Feathers

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child death, racism, ableism, and bullying.

On January 6, 1971, the routine of Frannie Wright-Barnes’s school days is broken when a light-skinned boy enrolls in the otherwise all-Black school. The new boy has long, curly hair and isn’t wearing gloves even though it’s snowing outside. A student named Trevor mutters a rude word, and Ms. Johnson reprimands him. The light-skinned boy looks around at his new classmates with a small, calm smile.

The previous day, Ms. Johnson had read Emily Dickinson’s “‘Hope’ Is the Thing With Feathers” to her sixth-grade class. Frannie loved the poem’s opening line so much that she recorded it in her notebook. When she discussed the poem with her family, Mama interpreted the poem in the cultural context of the 1970s and said that it was time for people to look to the future rather than the past. At first, Frannie thought the poet was saying that the word “hope” has feathers. However, her older brother, Sean, who is deaf, explained that the poem uses metaphorical language.

Looking at the new boy’s dejected posture, Frannie feels a pang of sadness for him.