Book Club By Marlena B

Book Club Book  This month for a book club I am doing, the book we read was called A Mango Shaped Space. It is about a girl named Mia who has synesthesia, a condition where a person relates two senses together. For example, Mia sees all letters, words, numbers and sounds in colors, and sounds in shapes. Like if she hears chalk on a blackboard, she sees red zigzag stripes in her vision, or she sees her name as candy apple red with a bit of gold.

What We Might Talk About  We haven’t had the book club yet, but I’m guessing we would talk about a few things. One is how her family reacts to learning about her synesthesia, and how they treated her before and after what it was. Another is how other people treated her. And one more is how what other people did made Mia react like.

Mia’s Family  Mia’s family, particularly her parents, reacted in a few ways when learning about synesthesia. When they knew she was seeing shapes and colors for sounds and colors for letters, words and numbers, her parents were kind of supportive but mainly thought she had something wrong with her. This made Mia feel kind of apart from her family in a time when she needed them. When her parents and learned that synesthesia was a condition that wasn’t something wrong with you but simply something unique, they made Mia feel more comforted. Both her sister and brother found it very cool, and this helped Mia feel unique rather than like she had something wrong with her.

Other People  When people at Mia’s school found out they reacted in a way that surprised Mia. She thought that the people would think she was weird and had something wrong with her. Instead, they found it very cool and many people asked her questions like what their names’ color was to her. Mia both appreciated this because she felt unique, and disliked it because she felt crowded.