Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

How This Book Has Changed My Perspective

This novel is in the first-person point of view of Melody Brooks, an elementary school aged girl living with cerebral palsy. Melody is unable to speak, has very little control of her limbs, and has no fine motor skills so she has to be in a wheelchair. What makes this book so good is that it's Melody telling her story, not someone else. Because Melody is unable to use words to communicate and she is "stuck" in a wheelchair, many people, especially kids at school, just assume she is thoughtless. What comes as a surprise to the ignorant people in the book who treat Melody like she is stupid is that Melody is extremely intelligent. At school, Melody can retain all kinds of facts and information that she learns. She is not clueless and she can notice when people she meets for the first time think less of her, just based on her appearance. Her parents know just how smart Melody is but ever since she was a baby, doctors have been telling Melody's mom and dad that she is incapable of doing much because of her disability. Melody joins the WhizKids Quiz Team at her school and does so well that she helped the team make it to the national competition. I really got the idea that her ability to learn and memorize facts and be able to use them for the quiz team questions helped Melody prove to her classmates and teachers that there is a highly-functioning brain inside the girl in the wheelchair. In my opinion, I think it was so awesome that Melody joined the quiz team and accomplished so much, but she shouldn't have had to do all that to be able to prove that she is smart to other people. I think this book is one everybody should read because it is a realistic story that shows how everybody is different and everybody has different abilities. Like the saying "don't judge a book by its cover", I learned from this story that I should never assume a person's intelligence or abilities soley based on their physical appearance or limitations.

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