Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is a memoir in verse from a gifted author.
In
spare and lovely free verse poems, Woodson describes her early life.
Born in Ohio, she moved with her mother and siblings to South Carolina
at a young age, then to New York a few years later. Woodson describes
how she learned to tell stories, while also exploring the era in which
she grew up and the experiences -- some happy, some sad -- that she
shared with her close-knit family.
This is a National Book Award
finalist, and a book that's been getting a lot of Newbery buzz. I liked
it a lot, and can certainly see its distinguished qualities. I tend to
want memoirs to be more like novels (real life has a distressing lack of
plot, have you noticed?), but Woodson does a good job of tying her life
story together in a cohesive way. Whether it scoops a lot of big awards
or not, I think this is an important book, and I'd recommend it to
memoir readers and kid lit aficionados.
(Reviewed from a copy borrowed through my library system.)
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