Lisa Gerlits

Eleven-year-old Clara might be best known as the "girl who draws," but she's not tortured enough to become a real artist. Not when her only true suffering is a crippling inability to speak in public. But when Clara and her best friend, Orion, break their neighbor's glass gazing ball, Clara decides that in order to suffer like a real artist, she will do every hard thing in her path - starting with knocking on scary old Mr. Vogelman's door. That's when she meets Birdman. That's when she sees his swirling painting. And that's when everything changes.