Published in 2015, Nightbird is a fantasy novel for middle-school readers by American author Alice Hoffman. Teresa “Twig” Fowler and her mother share a secret that isolates them from the rest of the town: Twig’s teenage brother has wings. As Twig searches for a way to break her brother’s curse, Twig grows in self-confidence and discovers true friendship. Employing elements of magical <a href="http://www.supersummary.com/realism/">realism</a>, Nightbird explores themes of family, love, identity, and friendship. The New York Times Book Review writes, “Hoffman reminds us that there are secrets everywhere, and in these moments of unexpected discovery, Nightbird soars.” Twelve-year-old Twig is the first-person narrator of Nightbird. Shy, dark-haired, good at running and climbing apple trees—most of the time—Twig is awkward around people. Twig’s mother, Sophie, is part of the reason. Sophie split with her husband and moved Twig and her unusual older brother James back to Sophie’s hometown, Sidwell, Massachusetts to hide. Sidwell is known for its apple orchards and its monster. People whisper that there is a mysterious creature living in Sidwell. Some say it is a dragon, some think it is a giant bird bigger than an eagle, others think it is a human-like bat. Whatever it is, it can only be seen at night. When small items like pies disappear and clothes are stolen off the line, people blame the monster. Sophie knows that the monster is her brother, James. Thanks to a curse that dates back to Revolutionary War times, all of the male children born in the Fowler family have wings. Long ago, the Witch of Sidwell, Agnes Early, cursed her fiancé, Lowell Fowler, for not marrying her. Little did Agnes know that Fowler had been forced to join the Continental Army, which was the reason he was kept away. Parents of Fowler boys are allowed to clip their wings before their first birthdays, and that’s what most parents have done. But Sophie let James keep his wings and now he is stuck with them. James spends his days hiding upstairs in the attic of their home on Old Mountain Road. Only at night is James able to fly freely. James is tired of being alone, and Twig sometimes wonders if by protecting James she and her mother are ruining his life. However, Twig knows that “It’s always dangerous to be different, to appear as a monster in most people’s eyes, even from a distance.” Keeping James a secret means that Sophie, once popular and confident, now hardly talks to anyone else in town. She once dreamed of being a world-class chef, but now she keeps to herself, baking pies and cupcakes from their famous Pink apples to sell at the General Store. Sophie has no friends, commenting that if she can’t be honest with someone, she can’t be their friend. Sophie makes sure that Twig doesn’t have friends, either. Twig has grown used to living “in the corners of everyday life.” Together they stay at home, never going out to socialize, which makes people in town think they are either stuck-up or eccentric. Terribly lonely, Twig has learned to internalize her emotions. She admits, “I just store up my hurts, as if they were a tower made of fallen stars, invisible to most people, but brightly burning inside me.” Twig remembers being disappointed when she was a little girl at summer camp and was chosen to act the part of Agnes Early in the annual town play. Despite her natural talent, Sophie would not allow Twig to participate, explaining privately that one must never do anything to mock the witch. She and her family are still affected by the two-hundred-year-old curse. Things change for Twig when a new family moves into a home at the edge of their property. The Halls are kind and friendly and have two daughters. Julia is about Twig’s age, and her older sister, Agate, is near James’s age. Julia and Twig become friends, but when Sophie discovers that the Hall family is descended from Agnes Early, she forbids Twig from seeing Julia. Agate and James meet each other and fall in love at first sight. Meanwhile, someone around town continues to steal things and spray-paint weird graffiti and messages. The four children determine to find out who the real Sidwell monster is and why it is committing these small crimes and to break James’s curse so he and Agate can be together. During her search for a cure, Twig befriends the town historian and librarian, the tea-fancying Miss Larch. She is the aunt of the new editor of the local paper, Mr. Rose. Miss Larch stresses the most important part of research is asking the right questions. She also knows a lot about Twig’s family and cautions Twig not to judge her absent father too harshly. Twig and Julia work to restore Agnes Early’s garden and discover an old scrap of paper that explains how to reverse the witch’s curse. Pages from Agnes Early’s diary reveal the ingredients for the spell. Twig must have everything ready for the spell by the night of the Red Moon, the first full moon in August. During the annual town play about Agnes Early, James flies up to rescue Agate from a fire in the Town Hall bell tower. James puts out the fire, saves the town, and is heralded as a hero. His secret is out. The children discover that a boy Twig knew from her early summer camp days, Colin Montgomery, is behind the graffiti and thefts. Colin wants to stop a development company from destroying a stretch of old forest that is home to rare Saw-whet owls. Twig breaks James’s curse, but uses only half of the portion, so James can still keep his wings at night. Twig discovers that her mother and father have been writing letters to each other over the years, and her father is really Mr. Rose, the newspaper editor. Twig and Julia’s friendship deepens and the two become “soul sisters.”

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Alice Hoffman

Middle grade

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