Nellie Finds Her Flock

A quiet chicken with special needs, Nellie Colbert doesn’t fit in with her extroverted family.  While they cluck around with their farm friends, compete in road races and tear up the ski slopes, Nellie prefers to message them through Beakbook.  The chicken family is turned upside-down when Nellie disappears from the barnyard hoedown.  Leaving the farm for the first time, Nellie connects with an inclusive group of piping plovers at a nearby beach.  Wild surf, spicy dishes and electric dance tunes make her little chicken heart beat to a new rhythm.  Nellie finds her sense of place and belonging, and her family is speechless at her transformation. 

Nellie’s Finds Her Flock is inspired by my younger sister, Natalie.  Born with third-nerve palsy and blindness in her left eye, Natalie was later diagnosed with a nonverbal learning disability.  She also witnessed our mother’s multiple battles with breast cancer, and the death of our father to prostate cancer.  In spite of these hardships, Natalie courageously left the comfort of her family to pursue higher education at Lesley University and graduated from their Threshold Program with a focus on Early Childhood Development.  When Natalie began asking questions about her intellectual and physical condition, we could not find appropriate picture books about children with special needs.  When I became a mother myself, I struggled with finding books to help my sons empathize with their Aunt Natalie.  By telling her story, I hope to help Natalie inspire others to branch out from their family herds.