“I have no idea how I untangled the complicated process of words and thought, but it happened quickly and naturally. By the time I was two, all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings. But only in my head.  I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old…”

In March 2010, Sharon M. Draper published the fictional novel “out of my mind”. The book, published by “atheneum”, contains 295 pages. The storyline revolves around an eleven-year-old girl, called Melody. Melody is disabled. She can’t eat without being fed, sits in a wheelchair and does not talk. Looking at the young girl, most of the people assume that melody knows just as much as she says - nothing. Even doctors and teachers do not think Melody has any smartness inside of her. As a consequence, she ends up in the same classroom with the same other disabled kids year after year. But inside of Melody, thoughts are racing, for she has a photographic memory. As the young girl walks through life, she memorizes everything from emotions, to words, to facts. Everything Melody is confronted with is saved in her memory. But there is no way out. Melody cannot say a word to anybody, even though she nearly overflows with things to say. Eventually, she gets a speech-generating device, which enables her to communicate with others. Now that Melody has a voice, she only needs to make other people listen. But that is not as easy as she expected it to be…

Reading the book was a great experience for me. The characters are displayed very realistically and at the end of the novel, I felt quite close to all of them. Especially Melody’s family seems very nice and serves as a good role model for people of all ages. I think that the character of Melody is very well thought out by the author, which enables the reader to connect with her. While keeping a positive outlook, Melody tries to make other people understand her present emotions as good as she can. I found myself a lot of times hoping that other people would understand what she wanted to communicate them. Draper’s emotional and touching writing style seems to be casting a spell over the reader and quickly draws you into the book’s storyline. In addition to that, the book also contains a group reading guide, which isn’t only helpful when reading the novel at school but also gives some great conceptual approaches to deal with the new knowledge and reflect on the story by yourself. The reading guide also brings a few things up that encourage the reader to expand their knowledge about people with disabilities, which proves the highly educative value of this book. The thing that I liked best about the novel was that the reader can relate to Melody in many ways. Her story isn’t only the story of a disabled kid, who cannot talk, but speaks for a lot of other people too. In my opinion, the story figuratively reflects on all kinds of people: from people, who aren’t able to speak because they are very old, to people, who just don’t know how to make other people understand what they feel like today. 

Even though I do like the author’s writing style, I do not like some of the vocabularies she used. It was clear to see that Draper tried to adapt to the language used by teens and children, so she brought in a lot of informal words. In my opinion, the usage of this vocabulary was making the dialogues sound less authentic and more like adults trying to talk like teenagers.  Besides, I think that the author sometimes made things more dramatic than they actually were. A few of the doctors and teachers Melody is confronted with aren’t very empathetic. The idea of using a device that helps Melody to communicate with others seems obvious, and  I couldn’t quite comprehend why her parents did never do any research about such things. Also, when Melody still uses her non-high-tech communication board to give simple answers or say some easy things, the book describes how badly she wants to tell her parents that she loves them or ask for a Big Mac. Since Melody is very good at spelling and her talking board provides her with the letters of the alphabet, it seems strange that she does not spell out such simple and short messages. Those overly dramatic effects cause the story to be slightly implausible at some points. 

I believe that the book has great potential to reach out to people. The story is touching and makes the reader understand how trapped Melody feels in her own mind. Draper sends out a message about seeing the inner values of a person, rather than looking at a person's outside first. She makes the reader aware of how disabled people might feel and wraps everything up in a suspenseful story. In addition to that, the book provides a lot of background information and animates readers to educate themselves further. By looking at the way Draper describes the outlook of a disabled child, it is very obvious that she raised such a child herself as she reveals while giving information about the background of the book.

Overall, I think the story of this felicitous book is told very well told and lets the reader dive into the world of someone, who is trapped in her own mind. It lets a lot of room for the readers’ imagination and interpretation of the plot and asks questions that will make a difference in the world.