ALA Booklist (Wed Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2017)

A wide range of readers have embraced Auggie's story in Palacio's novel, Wonder (2012), and this picture book version stands on its own to highlight the novel's message for the youngestreaders. Addressing the audience, Auggie shares the things he likes to do, such as ride bikes and eat ice cream. He likes ordinary things; he just does not look ordinary. A multicultural group of children make fun of him, prompting Auggie and his dog, Daisy, to don astronaut helmets and take a fantasy trip across the galaxy, where the expansive view helps change his perspective. Returning to Earth, he's met by a boy who wants to be friends. Palacio's multimedia illustrations, inspired by the novel's book jacket, are a pleasant, engaging visual combination. Auggie and Daisy are solid images, while the backgrounds have a stamped quality, with colors variously faded and darkened. With a warm message at its heart aybe people can change the way they see . . . and they'll see that they're wonders too" is story should inspire plenty of empathy among little ones.

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

This simplified, generalized picture-book version of Palacio's popular novel allows protagonist Auggie--who has a severe facial difference--to narrate his experience for a younger audience: "All [people] see is how different I look... It hurts my feelings." Digital illustrations play with lines and shading for a luminous effect that underscores the book's theme, but that theme loses power absent the original's richer context.

Kirkus Reviews

Auggie, from the bestselling novel Wonder (2012), returns as a picture-book protagonist.Though Auggie tries to do the normal things other kids do—ride a bike, eat ice cream, play ball—he doesn't look like other kids. Though it takes knowledge of previous installments in the Wonder series to understand that Auggie has serious facial deformities and has had many corrective surgeries, it is clear what Auggie endures from other kids: "Sometimes they stare at me. They point or laugh. They even say mean things behind my back. But I can hear them." His mother tells him he's a wonder; in fact, "we're all wonders," Auggie informs readers. But with no characterization and little in the text beyond inspirational messages, it's not clear what makes Auggie a wonder; he wants to be taken as he is, but readers—unless they have read the other volumes—never come to know him. Borrowing the now-iconic stylized image of a nearly featureless, one-eyed, white Auggie from the original hardcover edition and employing colorful, digitally rendered art, this edition pulls the heartwarming spirit from Wonder but little of the substance. Auggie's first-person point of view is too narrow to allow for the range of voices that made the novel so rich. Palacio has perhaps mined the same material once too often. A feel-good volume lacking the wonder of Wonder. (Picture book. 5-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Dispensing with the plot and multicharacter perspective of her much-lauded middle grade novel, Wonder (which also inspired the -Choose Kind- antibullying movement), Palacio focuses this picture book spin-off