This stunningly beautiful 2008 Newbery Honor award-winning book is just what great writing should be.

It is filled with wonderful images, crisp, clear words and a story line that resonates in the soul of anyone who receives, seeks or longs for hope.

Emily Dickinson's poem Hope is used as the springboard for the storyline.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all

While there are coming of age elements swirling on the canvas of this book, there are larger brush strokes and elements of light shining on varied hues.

This is a heartfelt tale of 1971 and eleven year old Frannie who lives on the wrong side of the tracks, her spunky, loving brother Sean who is deaf, her mother who has experienced the sadness of miscarriages and her father who works very hard to provide the necessities.

When the new kid, a lanky pale white boy named "Jesus", appears at school, the tables are turned.
He is the minority and the one who struggles to belong.

Frannie's best friend Samantha is the child of a pragmatic fire and brimstone preacher. Samantha is enamored with Jesus and thinks he is sent from God.

Hope abounds:

Frannie's parents hope for a new life to grow; Frannie's brother hopes for inclusion in the non-deaf peers; Samantha hopes that Jesus is the real deal. Jesus, the new white kid, adopted by a black family, hopes that he can overcome the tremendous bullying and find a place on both sides of the tracks.

Personally, I was left hoping that there might be just a little of Jesus in all of us.