What is the book feathers by jacqueline woodson about?

Question

and what is a good advertisement slogan for this book. (not copied from sumthing else)

thx so much

Answer 1

Hope is the thing with feathers / that perches in the soul, / And sings the tune—without the words, / And never stops at all

The words of Emily Dickinson, mixed with the exquisite, spare prose of Newbery-honor author Jacqueline Woodson, float through this gentle story like a feather. On one hand, this is a book about bullies and good girls and social and racial stratification. On the other, it is the story of a family holding itself together through many trials.

It's 1971 in an African-American urban school when a new boy arrives in Ms. Johnson's sixth-grade class. Like the snowflakes that have been falling for days on end, this boy is quiet and still and . . . white. Bully Trevor brings this obvious fact to everyone's attention, "Don't no pale faces go to this school. You need to get your white butt back across the highway." And who is this new boy anyway? How does he know sign language when he isn't even deaf? His inner calm, his long hair and his old eyes earn him a nickname—Jesus Boy. Samantha, a preacher's daughter and the best friend of our narrator, Frannie, starts to hope he really is Jesus.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

Hope. That's what Frannie is supposed to have. She wants to hope for the future, but the past has been so difficult. She can almost remember the depression that followed the death of Lila, the baby who should have been her older sister. Pictures of the baby haunt her, and her mother's sadness about her subsequent failed pregnancies hangs as a backdrop in their home. But this is not a forlorn, hopeless family. Older brother Sean might be deaf, but Mama sees this as a minor setback, and shortly after Sean's birth, Mama and Daddy teach themselves sign language and tell Sean that he is lucky to be bilingual. This is an intact, strong family whose members love and support each other.

This book filled me with joy. And hope.