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Type of bind: Hardcover
EAN num: 9780399239892
ISBN number: 0399239898
Label: Putnam Juvenile
Manufacturer: Putnam Juvenile
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 208
Printing Date: March 01, 2007
Publishing house: Putnam Juvenile
Age index: Ages 9-12
Sale Popularity Level: 78001
Studio: Putnam Juvenile
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
“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.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I like some of the subjects presented-an interracially-adopted child trying to fit in, with his race or his parents'; new kids in school; adding a baby to a family; disabilities, etc. But I found the story very disjointed. Some of the themes were not developed well-probably because there were too many themes and conflicts.
Some of the conclusions the narrator comes too are false, and the author doesn't set her straight before the end of the novel. That makes me nervous about my kids reading it without me.
There are a few references to the time period, but not enough to make it feel like a period novel. As the mother of an adopted child of a different race from me, and the aunt of mixed children, I don't see the same fitting in issues yesterday that this book describes. I see so many mixed kids running around, that it's just not an issue anymore in the kids' lives. Thus, I think it would be better if the book emphasized this story was in the past.
I do give the author points for flipping the situation around, and making it a white kid trying to fit into a grey school. That makes the reader think a bit more than if it was the usual story of a minority kid trying to fit into a white school.
And I don't get what the poem means. The book references it a few times, but never explains it in a way I understand!
Rated by buyers 
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I bought this for my son and I decided to read it first...I loved it. It was a great story and very well written. My son hasn't read it yet, but I would still recommend it.
Rated by buyers 
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Woodson, from a child's point of view, paints a poignant picture of an adolescent's personal search for hope, intermingling relationships and experiences of the characters' lives. Frannie's thoughts betray a maturity beyond her age. This novel is a realistic view into the heart of its characters. This beautiful, heartfelt story of hope addresses the needs of the new kid in school, those living on the "wrong side" of town, prejudices of racism, fear and sadness of loss in a family who has experienced death, pain and poverty, and the silent world of a deaf person. Feathers touches the soul of the reader who is seeking hope, looking for the goodness in others and contemplating that "maybe there's a little bit of Jesus inside of all of us."
Rated by buyers -
This is a great book to read to students in grades 5 & 6. It is all about how we should treat each other, regardless of color, and everyone needs to hear that. Many worthwhile discussions will follow.
Rated by buyers -
I finished this yesterday morning--about 36 hours ago--and I've been thinking about it off and on since then. That's rare for me. Usually, I finish one book, then move right on to the next. But this beautiful novel stuck with me.
Frannie is a girl who's lost hope--she lives on the poor side of the highway, she's seen her mama suffer through miscarriages and now she's pregnant again, and she sees the way girls treat her brother when they find out he's deaf. Frannie's teacher reads an Emily Dickinson poem that starts "Hope is the thing with feathers..." to her class, which gets Frannie thinking about hope. Then a boy who looks like Jesus shows up as the new kid at school, and Frannie is forced to grapple with her own understanding of hope, faith, and religion. One of my favorite aspects of the story is how Frannie explores the idea of spirituality versus religion.
This would be a great book to read with your child because of all the interesting conversations you could have about the characters and what they go through.
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