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"We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today." Stacia Tauscher Here are four stories that celebrate children who are thoughtful and silly, resilient and joyful.
This brief book has been on a shelf for a long time, and when someone mentioned it, I knew I should read it now. The beautiful thread running through the story comes from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Hope Is The Thing With Feathers.” A loving family has had their heartache with lost babies, and Frannie, the young eleven-year-old tells the story that includes her older brother Sean who’s deaf, a friend Samatha who brings up interesting religious questions, and a few classmates who are not always nice create the setting in which Frannie lives and in which she begins to look at things in a new way. Much seems normal, kids being kids, some play, scenes at school, family meals. A new boy who looks white arrives (this is a segregated community) and adds to the way Frannie looks at others. He claims he doesn’t belong across the bridge (where the white people live and go to school). And with his long hair, he takes on the name Jesus. Adding more pepper to the pot of a story is what Jacqueline Woodson does so well, and this boy certainly adds that spice. The book is divided into four parts in which each one reveals the feelings and hopes of Frannie and others in her life. As a read aloud, this will start some great conversations.
