Episode 97 – Wonder
The Worst Bestsellers
Worst Bestsellers
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2018
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Renata, Kait, and their returning guest Angie decided to #ChooseKind and experience the wonder of Wonder by R. J. Palacio, a saccharine story of what some abled people could learn from spending time with a boy with craniofacial differences. It’s also the story of a boy’s inexplicable love of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Tune in now to get your recommended daily allowance of Inspirational Quotes!
Readers advisory: Here.
Footnotes: Review of Wonder, written by Mike Moody for Disability in KidLit
What “Wonder” Gets Wrong About Disfigurement and Craniofacial Disorders by Ariel Henley
“I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much” by Stella Young
Children’s Craniofacial Association: About Treacher Collins Syndrome
Critics Question the Representation of Disability in ‘Wonder’ by Lauren Barack
Worst Bestsellers #2 – Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer
Candy pairing: Angie says Werther’s Originals, Kait says McDonald’s apple slices, Renata says sketchy charity candy.
Coming up next: Unmasked by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
* Worst Bestsellers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
(But no pressure, we’re also happy if you get these items from your local library or independent bookstore.)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to worst bestsellers, where we read about the wonder of wonder so you don't have to. |
| 0:17.7 | I'm Renata. And I'm Kate. And for this episode, we read Wonder by RJ |
| 0:22.8 | Palacio. Joining us to discuss this middle grade inspiration porn is librarian Angie Manfredi. |
| 0:29.8 | Hi, all. Hi, Andy. Welcome back. Thanks for having me back. It's so exciting. |
| 0:36.8 | For those who don't know, |
| 0:37.8 | Andy was one of our very first guests in the very early days of the podcast, and she read |
| 0:41.7 | Theo Boone Kid Lawyer by John Grisham with us. And we thank her for that service. |
| 0:49.0 | And it's a really interesting juxtaposition of this book where this kid gets bullied all of the time for stupid |
| 0:56.4 | reasons and a book where we want it to bully the kid all the time for legitimate adult reasons. |
| 1:02.5 | That's right. We did. A book, Theo Boone was a book where a kid deserved to get bullied by his |
| 1:09.4 | classmates. Yeah. |
| 1:11.6 | You know, some people, after the episode, some people on Twitter are like, |
| 1:14.5 | I don't think you should ever say that a kid should get bullied. |
| 1:16.9 | And I was like, yeah, but you didn't read Theo Boone, though. |
| 1:21.2 | But just to be clear, our podcast stands is you should never bully a real life living child. |
| 1:27.3 | But a fake child |
| 1:28.5 | that John Grisham made up seems like fair game to me. |
| 1:33.2 | Okay, now we've got that out of the way. |
| 1:35.2 | Speaking of not bullying, we have a couple of things we want to get out of the way, right |
| 1:39.4 | just the tippy top. |
| 1:41.2 | One is maybe you saw we were doing wonder or you started listening to this podcast |
| 1:45.0 | and you're like, wait a minute, like, I love wonder. I'm a teacher and all my students love |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Worst Bestsellers, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Worst Bestsellers and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.