Hummingbird

June 1, 2022
Wildwood, Tennessee's own Olive Miracle Martin is a girl of great, sparkly confidence and passions. She loves her oddball family, church, writing, birding, her wheelchairs, and the idea of attending Macklemore Middle School after years of being home-schooled. Macklemore is the land of her hopes, full of potential friends and wild adventures, yet her osteogenesis imperfecta makes the prospect a challenge. While navigating new social mores and finding her niche within the quirky theater crowd, Olive and intrepid new friend Grace Cho hunt for the local hummingbird said to grant one fantastical wish. In a town where vividly described magic is taken as a point of fact and white feathers fall from the sky like snow, Olive's fairy-tale wish is for bones like steel, not glass. Now she must contend with the question of whether she should--or even wants to--be anyone but who she already is. Olive can lean a tad pitch-perfect, and the world Lloyd builds is at times saccharine, but the energetic first-person narration, interspersed with Olive's thoughts in free verse, is full of bold personality. Refreshingly, her obstacles don't come from being a wheelchair user but from navigating an inaccessible world. Her grappling with fears and bold dreams offers a rare depiction of physical disability that is allowed to be both complicated and empowering. The book follows a White default; Grace is described as East Asian. A spirited tale of self-belief. (author's note) (Fiction. 8-12)

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Starred review from August 22, 2022
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. Agent: Suzie Townsend, New Leaf Literary.

Starred review from August 19, 2022

Gr 5-8-In her latest novel, Lloyd calls on personal experiences to create a realistic and magical adventure for middle grade readers. Twelve-year-old Olive has been homeschooled her entire life. She has osteogenesis imperfecta (also known as brittle bone disease) and uses a wheelchair, and her mother has always feared for her to leave the nest-but Olive is determined to go to public school and make a friend. When her mother relents and Olive starts public school for the first time, she must deal with so much more than she bargained for. Then she hears about a magical hummingbird that grants wishes, and it seems like finding this creature will be the answer to all her problems. With a few new companions along the way, Olive tries to discover the secrets of the hummingbird. This is an uplifting story for readers who enjoy realistic settings with magical threads. Olive is developed beautifully as a main character, giving older elementary and middle school readers plenty to relate to and love. The authentic voice that Lloyd crafts in Olive shines throughout the book. VERDICT A must-have for any elementary school or middle school library, this magical and heartening novel will keep readers engaged until the end. A perfect fit for fans of realistic fiction and fantasy alike.-Elizabeth Pelayo

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Starred review from July 1, 2022
Grades 4-7 *Starred Review* Born with incurable brittle bone disease, 12-year-old Olive has done well with homeschooling, but she longs to attend middle school and hopes to make at least one good friend there. After she promises to use her wheelchair at school, and Hatch, her stepbrother and soon-to-be classmate, reluctantly agrees to help Olive, her parents give consent. Immediately, a storm of white "feather-snow" begins outdoors, heralding a phenomenon from local lore: a hummingbird will soon appear to certain people in their Tennessee community and grant their wishes. In the drama group at school, Olive and her new friend, Grace, prepare for a play. Along with Hatch, they begin to search for the hummingbird. Each has a cherished wish, but when magic intersects with reality, odd things happen. With eccentric family members, a distinctive setting, and a supernatural element that is strangely believable within this otherwise realistic story, there's a lot to love here. Inspired by Lloyd's childhood experiences and disability, Olive's first-person narrative transports readers into her world, from the ordeal of a bone break to the triumph of a transformative stage performance. Her active mind, wit, and unerring sense of what matters make this a memorable novel, and the strikingly beautiful jacket art will surely draw readers.

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