SEPTEMBER 2014 - AudioFile
Jacqueline Woodson’s linked poems weave scenes of political change while growing up amid the Civil Rights movement and scenes of personal upheaval upon moving from her grandparents’ peaceful South Carolina home to Brooklyn. Her voice is wistful and dreamy as she savors rich sensory memories like crickets, “who seem to know their song is our lullaby,” and sitting beside her beloved grandfather on “a front porch swing thirsty for oil.” She gives poignant last lines graceful emphases: “Will we always have to choose between home and home?” she ends one, letting its loneliness echo and linger. Her narration is a testament to the emotional power of words and how, even as a child, she knew she possessed that power. ”Stories are like air to me,” Woodson says. “I breathe them in and breathe them out, again and again.” S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Veronica Chambers
…I suspect this book will be to a generation of girls what [Nikki] Giovanni's [Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day] was to mine: a history lesson, a mash note passed in class, a book to read burrowed underneath the bed covers and a life raft during long car rides when you want to float far from wherever you are, and wherever you're going, toward the person you feel destined to be…Woodson's writing can seem so spare, so effortless, that it is easy to overlook the wonder and magic of her words. The triumph of Brown Girl Dreaming is not just in how well Woodson tells us the story of her life, but in how elegantly she writes words that make us want to hold those carefully crafted poems close, apply them to our lives, reach into the mirror she holds up and make the words and the worlds she explores our own. This is a book full of poems that cry out to be learned by heart. These are poems that will, for years to come, be stored in our bloodstream.
Publishers Weekly
★ 05/26/2014
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.)
From the Publisher
A National Book Award Winner
A Coretta Scott King Award Winner
A Newbery Honor Book
One of TIME MAGAZINE’s 100 Best YA Books of All Time
"Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson’s highly lauded collection of free-verse poems about her childhood in New York and South Carolina, has language simple enough to be accessible to tweens and young teenagers and more than enough complexity to engage older readers. The winner of a Newbery Honor, NAACP Image Award, National Book Award and Coretta Scott King Award, Brown Girl Dreaming presents the story of Woodson’s experiences living with the remnants of Jim Crow during the 1960s and 1970s. The author confronts issues like faith, racism and sexual abuse using the elegant, spare language and powerful imagery she has come to be known for." —TIME MAGAZINE
“Gorgeous.”—Vanity Fair
“A radiantly warm memoir.”—The Washington Post
“Moving and resonant . . . captivating.”—The Wall Street Journal
“This is a book full of poems that cry out to be learned by heart. These are poems that will, for years to come, be stored in our bloodstream.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A profoundly moving memoir.”—San Francisco Chronicle
* “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.”— Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
* “Mesmerizing journey through [Woodson’s] early years. . . . Her perspective on the volatile era in which she grew up is thoughtfully expressed in powerfully effective verse. . . . With exquisite metaphorical verse Woodson weaves a patchwork of her life experience . . . that covers readers with a warmth and sensitivity no child should miss. This should be on every library shelf.”—School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
* “Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned. For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.”—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
* “[Woodson’s] memoir in verse is a marvel, as it turns deeply felt remembrances of Woodson’s preadolescent life into art. . . . 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."—Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
* “A memoir-in-verse so immediate that readers will feel they are experiencing the author’s childhood right along with her. . . . Most notably of all, perhaps, we trace her development as a nascent writer, from her early, overarching love of stories through her struggles to learn to read through the thrill of her first blank composition book to her realization that ‘words are [her] brilliance.’ The poetry here sings: specific, lyrical, and full of imagery. An extraordinary—indeed brilliant—portrait of a writer as a young girl.”—The Horn Book, STARRED REVIEW
* “The effect of this confiding and rhythmic memoir is cumulative, as casual references blossom into motifs and characters evolve from quick references to main players. . . . Revealing slices of life, redolent in sight, sound, and emotion. . . . Woodson subtly layers her focus, with history and geography the background, family the middle distance, and her younger self the foreground. . . . Eager readers and budding writers will particularly see themselves in the young protagonist and recognize her reveling in the luxury of the library and unfettered delight in words. . . . A story of the ongoing weaving of a family tapestry, the following of an individual thread through a gorgeous larger fabric, with the tacit implication that we’re all traversing such rich landscapes. It will make young readers consider where their own threads are taking them.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, STARRED REVIEW
* “Woodson uses clear, evocative language. . . . A beautifully crafted work.”—Library Media Connection, STARRED REVIEW
Library Media Connection
* “Woodson uses clear, evocative language. . . . A beautifully crafted work.
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
* “The effect of this confiding and rhythmic memoir is cumulative, as casual references blossom into motifs and characters evolve from quick references to main players. . . . Revealing slices of life, redolent in sight, sound, and emotion. . . . Woodson subtly layers her focus, with history and geography the background, family the middle distance, and her younger self the foreground. . . . Eager readers and budding writers will particularly see themselves in the young protagonist and recognize her reveling in the luxury of the library and unfettered delight in words. . . . A story of the ongoing weaving of a family tapestry, the following of an individual thread through a gorgeous larger fabric, with the tacit implication that we’re all traversing such rich landscapes. It will make young readers consider where their own threads are taking them.
The Horn Book
* “A memoir-in-verse so immediate that readers will feel they are experiencing the author’s childhood right along with her. . . . Most notably of all, perhaps, we trace her development as a nascent writer, from her early, overarching love of stories through her struggles to learn to read through the thrill of her first blank composition book to her realization that ‘words are [her] brilliance.’ The poetry here sings: specific, lyrical, and full of imagery. An extraordinary—indeed brilliant—portrait of a writer as a young girl.
STARRED REVIEW Booklist
* “[Woodson’s] memoir in verse is a marvel, as it turns deeply felt remembrances of Woodson’s preadolescent life into art. . . . 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.
School Library Journal
★ 07/01/2014
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
SEPTEMBER 2014 - AudioFile
Jacqueline Woodson’s linked poems weave scenes of political change while growing up amid the Civil Rights movement and scenes of personal upheaval upon moving from her grandparents’ peaceful South Carolina home to Brooklyn. Her voice is wistful and dreamy as she savors rich sensory memories like crickets, “who seem to know their song is our lullaby,” and sitting beside her beloved grandfather on “a front porch swing thirsty for oil.” She gives poignant last lines graceful emphases: “Will we always have to choose between home and home?” she ends one, letting its loneliness echo and linger. Her narration is a testament to the emotional power of words and how, even as a child, she knew she possessed that power. ”Stories are like air to me,” Woodson says. “I breathe them in and breathe them out, again and again.” S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2014-06-25
A multiaward-winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is "a country caught / / between Black and White." But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father's people in Ohio and her mother's people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah's Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe's Stevie and Langston Hughes' poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that "[W]ords are my brilliance." Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)
