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August: Locks
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Wonder, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Difficulty of Kindness
Independence and Growing Up
Status and Bullying
Identity
Parenting and Guidance
Summary
Analysis
Ms. Petosa tells the class "boring" stuff about how she left her job on Wall Street to pursue teaching, and then she asks the students to each think of two things they want their classmates to know about them. Julian makes a show of having to think about what he wants to tell people, but tells the class he got a Wii game and a Ping-Pong table over the summer. Charlotte is next and talks about her new puppy and her sisters.
When August deems Ms. Petosa's short biography boring (even though her transition from working on Wall Street to teaching middle school is remarkable and interesting), it shows that he doesn't yet think of adults as being particularly interesting—and doesn’t consider them to be real people. This is indicative of his mostly childlike state, as part of growing up is learning to recognize that adults also have rich inner lives just like children.
Themes
