Central Kansas Library System

As Palmer comes of age, he must either accept the violence of being a wringer at his town's annual Pigeon Day or find the courage to oppose it. He did not want to be a wringer. Palmer LaRue is rUnning out of birthdays. For as long as he can remember, he's dreaded the day he turns ten, the day he's supposed to become a wringer. This thing, this not wanting to be a wringer, did it ever knock him from his bike? Unite his sneaker lace? Call him a name?...

Relates how Mafatu, a young Polynesian boy whose name means Stout Heart, overcomes his terrible fear of the sea, which killed his mother when he was a baby, and proves his courage to himself and his people.

"Bigelow is afraid of almost everything until he meets the tiny Mrs. Pimberly, who thinks he is a giant, and gives him some surprising advice"--

A timid, unpopular boy learns about courage, love, and luck through a school project involving a strong-willed elderly woman, the abandoned house where her son died, and the legend of the Firebird.