Moving. School. Friends. Divorce. Jacqueline Woodson shared her trials and tribulations of her life growing up in the 1960s. The joys of finding her voice as a writer to the struggles she experiences in school.
Woodson's beautiful prose flows like a a song that sings her story through each page. Each poem is powerful on its own but together weave a powerful picture of summer days and longings of home, sibling rivalry and joyful celebrations. Young readers will like the variety of poem lengths and find the words will seem to lift off the page helping them to smell the air in South Carolina and to hear the James Brown record in her New York apartment. Readers will also gravitate toward her relatable struggles of divorced parents, struggles in school (the author has dyslexia), and finding ways to play inside on a rainy day as well as the joys of making new friends and finding a voice.
"The resulting memoir in verse is a marvel, as it turns deeply felt remembrances of Woodson’s preadolescent life into art, through memories of her homes in Ohio, South Carolina, and, finally, New York City, and of her friends and family. Small things—ice cream from the candy store, her grandfather’s garden, fireflies in jelly jars—become large as she recalls them and translates them into words. She gives context to her life as she writes about racial discrimination, the civil rights movement, and, later, Black Power. But her focus is always on her family. Her mother cautions her not to write about her family, but, happily, many years later she has—and the result is both elegant and eloquent, a haunting book about memory that is itself altogether memorable." - Michael Cart, Booklist Review
Book Information:
Woodson, J. (2014). BROWN GIRL DREAMING. New York: Penguin. IBSN 97808399252518
What Next?
Read Locomotion also be Jacqueline Woodson.
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