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Brown Girl Dreaming (2014)

by Jacqueline Woodson(Favorite Author)

3.59 of 5 Votes: 11

ISBN

0399252517 (ISBN13: 9780399252518)

languge

English

genre

Middle Grade & Children's

publisher

Nancy Paulsen Books

review 1: This was an amazing read! I love how she divided the different poems into periods of her life. It was a quick read, but I had to go back and reread quite a few pages that I had tabbed with post-it notes. There are so many things that I would share with a class full of kids who are trying to write. It was just beautiful. Added bonus: you really feel like you know the author when you are done. Her thoughts and dreams and struggles are so well documented. Read it ASAP!
review 2: Wanting to race through a new book from Jacqueline Woodson because I longed to know what would happen and what story this one might tell, I held back. Instead, I savored this book, an autographed copy from a wonderfully generous literary friend, dipping into parts of it slowly and then hol... moreding the words in my mouth and the feelings in my heart, and imagining that little girl whose early years are described here. In beguiling free verse the author relates her brief sojourn in Ohio, time spent in Greenville, South Carolina, the move to Brooklyn, and summers spent back in the South. Throughout the seasons and the years, she unspools her family stories set against the immediate backdrop of foods enjoyed and on a larger scale, against the impact of the civil rights movement, Black Power, and the Vietnam War. She also describes her struggles as a reader and then her determination to be a writer and tell the stories that came to her. The book touched me on every level since Jacqueline's stories are uniquely her own, and yet, they brought to mind my own stories and the influence of my family on the person I am today. Throughout every section, I found myself nodding in recognition of ways in which our journeys were similar and ways in which they were so different. As I read, I could picture many of her previous titles and glimpse the beginnings of those ideas that would bloom into marvelous picture books and chapter books. She even uses lines that appear in some of those books. Brown girl dreaming is not to be missed. Read it for its family history, its insight into the formative years of a talented writer or for its captivating writing. The ten how-to-listen tips are excellent reminders for would-be writers to pay attention to what's around them and to write what they know. Consider this book to be the American version of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a sort of early years' Portrait of the Writer as a Young Girl, and let Woodson's clear insight and storytelling sing you home once again. less

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