A Word on Words

(keypad clicking) (tranquil music) - Hi, I am Natalie Lloyd, and this is my book "Hummingbird."

(gentle music) "Hummingbird" is the story of a sixth grader named Olive Martin, and Olive has wanted to go to a middle school in town for as long as she can remember.

It's called Macklemore Middle School, but her parents don't want her to go, because she has a brittle bone disease called osteogenesis imperfecta.

It means her bones are very fragile.

They're afraid she'll get bumped into or fall, so it's a no from them.

She finally talks them into it and goes, and the day is a disaster as many sixth grade days are, and she thinks it's over until she hears a legend about a creature in the woods who grants wishes, and she decides she's going to find that creature and make her wish come true.

(upbeat music) "Hummingbird" was special because this is the first time I've written about my disability in a book.

I also have osteogenesis imperfecta, which is pretty rare.

I was born with it, had lots of fractures as a kid, and surgeries, and always used a wheelchair or walker in school, that was just my normal.

I had tried to make Olive's experience so much better than mine, even in this new world that she's experienced, and she's realized so much about herself.

She's gained all this confidence, and then she breaks, and she's so humiliated, and yeah, that was a big pivot in the book.

(gentle music) Every time it happens and you realize, okay, I'm doing this again.

I'm not just learning how to walk again, but you're learning who you are, you know, apart from what your body is like.

I actually went back into the story and wrote about the good parts and the hard parts of seeing life from a different perspective.

I feel like that's when it finally got its wings.

(gentle music) I love a real world setting with magic sprinkled into it.

I feel like life is like that.

We're always looking for the little magical parts, and so it's a gentle kind of magic in this book too.

We're never too far away from those, those insecurities we have and the big feelings we have, and also I think middle schoolers are not as cynical as we can be as adults.

They're funny and they're warm, and they've got big hearts, and they're still very hopeful, and from that place, I love to write.

Thank you for watching "A Word on Words."

I'm Natalie Lloyd.

Keep reading.

(gentle music)