FEATHER BOY

Robert Nobel is a misfit. Bespectacled and gangly at age 12 (his arms and legs are "like white string loosely knotted at the elbows and knees"), the self-confessed "class squit" is perfect bully bait, and the misery of his daily existence seems assured, until an arts project at a local nursing home pairs him with Edith Sorrel, a truculent resident with a mysterious history. First, with Edith's encouragement, he makes a solo trip to the place that holds the key to her past—the top-floor flat of spooky, derelict Chance House, where, it is rumored, a 12-year-old boy plunged to his death decades ago. The flat contains nothing, just a few pigeon feathers. Edith next tells Robert the beginning of a folktale about a firebird and insists he make her a coat of feathers. When Robert learns that Edith is terminally ill, he becomes convinced that, if he can complete it in time, the coat will somehow save her life. Singer, a British novelist making her YA debut, deftly builds tension as the various threads of her story converge, tying together the secret of Edith's long-dead son, the significance of the firebird story and other plot elements. Throughout, the writing soars, from the pitch-perfect delineation of Robert's wry, self-deprecating voice to the change wrought in him as he becomes "the sort of boy who can fly." Ages 10-up. (Apr.)