The title of the book, Feathers, is a metaphor that the book revolves around. Woodson introduces it through a poem that Frannie reads in class.
Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
And sings the tune-- without the words,
And never stops at all
— Emily Dickinson
After reading this, Frannie spends the rest of the book trying to understand hope. How does it have feathers?
The effort to understand one another was the focus of the sixth grade class as soon as Jesus Boy entered their classroom. Through Jesus Boy they realize that even the bully, Trevor, is a normal kid. After the fight Frannie realizes“Even though he was mean all the time, the sun still stopped and colored him and warmed him- like it did to everybody else” (p. 21)
Frannie’s older brother is deaf and this is a source of tension throughout the story. Frannie feels compelled to protect her brother in a world of people who do not understand him. One difficulty Sean encounters is girls being attracted to him until they find out he is deaf. Woodson stated in an interview with NPR that she made Sean deaf in order to humanize the deaf. One scene in the book that does this well is when Frannie asks Sean what a guitar sounds like, a game they play with one another. His sign back is Like rain. Coming down real soft when it’s warm out and you only get a little wet but not cold. That kind of rain.
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