RM Winter 2016 FLIP

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Reading Matters
Literature Matters
Reading Matters | Volume 16 • Winter 2016 | |73|
Brown Girl Dreaming
Woodson, Jacqueline. (2014). 337 pp. Nancy
Paulsen/Penguin.
978-0-399-25251-8, $16.99 (Intermediate)
--by Sarah Lawson & Rebecca Welch
Through the use of free verse,
award-winning author Jacqueline
Woodson tells the story of her
childhood and the challenges
she faced as an African American
growing up during the 1960s and
1970s. Moving from place to place
and torn between two worlds, Woodson paints an honest
picture of what it was like feeling halfway home in the North
and the South. Woodson takes readers back in time with her
carefully crafted free verse poems and addresses difficult
issues, including segregation, religion, and poverty. Woodson
even allows readers to see and feel the pain that she and her
family members experienced as their lives changed over time.
Readers will be captivated by Woodson’s stories, as they reveal
how she came to find her voice as a writer. Woodson gives
readers a better view into her life by providing numerous family
photographs at the end of the novel. Middle-grade readers will
surely enjoy this memoir, as they, too, are searching for their
place in the world. Woodson elegantly states, “When there are
many worlds/you can choose the one/you walk into each day”
(p. 319). Brown Girl Dreaming won the National Book Award,
the Coretta Scott King Author Award, and a Newbery Honor.
Jonda C. McNair is a professor of literacy education at Clemson
University. She can be reached at