Out of my mind
By: Saylor Lint
What is this novel about?
A truly inspirational story
Melody Brooks. A young girl with a beautiful mind, full of thoughts that cant be said. Melody is an 11 year old girl that will never be able to walk and talk, she suffers from cerebral palsy. She cant do the things that people who can do take for granted. Melody has a younger sister named penny, and a wonderful mother and father who believe in her, that she can reach success past this disorder, but most other people only see her as her disorder.
“[A] person is so much more than the name of a diagnosis on a chart.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind.Melody has been is Special Education classes her entire life and was pronounced mentally retarded at the age of five. She gets the amazing chance to be in a regular class and participate in a trivia competition because she was given a computer that says what she types. Melody leaps at the offer to be more normal, be in a normal class, do normal kid things. Even when she gets put into a few normal class people treat her like she is stupid but if only they knew how smart she actually was, even the teachers treat her this way; All melody wants is to be treated normally and teachers presume she cant join into the normal class activities and are astonished when she not only participates but passes how well all the other students but she is still treated like less of a person because of her disability. Finally melody takes a test along with several other students to see if they qualify for the trivia team, Melody is the only one who gets 100% on the test and still she is treated like an outcast on the team. Will Melody ever get treated fariley, will she ever get a chance to succeed with everyone pushing her aside and treating her like less of a human because she cant do everything they can, because she cant walk or talk makes them think that she must not be able to think but actually she is a bright wonderful girl and only her parents see this. Will she ever get equality? Read Out Of My Mind By: Sharon M. Draper to find out
“Words.
I’m surrounded by thousands of words. Maybe millions.
Cathedral. Mayonnaise. Pomegranate.
Mississippi. Neapolitan. Hippopotamus.
Silky. Terrifying. Iridescent.
Tickle. Sneeze. Wish. Worry.
Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes—each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.
Deep within me, words pile up in huge drifts. Mountains of phrases and sentences and connected ideas. Clever expressions. Jokes. Love songs.
From the time I was really little—maybe just a few months old—words were like sweet, liquid gifts, and I drank them like lemonade. I could almost taste them. They made my jumbled thoughts and feelings have substance. My parents have always blanketed me with conversation. They chattered and babbled. They verbalized and vocalized. My father sang to me. My mother whispered her strength into my ear.
Every word my parents spoke to me or about me I absorbed and kept and remembered. All of them.
I have no idea how I untangled the complicated process of words and thought, but it happened quickly and naturally. By the time I was two, all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings.
But only in my head.
I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old"
-Sharon M. Draper, Out Of My Mind