Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

From award-winning author Sharon Draper comes Out of My Mind, the story of a brilliant girl who cannot speak or write.

“If there is one book teens and parents (and everyone else) should read this year, Out of My Mind should be it” (Denver Post).

Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but she has a photographic memory; she can remember every detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom—the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally challenged, because she cannot tell them otherwise. But Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy. And she’s determined to let everyone know it…somehow.

In this breakthrough story—reminiscent of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly—from multiple Coretta Scott King Award-winner Sharon Draper, readers will come to know a brilliant mind and a brave spirit who will change forever how they look at anyone with a disability.

 

Which book begins with "I’m surrounded by thousands of words. Maybe millions."

Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes—each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.

From the time I was really little—maybe just a few months old—words were like sweet, liquid gifts, and I drank them like lemonade.

Every word my parents spoke to me or about me I absorbed and kept and remembered. All of them.

By the time I was two, all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings.

I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old.

I can’t talk. I can’t walk. I can’t feed myself or take myself to the bathroom. Big bummer.ALSO BY SHARON M. DRAPER

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Romiette & Julio

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The Battle of Jericho

November Blues

Just Another Hero

The Hazelwood High Trilogy:

Tears of a Tiger

Forged by Fire

Darkness Before Dawn

Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs:

The Buried Bones Mystery

Lost in the Tunnel of Time

Shadows of Caesar’s Creek

The Space Mission Adventure

The Backyard Animal Show

Stars and Sparks on Stage