Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown
Girl Dreaming. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books. 2014. ISBN
9780399252510
Audio Book:
Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown
Girl Dreaming. Read by the author. New York: Listening Library. 2014. ISBN 9780553397260
Brown Girl Dreaming
is the autobiography of author Jacqueline Woodson written in free verse. When I first read this book, I felt sure it
would be best to hear it read by the author, and I was not disappointed. Once I tracked down an audio version, I was
so pleased to see on the cover that Jacqueline Woodson herself was the
reader. Because this book is written in
poetry, and because poetry is appreciated best if read orally, I feel it is
important to listen to the book at least once.
Being read by the author is an even greater bonus because we can be
assured that the pauses and line breaks will be given the proper emphasis.
Jacqueline Woodson is the featured character since this is
her story, but her story is rich with the characters of her family as
well. Parents, grandparents, siblings,
aunts, uncles, and friends are intricately painted in words. She writes with honesty, presenting the good
and the bad of her childhood memories with childlike frankness.
Her story is set in the turbulent 60’s and 70’s as she lives
with her African American family in both the north and the south. Her memories relate authentically the history
of the times as she conveys the differences in the African American experience
on both sides of the Mason Dixon line.
In addition to her ethnic diversity, she also experiences
being set apart by the strict doctrines of the Jehovah Witness faith which her
care-givers faithfully practice. The
main thread of her story, however, is her persistence to become a writer in
spite of cultural soil that rarely cultivated such a dream. One of my favorite poems is called “stevie and
me” (p. 227). In this poem she tells of
her first experience with a book “with a brown boy on the cover.
Stevie.”
This of course is a reference to John Steptoe’s ground
breaking contribution to multicultural children’s literature, Stevie (1969). She continues:
“the picture book filled with brown people, more
brown people that I’d ever seen
in a book before.”
“I’d never have believed
that someone who looked like me
could be in the pages of the book
that someone who looked like me
had a story.”
Woodson has received prestigious recognition for Brown Girl Dreaming including the NAACP
Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work-Youth/Teens, a John Newbery Honor Medal
for 2015, and the National Book Award for young People’s Literature. The Book List starred review views this “memoir
in verse is a marvel as it turns deeply felt remembrances of Woodson’s…into
art.” School Library Journal claims, “This
should be on every library shelf.”
I would echo that recommendation as a must have in every
library. It is an important contribution
to African American literature by a well known and respected author. Targeting grades 4-7, it is full of cultural
and universal relevance. Not only is it valuable
in understanding the civil rights movement, but also speaks to family conflict,
learning problems, sibling rivalry, family love, disappointment, sadness,
prejudice, injustice, and of course dreams of the future. You could pair it with other literature such
as Kadir Nelson’s Heart and Soul, the
Story of America and African Americans to deepen understanding of African
American history. You could pair it with
Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges and
compare and contrast Jacqueline’s and Ruby’s school experiences. My
Brother, Martin could be included as another nonfiction account of an
historic leader of the Civil Rights Movement as it is written by Martin Luther
King’s older sister, Christine King Farris.
Remember to find Brown Girl Dreaming on audio. Unabridged on 4 discs you get 4 hours of
Woodson herself telling her own story.
You’ll also want to see the book version so you won’t miss the family tree
diagram at the beginning or the family pictures at the end. After that you’ll probably want to read or
reread her other contributions in a new light after knowing her better.
Bridges, Ruby. Through
My Eyes: the autobiography of Ruby Bridges. New York: Scholastic. 1999.
Farris, Christine King. My Brother Martin: memoirs of a childhood with the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2002.
Nelson, Kadir. Heart
and Soul: the Story of America and African Americans. New York: Harper
Collins. 2011
Steptoe, John. Stevie.
New York: Harper & Row. 1969.
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