Paula McMillen, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
Frannie is still trying to figure out exactly what Emily Dickinson meant in the poem her sixth grade teacher read to the class, “Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul…” Even though she didn’t understand it, she wrote it down because she liked the way it sounded, and then she talked to her mama about it and her older brother, Sean, who is deaf and talks in sign language. Her best friend, Samantha, reads the Bible daily and comes to believe that the new boy in class, whom everyone calls Jesus Boy because of his long hair, really is Jesus come back to earth. Frannie doesn’t think so, but she is still puzzled about why this white boy would come to a school on this side of the highway, and how he came to know sign language. Once again Jacqueline Woodson brings the reader convincingly into the worldview of a young person who often has to deal with very grown-up issues like death and prejudice and violence and finding your place. Fortunately, as in other Woodson stories, the protagonist has the support of loving family members as she negotiates the shoals of growing up and dealing with an often harsh world. Although Frannie is in many ways a very ordinary girl, with whom girl readers will easily connect, her life circumstances propel her to greater introspection and growth. She is a wonderful role model for coming of age in a thoughtful way, and the book offers to teach us all about holding on to hope. 2007, G. P.Putnam’s Sons/Penguin, $15.99. Ages 10 to 15.

CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices 2008)
Hope is a thing with feathers.” Frannie loves the sound of the Emily Dickinson poem her teacher read in class. But she doesn’t understand it. “It’s a metaphor,” her older brother Sean explains. Metaphor or not, Frannie is having a hard time feeling hopeful. Her mother is spending a lot of time in bed again, like she did after losing the baby. Teenage girls flirt with Sean until they realize he’s deaf and turn away. The highway bordering her neighborhood is a dividing line—like a wall—between rich and poor, white and black. And then there is the new kid at school. Everyone calls him Jesus Boy because of his curly brown hair—and because he’s white. Or is he? In a seamless, stirring narrative, Jacqueline Woodson explores how assumptions and labels are barriers to genuine understanding and meaningful relationships. Looking for something to believe in, Frannie briefly thinks it might be Jesus Boy. He’s calm and centered, and he seems to see more than anyone else. Maybe he really is a savior. But it turns out he’s only a boy—a boy who knows from experience the importance of looking beneath the surface. For sensitive Frannie, Jesus Boy’s open heart and open mind are a hopeful affirmation of the way she wants to be in the world and the way she wants the world to be in a stirring novel about an African American girl growing up in the early 1970s. CCBC Category: Fiction for Children. 2007, Putnam, 118 pages, $15.99. Ages 10-14.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2007 (Vol. 75, No. 3))
One wintry day, a white boy with long curly hair enters Frannie’s sixth-grade classroom. “Jesus Boy” is told he’s on the “wrong side of the highway,” and becomes a catalyst for a shift among friends and enemies in the classroom, all observed from Frannie’s point of view. She’s also got her eye on things at home: Suddenly her mother is strangely weary, while her older brother, who is deaf, seems impossibly quick to recover when girls attracted to his good looks are turned off by his silence. Frannie’s questions about faith, friendship and bridging differences are expressed in a vibrant and accessible narrative set in the early 70s. The theme of “hope” recurs in the description of the Black Power movement, and in Frannie’s musings on the Emily Dickinson poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Developing this metaphor, Woodson captures perfectly the questions and yearnings of a girl perched on the edge of adolescence, a girl who readers will take into their hearts and be glad to call their friend. 2007, Putnam, 128p, $15.99. Category: Fiction. Ages 9 to 13. © 2007 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Vicki Sherbert (The ALAN Review, Spring/Summer 2007 (Vol. 34, No. 3))
Hope is the thing with feathers.” Frannie’s teacher had read Emily Dickinson’s poem to her class, and she’d been pondering its meaning ever since. Then the new kid arrives that everyone calls “Jesus Boy.” He is the only fair-skinned kid in the class, and no one can figure out why he’s come to their school on “this side of the highway.” While Frannie tries to both understand and ignore him, she also deals with her brother’s deafness, her best friend’s holiness, and the coming of a new baby to her family. Meanwhile, Frannie keeps thinking about her desire for “the thing with feathers.” Set in the 1970s, this is a story of a young girl’s search for hope. She discovers that, while it is painful to look beneath the surface of a person’s emotions, joy can be found. As the characters face the racial tensions of the era, friendship brings out the basic goodness in each of them. Middle school students who have ever felt like the “odd kid out” will find characters they can relate to in Woodson’s latest novel for young adults. Category: Bullying/Racism. YA--Young Adult. 2007, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 118 pp., $15.99. Ages young adult.Wakefield, KS

Karen Coats (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, April 2007 (Vol. 60, No. 8))
As Frannie puzzles over the line from the Emily Dickinson poem, “Hope is the thing with feathers,” that her teacher shared with her class, her peace is interrupted by the arrival of a new boy. The problem is that he’s white, and white people don’t belong on this side of town. When Trevor, the class bully, tells him he looks like Jesus, he accepts the nickname, adding another dimension to his enigmatic presence. His appearance makes people uneasy in different ways; Frannie’s deeply religious friend Samantha, for instance, toys with the idea that maybe he really is Jesus, until the day he stands up to Trevor in a mean way. He unseats Trevor from his place of power, but in doing so proves that he, too, is merely human. This strongly character-driven novel is as ephemeral in tone as its title connotes, with much of the narrative taken up with Frannie’s speculations on the various situations in her life that require hope and thoughtful pondering. She worries, for instance, about her deaf brother’s outsider status, and about her mother’s pregnancy (several previous pregnancies ended in tragedy). She contemplates Samantha’s need to believe, and wonders about the Jesus boy and how he might fit in. Beyond these wise child deliberations, there is very little action; what tension is created revolves around the status of Frannie’s mother’s pregnancy, an issue the book leaves unresolved (though there is a strong sense that things are going to be all right). Those who read for plot will be left wanting more, but readers of a more philosophical turn of mind may appreciate the way the novel probes ordinary circumstances for their potential for luminous insight. Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2007, Putnam, 128p.; Reviewed from galleys, $15.99. Grades 6-9.

Horn Book (The Horn Book Guide, Fall 2007)
How come the new white boy named Jesus in Frannie's sixth-grade class says he's not white, and could he possibly be the Jesus? How does it feel to have faith? Frannie works out her own answers, finding hope in everyday goodness. Woodson deftly weaves some large ideas through her story, but it's the small moments that linger profoundly. Category: Intermediate Fiction. 2007, Putnam, 118pp, 15.99. Ages 9 to 12. Rating: 2: Superior, well above average.

Robbie Flowers (VOYA, June 2007 (Vol. 30, No. 2))
Frannie is discovering that change does not always come with a bang. Sometimes it can be as simple as a new student showing up at school. The Jesus Boy, as the class calls him, is faced with being the lone white youth in a black school. He hails from across the highway that unofficially segregates the black and white neighborhoods. The students start grappling with what it means to be different. Should they give the Jesus Boy a chance to settle into the class? Or will they continue relentlessly teasing him? When speculation begins that he really is Jesus, things quietly begin to shift. Hope seems to spread through the cracks of the students' lives. They become a bit gentler with one another. Maybe the Jesus Boy is capable of the type of miracle they need to make it through their urban existence. Frannie sees the humanity in the seams of her family-from her deaf brother's struggle to fit in to her mother's preparation for a new baby. The Jesus Boy also forces the youth to examine the wavering lines defining race. Is he really white, and if he is, why did he not simply stay across the highway? Maybe there is something magical about the Jesus Boy or perhaps the magic lies within the young people whom he encounters. Either way, this book is dynamic as it speaks to real issues that teens face. It is a wonderful and necessary purchase for public and school libraries alike. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P M J (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2007, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 128p., $15.99. Ages 11 to 15.