The Thing with Feathers

Emi­lie Day believes in play­ing it safe: she’s home­schooled, her best friend is her seizure dog, and she’s prob­a­bly the only girl on the Out­er Banks of North Car­oli­na who can’t swim.

Then Emi­lie’s mom enrolls her in pub­lic school, and Emi­lie goes from study­ing at home in her pj’s to halls full of strangers. To make mat­ters worse, Emi­lie is paired with start­ing point guard Chatham York for a major research project on Emi­ly Dick­in­son. She should be ecsta­t­ic when Chatham shows inter­est, but she has a prob­lem. She has­n’t told any­one about her epilepsy.

Emi­lie lives in fear her recent­ly adjust­ed meds will fail and she’ll seize at school. Even­tu­al­ly, the worst hap­pens, and she must decide whether to with­draw to safe­ty or fol­low a dead poet­’s advice and “dwell in possibility.”