Book Review: Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Title: Brown Girl Dreaming
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Publisher: Nancy Paulson Books
Publication Date: August 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0399252518

PLOT SUMMARY
Award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson's free-verse memoir draws readers into her childhood growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. While the novel takes place during the civil rights movement, the story focuses on Woodson and her family. Woodson describes the displacement she experienced in her childhood, starting when her mother left her father. Woodson and her siblings moved from Ohio to their grandparents' home in South Carolina and were teased by other children for their northern way of talking. Her grandmother raised them as Jehovah's Witnesses when Woodson's mother leaves the children for an extended period to find a new home. Her life was upended again when her mother, pregnant with a child whose father is never named or mentioned, moved the family to Brooklyn, New York. There, they experienced isolation from other children who did not understand their religion's rules. Despite these upheavals, the story often portrays the joys of Woodson's childhood and the deep love between her family, as well as Woodson's growth from a struggling reader to a professional author through her passion for storytelling.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Brown Girl Dreaming is a memoir smartly told as a free-verse novel, perfectly capturing the way adults recall childhood memories; fragments in time, often seemingly mundane, but for some unexplainable reason impactful to our minds. What may seem like an inconsequential memory is vividly recalled through rich imagery, creating crystal clear images in readers' minds. "Saturday night smells of biscuits and burning hair. / Supper done and my grandmother has transformed / the kitchen into a beauty shop. Laid across the table / is the hot comb, Dixie Peach hair grease / horsehair brush, parting stick / and one girl at a time." (Woodson, 2014, p. 83).

Consonance is also often used to add to the sound of the rhythm. In the poem "The Ghosts of the Nelsonville House", 'c's and k's create and quick and slick lines that roll off the tongue."Once, there were so many children here / running through this house / up and down the stairs, hiding under beds / and in trunks, / sneaking into the kitchen for tiny pieces / of icebox cake, cold fried chicken, thick slices of their mother's honey ham..." (Woodson, 2014, p. 11).

Woodson cleverly breaks down her story into short poetic lines, deliberately placing words individually onto lines to create a staccato rhythm. This starts immediately on the first page: "I am born on a Tuesday at University Hospital / Columbus, Ohio / USA— / a country caught / between Black and White." (Woodson, 2014, p. 1).

Even the use of italics provides opportunities to switch from speaking softly to loudly when reading aloud. "I do not know if I'll be strong like Ruby. / I do not know what the world will look like / when I am finally able to walk, speak, write... / Another Buckeye! / the nurse says to my mother." (Woodson, 2014, p. 4).

Brown Girl Dreaming is a story about Woodson's childhood and is wrought with emotion, specifically the familial love of the Woodsons. It is difficult to choose a poem that exemplifies this theme, as there are so many. However, the three back-to-back poems regarding the bus to Greenville were particularly striking - "Each Winter," "Journey," and "Greenville, South Carolina, 1963." Woodson's father's angry speech that his children will never sit at the back of the bus is juxtaposed in the next poem as her mother quietly whispers to her children they are worthy and not lesser than those who sit at the front (Woodson, 2014, p. 29-31).

The book is organized mostly chronologically, starting with Woodson's birth, with some poems taking place before Woodson's birth, such as when her mother's brother passed away. At the beginning of the book is a family tree to help readers keep track of the many family members mentioned in the book. At the end are childhood photos of Woodson's family, including the wedding photo that Woodson specifically mentions is the only photo of her parents in the poem "Leaving Columbus" (Woodson, 2014, p. 40).

This is a book that can be enjoyed by anyone, and Woodson's struggle with reading should be especially relatable to other children who experience the same. Woodson's growth as an award-winning author should be especially hopeful to reluctant readers out there who may feel they will never enjoy the written word.

AWARDS
2015 Coretta Scott King Award for Author
2015 Newbery Medal Honor Book
2015 Sibert Medal Honor Book
2015 ALSC Notable Children's Books List
2015 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work In YA Fiction
2014 National Book Award for Young People's Literature

REVIEW EXCERPTS
"The resulting memoir in verse is a marvel... the result is both elegant and eloquent, a haunting book about memory that is itself altogether memorable." - Booklist, starred review

"An extraordinary—indeed brilliant—portrait of a writer as a young girl." - The Horn Book, 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." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"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." - Publishers Weekly, starred review

"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." - School Library Journal, starred review

CONNECTIONS
Enrichment activities: The book has several references to historical figures that can be used to connect to topics regarding the civil rights movement. One poem in the book, "Greenville, South Carolina, 1963," specifically addresses Woodson's mother's fear as she takes her children to the back of the bus to South Carolina. The book can even be linked to learning about black troops in the Civil War, as Woodson mentions in the poems "It'll be Scary Sometimes" that her paternal great-great-grandfather was born free and was part of the United States Colored Troops.

Related books:
Lai, T. (2011). Inside out and back again. HarperCollins.
ISBN: 978-0061962783

Nelson, M. (2016). How I discovered poetry. Speak.
ISBN: 978-0147510051

Weatherford, C.B., & Cooper, F. (2008). Becoming Billie Holiday. WordSong.
ISBN: 978-1590785072

Woodson, J. (2007). Feathers. G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers.
ISBN: 978-0399239892

Woodson, J. (2003). Locomotion. Nancy Paulson Books.
ISBN: 978-0399231155

REFERENCES

Woodson, J. (2014). Brown Girl Dreaming. Nancy Paulson Books