Reader response-Out of my Mind

Jennifer Colucci
Mrs. Asuncion
Block 6
14 February 2016

Reader Response

For my reader's response essay, I chose to write about the book Out of my Mind by Sharon Draper. I read this book in seventh grade and I loved it! The main character Melody Brooks has cerebral palsy, a disease that limits her abilities. She can’t walk, talk, move and do simple tasks, such as feeding herself.She can’t communicate with anyone so nobody understands her. All her life she has been in the same specials needs class at her school, learning the same lessons each year. Melody however has a photographic memory and she is probably the smartest person in her whole school. Nobody thinks Melody knows anything, and assumes she is mentally retarded. One day Melody and her classmates were  invited to come join some 4th and 5th grade classes. She gets to participate in Music class, History, and Language Arts.While in music class Melody meets Rose, a girl in most of her inclusion classes. They instantly become best friend. One day after school, Melody’s neighbor Mrs. Valencia who takes care of her while her parents are at work, said “Melody look I won an essay contest, and I got six tickets to the aquarium.” Melody’s family and Mrs.Valencia were going but they had one more ticket. Melody wanted to invite Rose. Rose was able to come and they had a blast! Not long after that, Melody received wonderful news! She was able to get a personalized computer to help her communicate, acting as a text-to-speech device. One day Melody’s history teacher announced that all kids will be able to try out for a team of kids who will compete in the Wiz Kidz Competition. This is a competition where teams of kids from all different schools compete to see which schools team is smarter. Nobody expects Melody to make the team, but she does. She is the only kid in her class to get a perfect score. Her team ends up winning the local competition so they get to go to Washington D.C to compete at the state competition. The day they were suppose to leave for D.C, her teammates went have breakfast together. They knew Melody would hold them up so they didn’t invite her. They soon found out that there was a big snowstorm in D.C. They went on the last flight that was leaving the airport. Nobody told Melody and they left without her. Melody was heartbroken when she found out. Her team ended up coming in ninth place. Melody shows everyone the importance of not judging a book by it’s cover and have faith in you peers.

 The reason I chose to do my reader response on this book is because I really liked the message/theme. The theme is don’t judge a book by its cover and have confidence in yourself and what you can do. Nobody thinks Melody can compete because they think she’s “mentally retarded,” but she proved them wrong. I’ve had some people in my life who don’t think that i’m that great at math. I studied very hard and pushed myself to get better at math, and I proved them wrong. Melody also didn’t have the same faith in herself that her family had in her. Melody could only think of what would go wrong and what the people would say that didn’t believe she could compete. Multiple times I doubted myself that I couldn’t do well in school. I tried really hard to get good grades and I kept getting angry at myself when I got a bad grade. My family kept telling me that I would improve if I really tried, and I listen to them and really pushed myself and I eventually got my grades back up. I think both me and Melody and me are similar in some ways. I was able to relate to this book.




Works Cited
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Dolor, L.I. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh. New York: Columbia UP, 1998. Print.
Doe, R. John.  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh, 1998. Print.