Where It All Goes Down
The Pullman family lives in a town house in present day Upper Manhattan in New York City. Auggie's middle school, Beecher Prep, is within walking distance from home. Via's school, on the other hand, is "a bit of a schlep […]. The A train down to Eighty-Sixth, then the crosstown bus all the way to the East Side. Takes an hour that way but it's just a fifteen minute drive" (1.The Deal.23). This is a familiar lament for just about any kid who's grown-up in a city.
By and large, families that send their kids to Beecher Prep (which is a private middle school) are educated and upper-class, though not uniformly. As Jack explains, "My parents are not rich. I say this because people sometimes think that everyone who goes to private school is rich, but that isn't true with us." His neighborhood is "all the way on the 'other' side of Broadway. That's 'code' for the section of North River Heights where people don't want to park their cars" (4. Private School.1). Yup—definitely not a rich kid.
Also at Beecher Prep are families like Julian's family, "who everyone knows is rich," who spend Christmas in Paris so often their kids are sick of it and who buy their kids $800 sleds from Hammacher Schlemmer. It is private school, after all.
Given their general family backgrounds and their collective hometown—one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the world—do you find it surprising that these kids aren't a little hipper and more tolerant of differences? Does the need for conformity at this age, perhaps, override their ability to be more accommodating?