Hummingbird

Eleven-year-old Olive Martin is the first-person protagonist of Hummingbird, who lives with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI or “brittle bone disease”). Olive is the daughter of Mama and Mama’s first husband Jupiter, niece of Uncle Dash, stepdaughter of Mama’s second husband Coach Malone, stepsister to Hatch Malone, and granddaughter of Grandpa Goad. Characterized by optimism, she sees the world through a lens of wonder, as she does when she begins attending Macklemore Middle School after years of homeschooling. Her empathy and romanticization of life drive her to extend friendship to others, even her seemingly cold stepbrother Hatch. Although hope and love are important values to Olive, she is made more complex by the free verse sections interspersed throughout the novel. They grant deeper insight into her thoughts, giving her space to process emotions like disappointment and insecurity. These sections speak to her resilience, as she endures and processes pain without losing her optimism.

Olive’s desire to escape the label of “fragility” and pursue Wildwood’s wish-granting hummingbird with new friends Grace and Hatch reinforces the themes of Fragility, Vulnerability, and Strength and Existing with Limitations.