Marcelo Sandoval has autism and has always attended a special school, an idyllic, protected place. But the summer before high school, his father demands that Marcelo works in his law firm's mailroom in order to experience "the real world". There Marcelo meets Jasmine, beautiful and surprising, and Wendell, the self-satisfied son of another partner in the firm. He learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it's a picture that he finds in a file - a picture of a girl with a terrible injury - that truly connects him to the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and his place in it.

 

 

This book features in the following series: Thorndike Literacy Bridge, Thorndike Literacy Bridge Young Adult .

There are 320 pages in this book.

It is aimed at Young Adult readers. The term Young Adult (YA) is used for books which have the following characteristics: (1) aimed at ages 12-18 years, US grades 7-12, UK school years 8-15, (2) around 50-75k words long, (3) main character is aged 12-18 years, (4) topics include self-reflection, internal conflict vs external, analyzing life and its meaning, (5) point of view is often in the first person, and (6) swearing, violence, romance and sexuality are allowed.

This book was published in 2012 by Scholastic .

Francisco X. Stork is the author of Marcelo in the Real World , winner of the Schneider Family Book Award for Teens and the Once Upon a World Award; The Last Summer of the Death Warriors , which was named to the YALSA Best Fiction for Teens list and won the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award; Irises ; and The Memory of Light , which received four starred reviews. He lives near Boston with his wife. You can find him on the web at www. franciscostork. com and @StorkFrancisco.