Hummingbird

At twelve years old, Olive has never been to school with other kids.  She has osteogenesis imperfecta, OI for short.   That just must her bones are fragile and break easily.  Because of this, she's always been homeschooled, but she's finally convinced her parents to let her go to school with everyone else.  Olive desperately wants a BFF.  She loves her family, but it's not the same as having someone her own age.  She has her stepbrother, Hatch, but he barely looks at her.  

It doesn't take long for Olive to find a potential best friend in Grace, who is kind, creative, and who is making sets and costumes for the upcoming play.  Olive's true dream is to be an actress, and she's arrived just in time to try out.  Movies would be just as good if the actors used wheelchairs and had disabilities!

She also hears a strange story about a magical golden hummingbird who grants wishes.  Everyone knows the hummingbird is coming when magical white feathers that melt like snow fall from the sky in the weeks leading up to May Day.  Olive already has so many great things, and she loves herself as she is, but what if she didn't have OI?  What if her parents didn't have to constantly worry she might break a bone?

What if she could wish away the hardest thing in her life?

Natalie Lloyd's new book isn't set to come out until August, but it should definitely be on your TBR pile.  Lloyd and Olive have the same disability, and the author's personal struggles and triumphs shine through the story.  This is not one of those books where the "normal" kids learn to be better people because of a magical experience with a disabled person.  This is a story that centers a character with a disability whose family and friends rally around her because they love her as a person regardless of her physical abilities and disabilities.  The story is also filled with Lloyd's delightful touches of magical realism and her love of the Tennessee mountains where she grew up.  Highly recommended!