At the age of 53, Donna Jo Napoli wrote her first book for children. She'd written several "young adult" novels, but now she was ready for a simpler audience. Napoli is also a linguistics professor at Swarthmore College, and has taught at several universities across the country. Maybe that's where she developed her affection for her bookish character with glasses - Albert.
Reading the newspaper, Albert listens to the sounds of his neighbors waking up in his apartment building. He contemplates a walk outside, but decides that it's too cold. That afternoon Albert hears a different set of sounds, but then decides it's too rainy for a walk. And that's Albert's dilemma, it soon becomes clear - he's always got a reason for staying indoors!
But then a miracle happens...
Albert sticks his hand out through the bars on his window to test the weather - as always - when a bird mistakes it for the branch of a tree, and starts dropping twigs onto it. Soon two cardinals have assembled a nest in his hand, while Albert stares, fascinated, as the mother cardinal nestles in. "Mrs. Cardinal, I think you picked a poor spot to build a nest," Albert thinks to himself. But he can't bring himself to disturb the nest - and he keeps his arm through the window's bars all through the night.
It's a sweet story that becomes even gentler with the illustrations by Jim LaMarche. Albert is a young man - obviously living alone - and he's still got a teenaged awkwardness. LaMarche manages to suggest Albert's loneliness even when he's drawing an amusing activity. Where Napoli writes that Albert amused himself doing card tricks, LaMarche imagines Albert becoming so accomplished that he can balance the ace of spades on his nose.
And the real miracle in Napoli's story isn't that birds built a nest in Albert's hand. It's that while he stands at the window - all day and all night - he's forced to watch all the people in the outside world. When a plane flies overhead, he daydreams about where its passengers are traveling. And when a couple fights on the street, he watches their conversation - and then later sees them making up! Once a black cat even tries to sneak up on the ledge below Albert's arm. Albert laughs when he's able to move the nest away, and to startle and frighten the unsuspecting cat! It's a funny story that sticks with you because it's told with a deadpan realism.
And to survive, Albert eventually has to peep to the cardinals until they also start feeding him berries...