Feather Boy

Bullied on the way to school and then tormented at school, 12-year-old Robert does not want to burden his hardworking single parent mum with his troubles. A school project working with people in an old people's home initially seems destined to make Robert's life even more difficult when his designated 'Elder' turns out to be the frail and difficult Edith Sorrel. But somehow the theme of the project - the Firebird story, in which a mute prince is enabled to speak - informs Robert's relationship with Edith and impels him to discover the tragic story of her muted past. Teetering on the brink of magic realism, this first children's novel from Singer, an adult novelist, takes on powerful themes of love and loss in relation to growth and development with a poetic intensity. For Edith, release from 'madness' following the death of her son has come tragically late. Her interventions and confident belief in Robert, however, release inner strengths in him which will now free him to shape his own story.