Joe Maloney is out of place in this world. His mother wants him to be a man, and he cant be that yet. His only friend, Stanny Mole, wants to teach him how to kill, and Joe cant learn that. Joes mind is always somewhere else: on the weird creatures he sees in the distant sky, the songs he hears in the air around him, the vibrations of life he feels everywhere. Everybody laughs at Joe Maloney.And then a tattered circus comes to town, and a tiger comes for him. It leads him out into the night, and nothing in Joe Maloneys world is ever the same again.The transformative power of imagination and beauty flows through this story of a boy who walks where others wouldnt dare to go, a boy with the heart of a tiger, an unlikely hero who knows that sometimes the most important things are the most mysterious.From the Hardcover edition.