Despite feeling average, August “Auggie” Pullman realizes he isn’t an ordinary 10-year-old: As the narrator of Part 1, he says, “[…] I feel ordinary. Inside. But I know ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. I know ordinary kids don’t get stared at wherever they go” (3). Auggie was born with a genetic defect that has affected his facial features. “I won’t describe what I look like,” says Auggie. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse” (3). To his mom and dad, Isabel and Nate Pullman, he’s extraordinary due to his large spirit, but his features cause everyone else to stare, which angers his sister Olivia “Via” Pullman. 

Auggie will start fifth grade in a week. He’s been homeschooled thus far because of all the surgeries he’s had to have. A secluded life of medical procedures is all he knows: “The bigger ones happened before I was even four years old, so I don’t remember those. But I’ve had two or three surgeries every year since then” (4). Though his mom is a children’s book illustrator, she’s stopped work to take care of him. Auggie wants to attend school because he’d like to make friends, but he wishes that he looked like other kids.