Review: Feathers

Title: Feathers
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Category: Fiction, Children's
Rating: 4/5
Summary: 11-year-old 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.

Review: 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.

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. 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.