Middle Grade/Young Adult

Feathers takes place in the 1970s and begins when a boy walks into the classroom who is very different from the other kids there. Or maybe he isn’t so different…

Where it takes place:

I never name the place but was imagining this point between the Brooklyn and Queens border — right near Kennedy Airport.

Where I wrote it:

Here in Brooklyn and over the year while I was on the road.

Why I wrote it:

Feathers is a book I wrote because I wanted to write about the many ways people find Hope in the world.

Awards

• Newbery Honor Medal
• IRA/CBC Children’s Choices
• NCTE Notable Children’s Book
• Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People
• National Book Award Finalist
• Coretta Scott King Honor
• 2003 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award (Fiction Honor)
• Horn Book Fanfare List
• School Library Journal Best Book
• IRA-CBC Children’s Choice for 2004
• 2004 Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts (sponsored by the Children’s Literature Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English)
• 2005 New Mexico Battle of the Books (Middle School/Grades 7-9)
• 2004-2005 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Master List (children’s choice award for Vermont)
• 2005 Kentucky Bluegrass Master List (Grades 3-5)
• 2006 Louisiana Young Readers Choice Award Nominee (Grades 3-5)
• 2004-2005 Maine Student Book Award Nominee (Grades 4-8)
• 2004-2005 William Allen White Children’s Book Award Nominee (Kansas children’s choice award)

STATE LISTS:

• Garden State Teen Book Award Master List (NJ)
• Massachusetts Children’s Book Award Master List
• Charlie May Simon Book Award Master List (AR)
• Georgia (nominee)
• Maine (nominee)
• South Carolina (nominee)