Unit 3 Review - Brown Girl Dreaming

 

Bibliographic Information

Woodson, Jacqueline. 2014. BROWN GIRL DREAMING. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books. ISBN 978-0-399-25251-8

Plot Summary

In this autobiography by Jacqueline Woodson, she shares what it was like to grow up in the 1960s and 1970s in both the North and the South. Raised in South Carolina and later in Brooklyn, New York, Woodson often felt halfway home in each place, and describes the reality of living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the civil rights movement. In the South, kids teased her and her siblings about their northern way of talking, and in Brooklyn, being a Jehovah’s Witness meant following rules their friends didn’t understand. But through all their journeying, there was always one constant -- a deep family love and pride that made each Woodson stand up a little taller and shine a little brighter. 

Critical Analysis

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is a powerful memoir in verse. It tells the story of Woodson's childhood, capturing the realities of growing up as an African American girl in the 1960s and 1970s. The story opens with a family tree, showing the reader the roots of Woodson’s family and the people who shaped her. She begins the story with her birth in Columbus, Ohio in 1963 and follows Woodson’s life chronologically, depicting tales that her family filled in the blanks for. Jacqueline Woodson’s story is a powerful one; one in that no matter the color of your skin, the reader can relate to some part of her tale. She experiences death, new life, sickness, adversity, bullying, change, all part of the human experience in some way. Jacqueline Woodson fills the pages with emotion, so that you find yourself smiling and crying along with her. 

One of her most moving descriptions throughout the story is the way she describes being perceived. She is being raised in a world where there is still segregation that she doesn’t understand. She wants to know why, and it doesn’t make sense to her. She sees people for who they are, not the color of their skin. A repeating phrase throughout the novel is this, “We’re as good as anybody, as good as anybody.” Something that stuck with Woodson throughout her life. She knew from an early age that she wanted to be a writer, and watching her grow into becoming just that was a beautiful thing to witness. The jacket art, designed by Theresa Evangelista, depicts a young girl with braids in her hair standing in front of a sunset, holding a book as butterfly after butterfly flies out of the novel. It is a beautiful image that captures the essence of the story so well. In the author’s note, Jacqueline Woodson says, “I know that I was lucky enough to be born during a time when the world was changing like crazy -- and that I was part of that change. I know that I was and continue to be loved. I couldn’t ask for anything more.” She is truly a writer that sees the light in the darkest of times, and her imagery is unlike any I have read before. 

Awards Won & Review Excerpt(s)

*A President Obama "O" Book Club pick

*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

*School Library Journal, 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.”

*The Horn Book, 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.”

Connections

*Read other books like Brown Girl Dreaming: 

Alexander, Kwame. THE CROSSOVER. ISBN 9780544107717

Acevedo, Elizabeth. THE POET X. ISBN 0062662805

Warga, Jasmine. OTHER WORDS FOR HOME. ISBN 0062747800

Reynolds, Jason. LONG WAY DOWN. ISBN 1481438255