Featherless

All the other birds had beautiful plumes. But, dear little Featherless was just simply, featherless. A bird without feathers faces many challenges in life, like where to sleep and how to catch enough bugs to eat. Not to mention the hurt and confusion caused by being teased for his lack of feathers. Featherless learns to build on his strengths and becomes quite a strong and self sufficient little bird. Then one day, he meets a magic bug and shows kindness to this little bug. In doing so, he receives a wonderful gift of feathers, beautiful feathers! Now, Featherless must face new challenges. He discovers new understandings about himself and the other birds around him.

This little birds story gently encourages children to find solutions within themselves to manage and excel at the the struggles life can present. These lessons show them that being strong and kind,with a dust yourself off and try again attitude, will help them prevail. In addition, the story engages their minds with new vocabulary words and their definitions along with topics and ideas for discussion. You will find yourself invested in this shy little bird. Fetherless's life presented him with a challenge, he made it a strength.

Alisa Stewart and her husband make their home outside of Cody, Wyoming, near Yellowstone National Park. Alisa created the Featherless story years ago for her son when he was quite young. He so loved the story that it was told many times over the years with an emphasis on inspiring kindness, humility, courage, humor and an understanding that for all our differences on the outside, we are all remarkably the same on the inside. For many years Alisa worked in the public-school system with children of many different backgrounds and challenges to face in life. The Featherless book blends the original story told to her son with some additional lessons and thoughts for children of various ages and backgrounds. She hopes Featherless brings smiles, joy and understanding to all children, just as it did for her son.