On Wednesday at 5:00, Sharon Draper will be here to sign her new book Out of My Mind. Sharon’s new novel is a very personal book. The main character in this novel is an 11 year old girl named Melody who has cerebral palsy, a disease that makes it impossible to control her muscles very well. Draper’s own daughter has this same disease and much of the first part of the book captures perfectly the helplessness of the disease that the whole family feels.
In Melody’s case, this disease has also taken away her voice. Melody, however, is not mentally impaired. She may not be able to move her body, eat by herself, or even speak beside grunts and laughs, but she has a bright mind that soaks up everything. When she finally gets a device that she can program to speak for her, the world begins to open up slightly.
She secures a spot on the school’s Whiz Kids team and leads the team to a win at the regional tournament. They are invited to Nationals in Washington D.C. where they will compete for a chance to appear on Good Morning America and win money for their school. The end of this story, however, does not paint a happy, pretty image of the way most of the world views kids with such diseases, and the reader learns how strong people with debilitating diseases must be and how little it takes to make a difference in someone’s life.
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