Stud lands in an apartheid-like Bird Kingdom, where he and his new friend are sentenced to death as a result of prejudice. Are Stud’s hammer hands enough to stop a flying army?Our hero Stud is a 14-year-old boy whose father regularly abandons him on expeditions that he catalogs in his own journals. Having to fend for himself, Stud isn’t like most kids—he can turn his hands into hammers! Unfortunately, the kids in the village don’t think it’s cool and don’t allow him to join their own fun adventures. Considering that his father has always advised him that friends are the most important accomplishment a person can make, what’s a boy who can turn part of his body into metal to do? Go on his own adventures, of course! When Stud stumbles upon one of his father’s journals detailing his past adventures with Tara, Stud’s mother, our young hero unknowingly makes a wish. Using “wishing coins” after reading a passage about them, Stud gets sucked into the book, and it is at the location of one of