Brown Girl Dreaming

Teaching to adolescents, I am always on the lookout for a great book that grabs you right away.  Many adults have short attention spans, but young adults? Even shorter.  This novel is actually a memoir, but it’s told in poetry form.  The author hooked me right away, and I was drawn not only to the language and word choice, but the gripping story that unfolded.  I could not put it down.

Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

Genre: memoir (told in poetry form)

Summary: This memoir is about a young African American girl born in Ohio in the 1960s.  At a very young age, her mother leaves her father to move back home to South Carolina and takes Jacqueline (the author and narrator) and her two siblings with her.  Her mother then leaves for New York City, to try to obtain a job and a better life for her children.  While she is gone, Jacqueline is raised by her grandparents.  Later, her mother returns for the children, and she spends the rest of her childhood in NYC.  This is a bittersweet story of resilience and the desire to belong.

Excerpt from page 155:

composition notebook

And somehow, one day, it’s just there

speckled black-and-white, the paper

inside smelling like something I could fall right into,

live there–inside those clean white pages.

I don’t know how my first composition notebook

ended up in my hands, long before I could really write

someone must have known that this

was all I needed.

Hard not to smile as I held it, felt the breeze

as I fanned the pages.

My sister thought my standing there

smiling was crazy

didn’t understand how the smell and feel and sight

of bright white paper

could bring me so much joy.

And why does she need a notebook? She can’t even write!

For days and days, I could only sniff the pages,

hold the notebook close

listen to the sound the papers made.

Nothing in the world is like this–

a bright white page with

pale blue lines.  The smell of a newly sharpened pencil

the soft hush of it

one day

into letters.

And even though she’s smarter than anything,

this is something

my sister can’t even begin

to understand.

(Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson 155)

Have you read this book? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts! If not, you should. It’s powerful, touching, and uplifting.  Enjoy! xoxo