Melody is an eleven year old
girl who has cerebral palsy. She cannot
speak, but is very intelligent. She gets
very frustrated to the fact that she cannot communicate with anyone or let them
know how intelligent she really is. She
feels trapped in her own body. A doctor
diagnosed her with mentally handicap and retarded. He suggested the parent put her in a special
institute. Her mom was so appalled by
his suggestion, she yelled at him. Her
parents decided to put her in Spaulding Elementary School. There they placed her in a special unit year
after year. She learned the same thing
every day, and was bored. She even said
she learned more from the Discovery Channel than at school. In 5th grade, they placed her in
an inclusion class. However, the kids
were not that accepting of her at first.
An aide in her class named, Catherine, told her parents about a special
computer called the Medi-Talker. Melody started communicating through this
machine. She started surprising everyone
on how intelligent she really was. Melody
made it to the “Whiz Kids” team. She helped them win and they were going to
Washington DC to represent their state.
Melody was so excited, but she was not able to attend because her flight
was cancelled due to bad weather. All
the other students had left at an earlier flight and didn’t tell her about the weather. She felt disappointed and hurt once
more. The story ends how it began, with
a girl who felt “out of her mind.” This story is a realistic fiction, the
characters, setting, and plot all can be realistic and it deals with a child
who is disabled. This book has a topic that
relates to many special children and their struggles in everyday life. There are special children that feel just
like Melody does “trapped in their own body.” In a
lesson, you may discuss Melody’s character traits.
You can find evidence in the book to support it. You may also have students use a Venn Diagram
to compare and contrast themselves to Melody.
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