A classmate of mine used to say that Superfudge was the greatest short story ever written. And there is a way that good children’s books are basically the same good sort fiction for adults. They do a lot in a small space. A protagonist learns a lesson. They begin in one place and end up in another. And if you, the reader, are lucky, it’s all constructed language with language that catches you up and tells you things you’ve always known, but from an angle you never really noticed before, or maybe you forgot.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is Jacqueline Woodson is my new favorite short story writer.

This weekend, when Brian and I went camping, I brought her novel for “independent readers,” Feathers with me. I’m taking a class on award-winning children’s literature, and it had a pretty blue cover and sounded interesting when I poked through the first few pages: it’s about Frannie, a sixth grade girl who wonders about hope, and has a best friend, and doesn’t really know what to do with the strange new boy in her classroom. Her mother is pregnant and sad, her brother is gorgeous and deaf, her father has an amazing laugh. It’s 1971, and there are songs on the radio and a lot of snow on the ground.

Feathers is a pretty simple story. It takes place on one side of the highway, inside one girl, in the space of — maybe? — a few weeks. But it takes us on a full journey, from one moment where things are one way to another, where things have subtly yet completely changed. You should read it. I really don’t want to tell you any more.