• Brown Girl Dreaming

Brown Girl Dreaming

Publication Date
October 11, 2016
Genre / Grade Band
Non-fiction /  6th − 8th
Language
English
Brown Girl Dreaming

Description
Jacqueline Woodson is the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature

A New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award Winner


Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed author of Another Brooklyn, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

A National Book Award Winner
A Newbery Honor Book

A Coretta Scott King Award Winner

Praise for Jacqueline Woodson:
Ms. Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story . . . but a mature exploration of grown-up issues and self-discovery."--The New York Times Book Review

Publication date
October 11, 2016
Genre
Non-fiction
ISBN-13
9780147515827
Lexile Measure
990
Guided Reading Level
U
Publisher
Nancy Paulsen Books
BISAC categories
JNF018010 - Juvenile Nonfiction | People & Places | United States - African-American
JNF053140 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Social Topics | Prejudice & Racism
JNF042000 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Poetry | General
JNF007030 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Literary
JNF007120 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Biography & Autobiography | Women
Library of Congress categories
African Americans
20th century
Women
Authors, American
African American women authors
Woodson, Jacqueline
JUVENILE NONFICTION / Biography & Autobiograp
JUVENILE NONFICTION / Social Issues / Prejudi

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review

Written in verse, Woodson's collection of childhood memories provides insight into the Newbery Honor author's perspective of America, "a country caught/ between Black and White," during the turbulent 1960s. Jacqueline was born in Ohio, but spent much of her early years with her grandparents in South Carolina, where she learned about segregation and was made to follow the strict rules of Jehovah's Witnesses, her grandmother's religion. Wrapped in the cocoon of family love and appreciative of the beauty around her, Jacqueline experiences joy and the security of home. Her move to Brooklyn leads to additional freedoms, but also a sense of loss: "Who could love/ this place--where/ no pine trees grow, no porch swings move/ with the weight of/ your grandmother on them." The writer's passion for stories and storytelling permeates the memoir, explicitly addressed in her early attempts to write books and implicitly conveyed through her sharp images and poignant observations seen through the eyes of a child. Woodson's ability to listen and glean meaning from what she hears lead to an astute understanding of her surroundings, friends, and family. Ages 10-up. Agent: Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency. (Aug.)

Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

School Library Journal

Starred Review

Gr 4-7--"I am born in Ohio but the stories of South Carolina already run like rivers through my veins" writes Woodson as she begins her mesmerizing journey through her early years. She was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1963, "as the South explodes" into a war for civil rights and was raised in South Carolina and then New York. Her perspective on the volatile era in which she grew up is thoughtfully expressed in powerfully effective verse, (Martin Luther King is ready to march on Washington; Malcom X speaks about revolution; Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat only seven years earlier and three years have passed since Ruby Bridges walks into an all-white school). She experienced firsthand the acute differences in how the "colored" were treated in the North and South. "After the night falls and it is safe for brown people to leave the South without getting stopped and sometimes beaten and always questioned; We board the Greyhound bus bound for Ohio." She related her difficulties with reading as a child and living in the shadow of her brilliant older sister, she never abandoned her dream of becoming a writer. With exquisite metaphorical verse Woodson weaves a patchwork of her life experience, from her supportive, loving maternal grandparents, her mother's insistence on good grammar, to the lifetime friend she meets in New York, that covers readers with a warmth and sensitivity no child should miss. This should be on every library shelf.--D. Maria LaRocco, Cuyahoga Public Library, Strongsville, OH

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Jacqueline Woodson
Jacqueline Woodson (www.jacquelinewoodson.com) is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award, and a Sibert Honor. She wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Born in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. Her books include Coretta Scott King Award winner Before the Ever After; New York Times bestsellers The Day You Begin and Harbor Me; The Other Side, Each Kindness, Caldecott Honor book Coming On Home Soon; Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; and Miracle's Boys, which received the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award. Jacqueline is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
National Book Awards
-
Winner 2014 - 2014
Newbery Medal
-
Honor Book 2015 - 2015
Coretta Scott King Award
-
Winner 2015 - 2015
Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award
-
Honor Book 2015 - 2015
Cybils
-
Finalist 2014 - 2014
L.A. Times Book Prize
-
Finalist 2014 - 2014
Georgia Children's Book Award
-
Finalist 2016 - 2016
Children's Book Committee Award
-
Winner 2015 - 2015
Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize
-
Winner 2015 - 2015
Kentucky Bluegrass Award
-
Nominee 2016 - 2016
E.B. White Read Aloud Award
-
Winner 2015 - 2015
Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards
-
Honor Book 2015 - 2015
Black-Eyed Susan Award
-
Nominee 2015 - 2016
Capitol Choices: Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens
-
Recommended 2015 - 2015
Great Stone Face Book Award
-
Nominee 2015 - 2016
Rhode Island Teen Book Award
-
Nominee 2016 - 2016
North Carolina Children's Book Award
-
Nominee 2016 - 2016
Alabama Camellia Award
-
Nominee 2015 - 2016
Nevada Young Readers' Award
-
Nominee 2016 - 2016