Just the Way You Are

Bruno Mars sings it, he says, "when I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change 'cause you're amazing, just the way you are." The song is a hit, but do we really believe it?  I'm sure all of us, even those of us who don't want to admit it, have sung along at some point or another.  But do we really accept people just the way they are?

Joseph  Krumgold's Onion John wrestles with this very question. Onion John is, for lack of a better term, the village cook.  He's always been there and for the most part people accept his somewhat different lifestyle and his strange antics.  This all changes the day the rotary club decides to build Onion John a real house.  But its more than a house, Onion John has to dress like everyone else and live like everyone else and be respectable.  Andrew who has befriended Onion John sees it this way, "It would've been better for everybody if he didn't try so hard to change. First, he wasn't very good at it.  And second, I didn't see anything wrong with the way he was."

Most rotary club members think they are doing John a great kindness but one sees it differently, "Hasn't it become pretty obvious? What we think i proper and what John thinks is proper, they're two different things. What are we trying to prove to him, that he's wrong?"  Krumgold masterfully weaves a tale of a young boy becoming an adult with the tale of a community's journey to accpetance.  Andrew's father is one fighting to build Onion John a new house and for the first time in his life Andrew finds he wasn't on his father's side. 

Onion John tells Andrew he is grown up because he stops believing in all of Onion Johns fanciful ideas.  How depressing.  Why is it children can have splendid ideas but adults must be practical? The book then leaves you with a very satisfying ending but of course I'm not going to tell you what that is (it's the kind where nothing is spelled out for you but you know exactly what happens-soo good).

Befriending someone just the way they are...that's kids stuff.