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AUGGIE
Auggie (August) Pullman is ten years old. He loves Xbox, his dog, Daisy, and he
really loves Star Wars. His favorite character is Jango Fett, and he used to have a
small braid in the back of his head like a Padawan Jedi apprentice. His favorite
holiday is Halloween, and his birthday is October 10th. 

Auggie has had twenty-seven surgeries—some big, some small—and he has some
medical mysteries that doctors still haven’t figured out. All of this comes from a
specific gene. His parents and his sister, Via, each carry the gene, too, but only
Auggie shows it. 

The way he looks makes people stare, which he’s used to. It also makes it hard for
him to hear (but he has a new hearing aid that makes a big difference), and
sometimes it’s hard to tell when he’s smiling. Because of his surgeries, Auggie was
homeschooled for a long time, but started going to Beecher Prep in fifth grade,
where he made a lot of new friends. He smiles a lot now.

VIA
Via (Olivia) Pullman is Auggie’s older sister and a freshman at Faulkner High School.
She sometimes feels like she’s not as important to her family as Auggie is, especially
since Grans, their grandmother and one of Via’s favorite people, passed away.
Sometimes she’s frustrated that she’s been defined more as Auggie’s sister than as
Via, but she’s also fiercely protective of her brother and is a great sister and friend to
him.

JACK WILL
Jack Will is one of Auggie’s first friends at Beecher Prep. He and Auggie have six
classes together: homeroom, English, history, computer, music, and science. Jack
doesn’t love school, except for some classes, like PE and computer class. And lunch
and recess. But having August in so many classes makes it easier, because they
make each other laugh in class a lot. His first name is Jack and his last name is Will,
but a lot of people call him Jack Will like it’s all his first name. 

SUMMER
Summer Dawson is popular, but she doesn’t always do what the other popular girls
do. She sits with Auggie at lunch on his first day of school, and they realized that
their names kind of match because they’re both summer names. They only have one
class together, English, but they eat lunch together every day and hang out after
school a lot. One of her favorite sayings is “cool beans,” which is also a great way to
describe her.
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JULIAN
Julian Albans is one of Auggie’s biggest obstacles at Beecher Prep. He’s rude to
Auggie and makes other kids feel like they have to be, too. He’s an only child, and
his popularity at school is really important to him, which is part of why he was so
mean to Auggie. After spending the summer with his Grandmere in Paris, he feels
badly for how he treated Auggie during the school year. He apologizes, and decides
to enroll in a new school for sixth grade for a fresh start. 

CHARLOTTE
Charlotte Cody is one of the smartest kids in her grade, which makes a lot of other
kids think she’s a goody two shoes. She loves theater and dancing, and she has two
sisters and a puppy named Suki that her family adopted from an animal shelter. She
is friendly and doesn’t choose sides at school, and she might have a crush on Jack
Will. Might.

CHRISTOPHER
Christopher Blake has been Auggie’s best friend since they were little, so he was
there through all of Auggie’s surgeries. Three years ago he moved to Bridgeport,
Connecticut, more than an hour away from North River Heights, where Auggie lives.
They don’t see each other very much now, but they chat online. Christopher plays
the guitar in the after-school rock band. Like Auggie, Christopher is obsessed with
Star Wars, and they both dream of going into outer space to visit Pluto one day.

MIRANDA
Miranda Navas and Auggie’s sister, Via, have known each other since first grade, so
she’s known Auggie since he was a baby. She’s and Auggie used to sing Space
Oddity by David Bowie together all the time because of the astronaut helmet that
Auggie liked to wear. Her parents got divorced the summer before high school
started, and she and Via are not as close as they used to be. 

JUSTIN
Justin is Via’s boyfriend. He plays the fiddle in a zydeco band, which plays Creole
music from Louisiana (but Justin is from Brooklyn). His parents are divorced, and he
has an older half-brother, but they’re not very close. He loves the closeness of the
Pullman family. 
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Mr. Tushman, the principal of Beecher Middle School, appears at certain

key points in the story, but we have the sense that he's always paying attention
behind the scenes. In the wake of Jack punching Julian, for instance, Mr. Tushman
doesn't expel him automatically, despite rules that would permit him to do so.
Jack isn't able to explain himself, but Mr. Tushman knows that Jack is a good kid and
he's pretty sure there is a whole lot of backstory. So he allows Jack to redeem
himself by writing letters of apology. He tells Jack to really think about what he has
done, and talk it over with his parents. 
As Jack and his mom leave the office, Mr. Tushman says something quietly to Jack's
mom. It's not spelled out, but we suspect that Mr. Tushman is making allowances
because he knows what a terrible time Jack has been having at school because of
his friendship with Auggie.
One of Mr. Tushman's most important roles in the story is defending Auggie's right to
be a student at Beecher Prep. Julian's mom, Melissa Albans, complains that being
asked to befriend "the new child with special needs" was perhaps too great a burden
for some kids. Mr. Tushman's written response embodies professionalism, but
doesn't pull any punches:
I did not think asking these children to be especially kind to a new student would
place any extra 'burdens or hardships' on them. In fact, I thought it would teach them
a thing or two about empathy, and friendship, and loyalty. (4.Letters, Emails,
Facebook.Texts, 8-9)
Mr. Tushman wants kids to learn to be kind and tolerant of others—period. And of all
the kids he asked to help Auggie transition into his new school, Julian is the one who
most needed to learn "a thing or two about empathy, and friendship, and loyalty"—
just like his mean mom.

Isabel and Nate Pullman—a.k.a. Auggie and Via's mom and dad—aren't deeply
drawn characters. As R.J. Palacio says:
They may seem a bit idealized, but that's only because we never really hear from
their point of view, and the only thing we know about them is through the eyes of
their children and their children's friends.
In other words, Mama and Papa P are in supporting roles in this book—which makes
it extra appropriate that they're such supportive parents. Everything we know about
these two shows that they are kind, supportive, and protective of their children; and
they consistently bring humor and hope to their kids' lives too.

WONDER SUMMARY
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How It All Goes Down

August Pullman has been homeschooled due to some complicated health issues
related to a dramatic cranio-facial abnormality and the rigorous surgery schedule that
comes with it. But by the time August turns ten, his parents are beginning to think
about the big picture a.k.a. long-term. They have realized that Auggie not only needs
to learn more than his mom can teach him, but he also needs to learn to navigate a
world that isn't always kind to those who are different.
Enter: middle school.
At Beecher Prep in Manhattan, fifth grade is the first year of middle school, so it's a
good time for August to plunge into the mainstream. At first Auggie dreads the idea
of so many kids staring at him. And who can blame him? But when his mom tells him
about the chicks (no, not the beautiful ten-year-old babes—the actual chickens that
hatch in the science classroom incubator), he's kind of psyched.
Mr. Tushman, the principal of Beecher Prep (and the butt of many a weak joke),
arranges a small welcome committee for August. He asks three kids he has heard
are really nice to befriend Auggie, show him around, and help him transition into
school life. Charlotte is polite and pleasant, Jack is reserved but nice, and Julian is
an unkind creep pretty much from the get-go. Oh good.
The welcome wagon being an imperfect entity, Auggie finds himself sitting alone at
lunch the first day of school. Out of the blue though, a really nice girl named Summer
sits down and strikes up conversation. She first sits with him because she feels sorry
for him, but it doesn't take long for the two kids to become friends. Outside of lunch,
Jack's desk is next to Auggie's in almost every class. And once he gets used to
Auggie's face, Jack realizes that Auggie is a cool, smart, fun kid, plus a really good
friend. So while he's not exactly Mr. Popular, Auggie has made a couple of solid
friends.
But Jack lacks self-confidence and the courage to stick with his convictions, and
finds himself badmouthing Auggie with the best of 'em. Except he doesn't realize that
Auggie is sitting at the next desk over, wearing a Halloween mask. It's a devastating
betrayal, one that sends Auggie bolting for the bathroom in tears and swearing never
to return to school. Luckily his big sister, Via, prods him into returning, saying that
learning to cope with the awful days is part of growing up and facing life. Plus she
threatens to rat him out. She's still his sister, after all.
Auggie goes back to school, but drops Jack like the proverbial hot potato, leaving his
former friend hurt and bewildered. Of course Jack eventually figures out where
things went off the rails, and when he does, he feels like a super jerk—and shortly
thereafter a showdown between Jack and mean-kid Julian ends up with somebody
missing a baby tooth.
Jack and August make up and it seems like life is getting back on track… at least
until Jack returns from winter break and finds himself suddenly a total social reject.
Julian has turned the entire class against Jack for his decision to remain friends with
Auggie "The Freak" Pullman. Jack's loyalty is truly put to the test now, as he suffers
social isolation on par with Auggie's. If he ditches Auggie, he gets to hang with the
popular crowd—but Auggie and Summer are pretty much the only kids still speaking
to him, giving him support even though he's let Auggie down in the past.
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The climax of the story comes when the fifth graders are away at nature camp.
Auggie and Jack are accosted in the woods one night by some big seventh-graders
looking for trouble, and Auggie is verbally and physically assaulted for no reason
other than his appearance. A few other boys from Auggie's class circle back to see
what's going on, but when they step in to help, the situation explodes into a scuffle.
Sweatshirts are ripped, elbows get scraped, and most painfully, Auggie's expensive
hearing aids are lost in the night.
Auggie is terrified and hurt, but exhilarated too. Even in pain and in tears, he realizes
that boys who have until this point either actively shunned or passively ignored him
have, on this occasion, stood up for him and protected him, and have pledged to
continue to do so. The injustice of the cruelty toward August catalyzes a permanent
change for the better in his classmates' attitudes.
This turning point signals the end of Auggie's painful isolation. His peers finally
accept him as one of their own—as a kid with a heart, a brain, and a great sense of
humor in addition to his weird face. Auggie's fifth grade year culminates in victory,
and he is admired by students and teachers alike for his courage, his perseverance
in the face of difficulty, and the quiet strength of his character.