The Legend of Spud Murphy

Ungifted

Small Spaces

Balderdash!: John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children's Books

Hard Luck

From Norvelt to Nowhere

Does My Head Look Big in This?

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World

Just when seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter thinks he understands everything about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town, it all disappears. . . .

In the summer before Cullen's senior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s in Lily, Arkansas. His rediscovery of the so-called Lazarus Woodpecker sparks a flurry of press and woodpecker-mania. Soon all the kids are getting woodpecker haircuts and everyone's eating "Lazarus burgers." But as absurd as the town's carnival atmosphere has become, nothing is more startling than the realization that Cullen’s sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother Gabriel has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.

While Cullen navigates his way through a summer of finding and losing love, holding his fragile family together, and muddling his way into adulthood, a young missionary in Africa, who has lost his faith, is searching for any semblance of meaning wherever he can find it. As distant as the two stories seem at the start, they are thoughtfully woven ever closer together and through masterful plotting, brought face to face in a surprising and harrowing climax.

Complex but truly extraordinary, tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and absurdity, this novel finds wonder in the ordinary and emerges as ultimately hopeful. It's about a lot more than what Cullen calls, “that damn bird.” It’s about the dream of second chances.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

The Legend of Spud Murphy

Eoin Colfer, Tony Ross, 2004

Ungifted

Gordon Korman, 2012

Small Spaces

Katherine Arden, 2018

Balderdash!: John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children's Books

Michelle Markel, Nancy Carpenter, 2017

Hard Luck

Jeff Kinney, 2013

From Norvelt to Nowhere

Jack Gantos, 2013

Does My Head Look Big in This?

Randa Abdel-Fattah, 2007

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World

E.L. Konigsburg, 2007