Hummingbird
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A Schneider Family Book Award Honor Book
From the bestselling author of A Snicker of Magic comes a heartfelt story about a girl who -- armed with her trusty, snazzy wheelchair -- refuses to let her brittle bone disease stand in the way of adventure
Twelve-year-old homeschooled Olive is tired of being seen as "fragile" just because she has osteogenesis imperfecta (otherwise known as brittle bone disease) so she's thrilled when she finally convinces her parents to let her attend Macklemore Elementary. Olive can't wait to go to a traditional school and make the friends she's always longed for, until a disastrous first day dashes her hopes of ever fitting in.
Then Olive hears whispers about a magical, wish-granting hummingbird that supposedly lives near Macklemore. It’ll be the solution to all her problems! If she can find the bird and prove herself worthy, the creature will make her most desperate, secret wish come true.
When it becomes clear that she can't solve the mystery on her own, Olive teams up with some unlikely allies who help her learn the truth about the bird. And on the way, she just might learn that our fragile places lead us to the most wonderful magic of all...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lloyd (Over the Moon) puts character development center stage as a sixth grader who uses a wheelchair enters the spotlight thanks to a school play and small-town magic. After years of being homeschooled due to her osteogenesis imperfecta, 11-year-old birder Olive Martin enrolls in a Tennessee middle school to meet her "future BFF" and prove that she's "more/ than bones and wheels/ and breakable parts." Learning of her brittle bones, classmates initially treat Olive "like a stick of dynamite." When she subsequently hears about a rare hummingbird that grants wishes to seekers who decipher its riddle, an uncomfortable new desire surfaces: "bones like steel." Teaming up with entrepreneurial classmate Grace Cho, Olive races to crack the riddle while wrestling with thorny self-image questions—soon realizing that other classmates also have "a wish tucked deep in soul." Olive's sparkly personality roars to life through assured first-person narration, metaphors rooted in the natural world, and simple yet piercing free verse that distills her self-revelations. An author's note acknowledges the diversity of disability experiences ("as unique as that individual's heart or fingerprints") and connects Lloyd's lived experiences to Olive's candid emotional arc. Protagonists cue as white; secondary characters represent multiple skin tones, ethnicities, and conditions. Ages 8–12.
