Feathers (edition 2010)

Feathers is about a girl who goes to an all African American school when one day a white boy shows up and changes things. She becomes curious about him and learns about this boy who appears different. This would be a good story to read to students to teach them about accepting others who may appear different than themselves; it is about giving all people a chance. ( )

Very poetic language, very introspective. A girl struggling with faith and doubt, her mother's miscarriages and impending pregnancy, her bullied deaf brother, and the new kid at school that the other kids call Jesus. ( )

Quietly beautiful and satisfying. ( )

It's 1971, and a new boy comes into Frannie's sixth-grade class. There is one thing about this boy that stands out -- he is white, and all the other kids in the class are black. Everybody knows that white kids live and go to school on the other side of the highway, and they are uneasy about the stranger.

Frannie has some understanding of what it's like to be different, because her older brother is deaf. When kids start calling the new boy Jesus and he accepts the name, Frannie's friend Samantha, daughter of a store-front preacher, wonders if maybe he really is the second coming.

In just 118 pages, [author:Jacqueline Woodson] evokes a time and place, draws a portrait of a young girl learning about herself and others, and deals with a number of deep issues with a light hand. She has an excellent ear for dialogue as well. [book: Feathers] surprised me not only because it treats matters of faith with seriousness and an open mind, but because it speaks of them at all. I can't really recall any young people's book from the 1950s and '60s that did this. Highly recommended. ( )

MSBA Nominated in 2008-2009. Newbery Honor 2007-2008. I had never read a book by Woodson before, and I picked this one up because it was a MSBA nominee and because it had an Emily Dickinson quote on the cover. I liked it. It's not going to be a favorite, but it was good.

Frannie is trying to deal with a lot of things: a mom who has lost two babies and is acting funny, a new boy in her class who looks white but says he is not (and is called Jesus-boy), a best friend who is acting increasingly holy, and the usual trials of being 11 1/2. I really liked how the 1970s were incorporated into the book with the language and small bits of politics seeping in. It was a three hour long audiobook, so I think it would be a relatively quick read. ( )