RJ Palacio Books in Order

If you're new to Wonder: Wonder → Auggie and Me → 365 Days of Wonder
If you're reading with younger kids: We're All Wonders → Wonder
If you like companion stories and different viewpoints: Wonder → The Julian Chapter → Shingaling → Auggie and Me
If you prefer a standalone historical adventure: Pony
If you love journals and daily inspiration: 365 Days of Wonder → The Wonder Journal → Choose Kind Journal

RJ Palacio was born in New York City as Raquel Jaramillo, the daughter of Colombian immigrants, and grew up in the Queens neighborhood of Flushing. From an early age she loved to draw and spent hours filling sketchbooks with characters and scenes.

As a teenager she attended Manhattan's High School of Art & Design and later studied illustration at Parsons School of Design, even spending a year at the American University of Paris. Those years deepened her interest in visual storytelling and gave her a close look at the world of books and design.

Before she became known as a writer, Palacio built a long career as a graphic designer and art director, creating book covers for other authors. She has said that for years she worked on other people's stories by day and quietly imagined her own after her kids went to sleep.

The turning point came outside an ice cream shop when her young son grew upset after seeing a child with facial differences, an encounter that left Palacio wondering how she could have handled the moment with more kindness.

That moment, along with the song Wonder by Natalie Merchant, helped spark the idea for Wonder, the novel about August, often called Auggie, Pullman, a boy with a severe facial difference who starts fifth grade at a mainstream school. Published in 2012, the book struck a chord with teachers, parents, and kids and stayed on bestseller lists for years, eventually selling millions of copies worldwide and inspiring the Choose Kind movement and a film adaptation.

Rather than leave Auggie's world behind, Palacio returned to it through companion books. Auggie and Me gathers three novellas that retell parts of the story from the viewpoints of Julian, Christopher, and Charlotte, while 365 Days of Wonder collects Mr Browne's precepts and letters that invite readers to think about kindness all year long. For younger children, the picture book We're All Wonders introduces Auggie in a simpler, visual way, and journals like The Wonder Journal and the Choose Kind Journal encourage readers to record their own precepts and everyday acts of empathy.

Her storytelling also reaches back into history.

In the graphic novel White Bird, Palacio follows Julian's grandmother, Sara, a Jewish girl hidden by a classmate's family in Nazi-occupied France, using one family's bravery to explore courage, memory, and the cost of looking away. Later novelized for prose readers and adapted for film, the story extends the Wonder universe while standing on its own as a World War II tale about how small acts of kindness can save a life.

With Pony, she stepped outside the Wonder universe entirely, writing a historical adventure about a twelve-year-old boy named Silas in the American West who rides into danger with a mysterious pony and a ghostly friend to find his missing father. The book blends frontier lore, early photography, and a quiet coming-of-age story about fear, love, and finding your place in the world.

Across these books, Palacio returns again and again to kids who feel different, families trying to do the right thing, and the everyday choices that add up to courage. She now writes full time and shares her stories with readers around the world, while life at home stays grounded with her husband, their two sons, and the dogs that keep her company while she works.