From the outside, 13-year-old Alberta — Bird — looks like a typical teenager. She spends her days attending school, riding horses, and helping out on the farm where she lives with her Aunt Hannah. But Bird is anything but typical. For one, she hears things that no one else hears, like the thoughts of the various animals she befriends. For another, she doesn't talk.

Although it causes some problems at school, and with the kids who come to the farm to train, Bird's unwillingness to speak isn't a big issue for her aunt. In fact, when a new "problem" horse arrives at the farm, Hannah realizes that the strange and silent Bird is the only one who can break through his defenses. But when Bird's mother Eva decides to pay a visit — with a new boyfriend and Bird's younger sister in tow — old wounds are opened and everything changes.

Shelley Peterson's Sundancer is a remarkable story about the damage that people can do to each other — and to the creatures that live with us — and the many ways that we can heal.