Defect by Will Weaver

This isn't the sort of book I would normally read, but I've been reading a lot of books recommended in the March 2008 issue of the English Journal (published by the National Teachers of English). The plot centers around a student who is deformed. The opening scene is about him playing a prank on his fellow students. Eventually, he is sent to a "special" school so he does not disturb the other students. The upshot is that he discovers himself. He has extremely sensitive foster parents, he meets his soul mate named Cheetah at the new school, he is re-discovered by the doctors who treated him when he was a baby, and he solves many mysteries about his life. The biggest mystery is his deformity: he has extra skin flaps below his arms that allow him to fly. He conceals this from everyone for years and years. (You would think that some in Child Protective Services would have sent him to a doctor for a physical before placing him with foster parent after foster parent. Oh well. Poor kid never went to a doctor.) The book is a gentle read, but is aimed at an 8th or 9th grade audience, at best.