Of a Boy

Of a Boy (published in some editions as What the Birds See) is a 2002 novel by Australian author Sonya Hartnett, shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.

Nine-year-old Adrian has lived with his grandmother Beattie and uncle Rory since his parents separated and his mother, Sookie, was deemed unfit to care for him. He is a quietly anxious child, preoccupied with imagined dangers — sea monsters, half-formed fears — and by a real one that has gripped his suburb: three young siblings, the Metford children, have vanished without explanation. When twelve-year-old Nicole moves in across the street, friendless and closed off, Adrian becomes fascinated by her, drifting away from his one real friend, Clinton, in the process.

Told by an omniscient narrator with a controlled, unsentimental voice, the novel builds toward Adrian and Nicole's own attempt to investigate the disappearance, and toward a devastating conclusion. It is less a mystery about what happened to the missing children than a close study of a lonely, watchful boy failed by the adults around him.