, when she gets the Medi-Talker, is a HUGE breakthrough.  The Medi-Talker is a computer that will talk for her.  Then she can go to inclusion classes with regular kids.  This is important because she wants to be normal and now she is with normal kids.  But then her sister, Penny, gets hit by a car.  I am going to leave a cliffhanger so you can find out what happens to her.  Another important part of the book is the Wiz Kid Quiz Team Competition.  Melody wants to join her school’s team (her school is Spalding Street Elementary School). This is hard because she is disabled.  She is underestimated, but she aces her try-outs and makes the team!  This is a turning point in the book because she now proves she is smart.  Their team beats the first two teams and on to Washington D.C for the finals they go.  The “team”  goes to breakfast without her, because somebody needs to spoon feed her.  When Melody and her family get to the airport they see that the plane is cancelled.  But the rest of the team got on the early plane because they went to breakfast without Melody.  I’m not going to tell you the end…you will see for yourself.

I really liked this book.  On a scale of 1–10 it is an 8.  I liked that the whole book was written as an assignment that the teacher, Miss Gordon, gives her. The assignment is to write a autobiography.  If you like “Wonder” you will probably like this book, and if you like “Out Of My Mind” you will probably like “Wonder.” The characters are alike, and the book content is similar.