Brown Girl Dreaming (one of the best books I have ever read)- A Book Review for Children's Literature

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Woodson, Jacqueline.  BROWN GIRL DREAMING. New York, NY:  Penguin. ISBN 0399252518

PLOT SUMMARY

In BROWN GIRL DREAMING, Woodson tells her autobiography in poems.  The story begins with her early life in Ohio and follows her and her siblings to the South, where they live with their grandparents, and then up north, where they live with their mother. She is still a child when the story ends, but she has lived enough of life to have a grasp of who she is going to become. This autobiography not only tells about Woodson’s physical journey through much of her childhood, but shares her journey to becoming a writer, and even connects her life to the Civil Rights Movement in a very powerful way.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This collection opens with a family tree and Langston Hughes’ poem Dreams, so I am interested before I even begin.  I open to the first page, and before I turn to the second page, the language in this first free verse poem has already pulled me in.

Woodson tells three stories in one.  She tells the literal story of her life, “I am born on a Tuesday at University Hospital/ Columbus, Ohio,/ USA-/.

She tells the story of who she will become, “I do not know if these hands will be/ Rosa’s/ or Ruby’s/… ready to change the world…”

And she tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement, “a country caught/ between Black and White’.

It seems as though it would be challenging to rise to this task, but Woodson writes with such a beautiful fluidity that her words flow seamlessly to interweave all the aspects she incorporates into her story. Woodson uses similes, “the weight of our grandparents’ love like a blanket with us beneath it, safe and warm,” and metaphors, “This place is a Greyhound bus humming through the night then letting out…”  to create sounds and images in her reader’s mind.  The imagery, “his cough moves through the air/ back into our room where the light/ is almost blue, the white winter sun painting it”, is visible and I can feel the cold air and see the cough skittering through the air and through the house.

Woodson tells her autobiography from a young child’s point of view.  Lines such as, “but our hearts aren’t bigger than that./  Our hearts are tiny and mad./  If our hearts were hands,/ they’d hit,” add humor and innocence to her story that make it absolutely memorable.

In the end, the book wins over the reader with the sheer power of emotion that it is able to evoke.  When Woodson falls in love with language, “I want to catch words one day.  I want to hold them/ then blow gently, watch them float/ right out of my hands”, I fall in love with it as well.  This book captured my heart and I could read every poem over and over and never lose this feeling of awe.

AWARDS AND REVIEWS

*National Book Award winner 2014

*Newbery Honor winner

*Coretta Scott King Award

*NAACP Image Award

*Sibert Honor Award

*President Obama “O” Book Club Pick

*Starred review in Publisher’s Weekly: “The writer’s passion for stories and storytelling permeates the memoir… implicitly conveyed through her sharp images and poignant observations seen through the eyes of a child.”

*Starred review in School Library Journal: “With exquisite metaphorical verse Woodson weaves a patchwork of her life experience… that covers readers with a warmth and sensitivity no child should miss.”

*Starred review in Booklist: “… the result is both elegant and eloquent, a haunting book about memory that is itself altogether memorable.”

*Starred review in The Horn Book: “A memoir-in-verse so immediate that readers will feel they are experiencing the author’s childhood right along with her…”

CONNECTIONS

*Other books by Jacqueline Woodson:  ANOTHER BROOKLYN, THE OTHER SIDE, EACH KINDNESS, COMING ON HOME SOON, FEATHERS, SHOW WAY, AFTER TUPAC AND D FOSTER and MIRACLE’S BOYS.

*Students could use this book as a jumping off point for writing poetry about their own lives.

*Students could use the connection Woodson makes to a major political movement to attempt to connect their life story to real world events that have happened during their lifetimes.

*With the themes in this novel of “You are as good as anyone” and “we are just people”, student can study other selections that connect to these themes.

*Cross-curricular connections to Social Studies and the Civil Rights Movement.

Images taken from:  www.jacquelinewoodson.com