Feathers

View our feature on Jacqueline Woodson's Feathers.

"Hope is the thing with feathers" starts the poem Frannie is reading in school. Frannie hasn't thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more "holy." There is a new boy in class everyone is calling the Jesus Boy. And although the new boy looks like a white kid, he says he's not white. Who is he?

During a winter full of surprises, good and bad, Frannie starts seeing a lot of things in a new light--her brother Sean's deafness, her mother's fear, the class bully's anger, her best friend's faith and her own desire for "the thing with feathers."

Jacqueline Woodson once again takes readers on a journey into a young girl's heart and reveals the pain and the joy of learning to look beneath the surface.

Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Published: 03/01/2007
Pages: 128
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.54lbs
Size: 8.58h x 5.92w x 0.61d
ISBN: 9780399239892
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.4
Point Value: 4
Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus
Quiz #/Name: 113352 / Feathers


Award: South Carolina Childrens, Junior and Young Adult Book Award - Nominee
Award: Georgia Children's Book Award - Nominee
Award: Massachusetts Children's Book Award - Nominee
Award: Newbery Medal - Honor Book
Award: Capitol Choices: Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens - Recommended
Award: Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 11/15/2006 pg. 49
Kirkus Review - Children 02/01/2007 pg. 131
Horn Book Magazine 03/01/2007 pg. 206
School Library Journal 04/01/2007 pg. 152
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 04/01/2007 pg. 348
Voice of Youth Advocates 06/01/2007 pg. 156 - Recommended - Hard To Beat
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2007 pg. 360 - Superior,Well Above Average
Publishers Weekly 01/08/2007

About the Author
Jacqueline Woodson (www.jacquelinewoodson.com) is the recipient of a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award, and a Sibert Honor. She wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include Coretta Scott King Award winner Before the Ever After; New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me; The Other Side, Each Kindness, Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle's Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.