Defect

VOYA - Beth E. Andersen

He smells bad, eats bugs, his face is a disaster, and by the way, he has webbing under his armpits that makes flight possible. Fifteen-year-old David is such a bully magnet that his troubled mother sends him off to Minnesota to live with the Trotwoods, kindly hog farmers/foster parents. When bullying again catches up with David, he is transferred to a school for "challenging" students, where he falls in love with bighearted Cheetah, who is struggling with considerable health issues of her own. Soon David's penchant for flight is discovered, thus triggering that uniquely American obscenity known as media frenzy. Desperate people pour into Rochester to be cured by the "angel" amongst them. His notoriety rekindles the interest of a team of doctors, who had studied his case of "dermis redundancy" and "avian dactylicism" years before when he had been known as Charles LeBattier. Enter Media Spectacle #2-the docs want to give David an Extreme Makeover with Hollywood-gorgeous good looks. David grapples with the chance to be like everyone else, thus ending his tortured lonely life. But does freedom come not in changing the package but in accepting it? Cheetah and a boy dying of cancer step in to show David another way of being comfortable in his skin. Weaver, an acclaimed teen lit author, skillfully interweaves the improbable with twenty-first-century realities in this provocative novel of the ultimate cost of being so, so different.

Children's Literature

What price should we be willing to pay for a rare, extraordinary gift? What if that gift is made possible only by the possession of a body regarded by others as disfigured, distorted, and defective? When is difference from others a curse, and when is it a blessing? Fifteen-year-old foster-child David has a short face, bug eyes, a stooped back, painfully sensitive hearing, and wings. Doctors call his condition “Ichthyosis vulgaris” --which he knows has “something to do with birdlike and ugly”--but they cannot know the strange joy he feels as he swoops down off a high cliff in the night like a soaring angel. When David is sent to Oak Leaf Alternative School, for the first time he encounters other young people who, like him, have “a story,” including epilectic Cheetah, with whom he falls in love. Then David is confronted with a choice: Should he have reconstructive surgery that will turn him into conventionally handsome “New Guy” and clip his wings forever? The resolution of the story is somewhat predictable--would anyone publish a young adult novel that encouraged teens to alter themselves surgically to become more like everyone else? One might wish that Weaver had allowed David to entertain a less all-or-nothing choice: couldn’t some of his grotesque facial features be corrected without robbing him of the gift of flight? Weaver’s unusual and compelling novel raises profound and important philosophical questions that should be of intense interest to any reader who has pondered the price of conformity. Reviewer: Claudia Mills, Ph.D.

KLIATT - Paula Rohrlick

With his bugged-out eyes, pinched face and hearing aids, David looks different from his classmates—pretty much the kiss of death when you're 16. But little do they know how different David really is: the hearing aids are there to keep sounds out, and he has wings tucked under his arms, wings with which he can glide from great heights. Living with foster parents on a Minnesota hog farm, David has managed to keep his wings a secret from everyone. Then he meets Cheetah, a girl with epilepsy, and falls for her. When David is injured gliding from a cliff, his secret comes to light. Doctors offer plastic surgery to make him like every other teen—but some people believe he's an angel, and his ability to fly brings hope to terminal children at the hospital. In the end, David must decide whether his difference is really a defect, or a gift. Weaver, the author of Full Service and other books for YAs, offers up this intriguing, suspenseful parable for contemplative readers, who will find themselves empathizing with David and wondering what they would do. A good novel to start discussions.

Kirkus Reviews

A teen with congenital physical abnormality must chose between being "normal" or "special." When David was 12, his mother sent him to Minnesota to live with distant relatives where he would be "safe." Since then, David has shifted from one foster home to another. At 15, he's finally living with a kind couple who seem to genuinely care about him and not mind that he is "different." Although he's quiet, polite and intelligent, David's short face, bug eyes, stooped back, strange body odor and hearing aids have led to peer bullying at the local high school and a transfer to Oak Leaf Alternative School. But David has another physical "defect" he's hiding from everyone including Cheetah, a young woman with severe epilepsy and a refreshing attitude. Attracted to Cheetah, David fears she'll reject him as a freak if she knows about his "defect." When he's eventually given a chance to surgically correct his physical condition, Cheetah shows him what's really important. Told with sensitivity and insight, this exploration of a young man's journey to self-acceptance seems particularly compelling in a world of extreme makeovers. (Fiction. 13-16)