Feather Boy

Robert Nobel, the school pariah, triumphs over his own fears and the school bully, in this extraordinary tale of self-empowerment, legend and death.

Robert is a boy who can do anything – or so old Edith Sorrel at the nursing home tells him. Robert doesn’t think so, knowing as he does that he is the school geek.
But something compels him to do what Edith asks – to visit old Chance House, where a boy once fell to his death from the top floor flat, to confront his fears and find some answers.

Niker the bully thinks this is a great laugh. He challenges Robert to spend the night at Chance House with him – but there the balance of power changes, and it is Robert who proves to be the stronger.

Niker feels threatened by the change – and when he finds out Robert’s secret obsession, to make the dying Edith Sorrel a coat of feathers like in the old legend of the Firebird, he knows just how to wrest his old power back. But just how important is the coat of feathers? Could it really save Edith’s life?

Reviews

“Inventive, original and full of surprises, it’s the sort of dazzling debut novel that most publishers would fall over themselves to snap up…”
T2

“Feather Boy is the most intelligent book for youngsters I’ve read for a very long time. Every 12-year-old will see a bit of themself in Robert and won’t be able to put this book down until Feather Boy’s emotional, thought-provoking climax. Fabulous.”
Funday Times

“Feather Boy is more than just a story about Bullying. It’s bigger than that. It’s about finding your voice, shouting from the rooftops about something you believe in, refusing to back down, never giving up. It’s enormously uplifting.”
John McLay

“Feather Boy is simply fabulous… an emotionally intense suspense novel of the highest order”
Michael Thorn, Achuka

About the author

Nicky Singer was born in 1956 and has worked in publishing, the arts and television. She was co-founder and co-director of Performing Arts Labs, a charity dedicated to training new writers for theatre, screen and opera. In 1995 she presented BBC2’s highly acclaimed documentary series on women’s fertility, “Labours of Eve”. In 2000, Nicky was made a board member of the South East Arts Board. Nicky lives in Brighton with her husband and their two young sons and a daughter.