Nightingale's Nest [Paperback]

An award winning modern fairy tale about friendship and family, for fans ofBridge to Terabithia

Twelve-year-old John Fischer Jr., “Little John” as he’s always been known, is spending the hot Texas summer helping his father to clear trees for Mr. King, the richest and most powerful man in town. Then one day he hears a song through the brush, one so beautiful that it stops him in his tracks. He follows the melody and finds, not a bird, but a young girl sitting in the branches of a tall sycamore tree. There’s something magical about this girl, Gayle, especially her soaring singing voice.

Little John's home is full of sorrow over his sister’s death and endless stress over money troubles. But his friendship with Gayle quickly becomes the one bright spot in tough times . . . until Mr. King forces Little John into an impossible choice: risk his family’s wages and survival, or put Gayle's future in danger.

Inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen story,Nightingale's Nestis an unforgettable novel about a boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders and a girl with the gift of healing in her voice.

Magical realism meets coming of age in this sensitive and haunting novel. —BCCB, starred review

Smart and beautiful . . . Once you’ve read it, you’ll have a hard time getting it out of your head.”—Elizabeth Bird, School Library Journal Blog

PRAISE FORNIGHTINGALE'S NEST:

“It was the writing, of course, that struck my attention first. Loftin gives the book beautiful sequences filled with equally beautiful sentences. . . . As for the characters, there wasn’t a person here that I couldn’t recognize as real. I was quite taken with the fact that Loftin continually sidesteps a lot of the usual middle grade tropes. . . . Smart and beautiful by turns, Nightingale’lc1