Brown Girl Dreaming

Courtesy of Nancy Paulsen Books

Bibliography

Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown Girl Dreaming. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014.  ISBN 9780399252518

Plot Summary

Born in 1963, Jackie grows up partly in South Carolina at her grandparents’ house. Brown people are marching and protesting for civil rights. We see through Jackie’s eyes as a child learning to take in all the problems of the south and making sense of the religion around her. Jackie’s mother later moves the children to Brooklyn, New York, where she encounters many cultures and faiths. Jackie is passionate for both the south and the north. She believes in her dream of becoming a writer. As Jackie matures, she begins to make sense of integrating her beliefs.

Critical Analysis

Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming is a charming telling of her rearing amidst the American turmoil during civil rights fighting and her own family’s drama. Woodson has a special way of making the reader feel emotionally attached to her family and rooting Jacqueline on to winning her dream. Her words flow in a smooth rhythmic flow, longer poems and shorter poems. Each is written to take the reader back through time to show how Jacqueline came out of a history that paved the way. Imagery of her beloved South Carolina is especially sweet. The way she combines the beauty of the South and the struggles leads to an in depth understanding of how her personality developed.

Woodson shows herself discovering a dream and following it all the way through. She models strength and courage for new generations of young people. Extremely empowering! I wish I had read it as a young girl.

Review Excerpts

2014 National Book Award Winner

2015 NAACP Image Award Winner

2015 Coretta Scott King Award Winner

2015 Newberry Honor Winner

2015 E.B. White Read-Aloud Award Winner

2015 Sibert Honor Winner

From New York Times: “The triumph of ‘Brown Girl Dreaming’ is not just in how well Woodson tells us the story of her life, but in how elegantly she writes words that make us want to hold those carefully crafted poems close, apply them to our lives, reach into the mirror she holds up and makes the words and worlds she explores our own.”

From Kirkus Reviews: “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.”

From The Horn Book: “An extraordinary – indeed brilliant – portrait of a writer as a young girl.”

From School Library Journal: “Sharp when it needs to be sharp, funny when it needs to be funny, and a book that can relate to so many other works of children’s literature, Woodson takes her own life and lays it out in such a way that child readers will both relate to it and interpret it through the lens of history itself.”

Connections

Read aloud as an introduction to civil rights studies.

Read individual selections as part of poem of the day activity.

Read pages 3-5 for references to civil rights leaders to give students ideas for researching or ask students who they look up to and make a new list for research or celebration. Perhaps feature tidbits about the life of each during advisory or announcements or on bulletin board.

Discussion questions around civil rights or self-awareness and goal setting.

Pair with another for study of experiences growing up in the north and the south.

·       Mississippi Trials ISBN (9780142501924)

·       Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 ISBN (9780385382946)

Offer as a resource for an author study.