62 pages • 2 hours read
R. J. PalacioAuggie & Me
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Middle Grade | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Everyone Is Fighting a Battle
“The Julian Chapter” begins with the quote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” This theme appears throughout Auggie & Me, where characters endure internal and external struggles that aren’t obvious to others. Each story shows the dramatic difference that simple kindness can make during these struggles.
Some characters experience internal turmoil. While characters like Julian and Charlotte seem collected and confident to their classmates, both are consumed with anxiety and the desire to be accepted. Julian’s battle with nightmares and the humiliation they cause him makes him lash out against others. In the introduction, Palacio explains that she wanted to write a story to explain Julian’s perspective, “Not to exonerate his actions, since his actions in Wonder are reprehensible and indefensible, but to try to understand him better” (xv). Because Julian refuses to share with others how scared he feels around Auggie, no one knows why he is so cruel. Even Julian’s parents do not understand his “nightmare situation” (21) until his mom sees the class photo of Auggie. While some characters have parents who walk through anxieties with them, Julian’s parents encourage him to blame Auggie rather than confront his anxieties. His mother blames Mr. Tushman for accepting Auggie into the school, insisting that the situation is too much for children to handle. Julian can tell that his mother is stressed by the situation and knows she wants him to remember “Good memories. Not ugly ones” (27). What ultimately changes Julian is the kindness from Mr. Browne, Grandmère, and the example of Tourteau. The gracious encouragement from Mr. Browne to explore his feelings, combined with the story of how Tourteau saved his grandmother’s life, even though she was unkind to him, fills Julian with remorse and gives him the courage to change. While it is easy to write off Julian as an unredeemable bully, his hate comes from his own internal battle.
While Charlotte’s internal battle does not cause her to act out in hatred, it does cause her social distress. Charlotte’s classmates think that Charlotte is a goody-two-shoes who thinks she’s better than everyone else. Mr. Tushman sees Charlotte’s need for approval and encouragement, which is why he calls her into his office to let her know how “supremely proud” he is of her kindness. While she tears herself down for being “nice” but not “kind,” he builds her up, reminding her that: “Being nice is the first step toward being kind. It’s a pretty awesome start” (298). To Charlotte, these words are “Worth all the medals in the world” (298).
Christopher also shows a need to be seen and shown kindness. His teachers are clueless about his parents’ separation. None of them are amused when he leaves belongings at home, and none of them ask him more about why he is struggling with forgetfulness. It’s not until Isabel Pullman sees Christopher’s anxiety that he has an emotional release.
Auggie & Me shows how each character is going through their own journey. Characters who seem unkind, like Savanna and Julian, have their own insecurities and struggles. While Charlotte might seem irritating and Christopher like a grumpy tweenager, each is going through their unique journey. They each mature and learn how to give kindness to others as they navigate their negative emotions.
Navigating the Complexities of Friendship
Auggie & Me illustrates the complexities of navigating friendship, specifically as children change over time. In the introduction to Auggie & Me, Palacio notes that many people expect children to be unkind as “they navigate their way through new social situations on their own, often without parental oversight” (xvi). Palacio says she believes that children have “yearning to do right” (xvi). All three stories show how this yearning to do right and form meaningful connection is often challenged with the pressures of growing up and wanting to fit in with their peers.
When children are very young, friendships are simple. When Charlotte meets Ellie in first grade, the two of them “figure skating” with their fingers on the table is enough to make them inseparable” (196). Christopher and Auggie are friends from the time they are born. When they are in elementary school, Zack and Alex’s new friends are “scared” of Auggie. Christopher doesn’t understand why that would impact their friendship: “I knew that Zack and Alex weren’t uncomfortable or scared of Auggie, so I didn’t understand why they stopped hanging out with us” (115). For children, kindness and acceptance is the default. Auggie & Me shows that as they grow older, friendships can become more difficult to navigate.
As the characters enter middle school, an unspoken social order and expectations begin to impact their friendships. True connection begins to conflict with a desire to fit in and be popular. Julian feels threatened when his “it” group changes, as Jack Will becomes friends with Auggie. While Julian doesn’t have an inherent desire to be mean, he does want to be popular. Julian punishes Jack and Auggie for threatening his social group by insisting that the children divide themselves into “Team Auggie” and “Team Julian.” While these actions are unkind, Julian’s narrative shows how they are a subconscious reaction.
“Shingaling” shows how Charlotte’s a desire to fit in impacts inclination toward kindness. Unlike Julian, Charlotte was never one of the “it” girls but has always wanted to be. When her best friend, Ellie, leaves to be a part of the “Savanna” group, Charlotte hardly blames her. The desire to be popular is so strong that Charlotte excuses Ellie’s behavior and is not as kind as she might normally be. While she is not overtly mean to Auggie, she doesn’t want people to see her with him, because she doesn’t her classmates to whisper about her. While she feels sympathy for Jack and Auggie, she stays “neutral” to avoid upsetting the popular group: “I was still hoping that maybe, one of these days, I’d work my way into that group myself” (190).
In “Pluto,” Christopher is also impacted by the pressure to fit in. He feels embarrassed when his friends see Auggie’s face on their video chat. Despite defending Auggie, Christopher feels that friendship with Auggie is difficult. Even at his new school, Christopher struggles because the older boys in the band dislike John, who Christopher is friends with.
While a desire to be popular impacts children, they are still able to maintain friendships and extend kindness. For Julian, it takes an example of kindness for him to realize how he traded friendship for surface level acceptance. Hearing the way that Tourteau was ostracized and still sacrificed his safety to protect Sara makes Julian evaluate his actions. The power of Tourteau’s kindness was so powerful that it extended throughout generations. For Christopher, his mother’s car accident and his video call with Auggie reminds him how comforting it is to have someone who completely accepts him. The kinship he feels with Auggie, and Auggie kindly walking Christopher through his math homework, propels Christopher to give up an invitation to start a band with the “popular” guys and stay with John. Christopher knows that “Some friendships are hard” (175) but realizes that those friendships are most rewarding.
Charlotte transforms as she feels accepted. When she and Summer bond over Gordy Johnson, the moment is so magical that Charlotte compares it to the world of Narnia (225). Eventually, she realizes that Maya, the awkward friend she overlooked, was her “friend” because “she’s never judged me. She’s always accepted me” (239). Charlotte decides that she wouldn’t give up sitting with Maya, even if she was invited to the popular table.
The three stories in Auggie & Me show childhood friendship in all its complexity. While connections might be simple for young children, a desire to fit in can get in the way. However, Julian, Charlotte, and Christopher demonstrate that children are not completely controlled by social order. By experiencing kindness and acceptance, children can choose meaningful friendship.
The Emotional Depth of Children
Auggie & Me portrays the depth of emotion children experience just as deeply as adults. While it might be easy to write off a child’s concerns, Auggie & Me shows the power that both positive and negative emotions have on children. Because these feelings are deep and valid, it’s important that they are seen and acknowledged.
Each of the three main characters in Auggie & Me deals with a form of fear and anxiety. By contrasting their experiences, Palacio demonstrates the complex ways that these fears can manifest in a child’s life. Julian struggles with terror and nightmares. He feels helpless because his nightmares are not in his control. Not only is Julian bombarded by terror and helplessness, but embarrassment. When he broke down crying in the movies as a five year old, he felt like “the biggest loser” (18). He thinks he should be far beyond nightmares and doesn’t want his classmates to know how he feels. Julian is so concerned with not coming across as a “loser” that he does whatever necessary to seem “cool.”
In “Pluto,” Christopher struggles with the negative emotions that his move to Bridgeport and his parents’ separation evokes. Christopher clearly feels disappointed in how his life has turned out. While Auggie has had a pet and healthy family environment, Christopher gets a hamster and his parents split for reasons he can’t understand. This pent-up frustration comes out in his interactions with his mother, who wonders “What happened to my sweet fourth grader from last year?” (104). Christopher calls her Lisa and grumbles with her for not gluing his stars to the ceiling. Christopher is not the type of person to get upset about room decor for no reason. The stars falling on his face is another example of how his new life isn’t what he hoped. Christopher doesn’t know what to do with his emotions, so he takes them out on his mother and feels scatterbrained all the time.
On the exterior, Charlotte is confident—even too confident. On the inside, she is incredibly self-conscious. When her best friend, Ellie, is accepted by the popular group, Charlotte notices how different she is. Her Venn diagrams reveal how she sees herself: “No boyfriend, no bra, honor roll, not “popular” while Ellie’s side has the phrases “has boyfriend, wears bra, average grades, popular” (196). While Ellie and the other three popular girls have long curled hair, Charlotte’s is short and straight. Desperate to break into the popular group, Charlotte is constantly trying to prove herself. Her desire to say the right thing means that she is constantly chattering, even if she regrets it moments afterward.
Only by confronting their fears and anxieties are these three characters able to break free of them. The narrative shows that an adult kindly helping children navigate their feelings can make a tremendous impact. When Mr. Browne and Grandmère kindly prompt Julian to consider why he hates Auggie, he realizes that he is afraid of Auggie. He thinks, “This whole time I had been thinking about Auggie like he was my enemy” (85). He confronts the way he treated Auggie and allows the remorse to sink in. Before, Julian felt that Mr. Tushman and other adults were trying to “force” remorse on him (83). By prompting him to examine his fear, Grandmère and Mr. Browne help the feeling come naturally. After wading through the emotions, Julian moves forward with peace. Similarly, Christopher needs to confront the fear and guilt he feels. After the accident, Christopher’s father is too distracted to notice how distraught Christopher feels. He’s bothered when Christopher repeatedly asks whether the accident was on his mom’s way home or while bringing him his forgotten items. Not realizing how guilty Christopher feels, his father says, “Today could have been so much worse” (147) which only adds to Christopher’s anxiety. On FaceChat, Isabell Pullman sees how upset Christopher is. Her kind presence makes the emotions pour out of him as he cries, “She was in the car because of me!” (168). After Christopher cries in his father’s embrace, he can move forward.
In Charlotte’s story, she confronts her fear of being unpopular and gossiped about through experience. When she becomes more secure around Ximena, she doesn’t chatter on and on with what she calls her “word vomit.” When Ximena kindly tells Charlotte that “you do care too much about what people think of you” (253) and Maya’s example of ignoring what others think helps Charlotte become more secure in her own identity. While Charlotte does not process her insecurity in a dramatic event like Christopher or Julian, she still learns how to overcome her feelings of inadequacy. She finally embodies the quote from The Isley Brothers’ song, “Nobody but Me” that starts her story: “No one can do the Shingaling like I do” (179).
In Auggie & Me, each of the main characters experience a range of deep and genuine emotions. While the process of navigating emotions is different for Charlotte, Julian, and Christopher, their stories reiterate that children are just as capable of significant feelings as adults. With the support of adults and meaningful friendships, children can grow in their emotional maturity and resilience.
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