Young adult author Jacqueline Woodson’s autobiography in verse starts with the very beginning: February 12, 1963, the day she was born.
“I am born on a Tuesday at University Hospital
Columbus, Ohio,
USA–
a country caught
between Black and White.”
Woodson is born in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, and takes the reader from Ohio, to South Carolina, to New York City. She introduces them to her mother and father, her grandparents and siblings, and the people that surround her everyday. Along the way, she captures her own internal growth, from the discovery of writing to her awareness of the Civil Rights Movement.
Woodson begins with her birthplace of Ohio, but the scene soon shifts to her mother’s childhood home of Greenville, South Carolina. Woodson describes this town so perfectly that many of its details–from the red-brown dust to her grandfather’s garden–begin to live and breathe. She also describes her awareness of the racism and activism permeating the area where she lives, writing, “So there is a war going on in South Carolina and even as we play/and plant and preach and sleep, we are a part of it.” Shortly after she turns five, her mother takes young Jacqueline and her brother and sister to New York City, a place as different from Greenville as can be. “Here there is only gray rock, cold/and treeless as a bad dream.”
However, their new home does have some redeeming qualities, like the johnny pumps that spray cold water over the hot streets, and Maria, who soon becomes Jackie’s best friend. The reader gets to watch as Jackie matures further, developing her writing ability and learning more about the world around her.
An autobiography in verse is not necessarily a common find in the book world, but Woodson shows just how wonderful it can be. She gives the reader an intimate portrait of her childhood, and at the same time offers a window into our nation’s history, during a time of intense change. I loved the way her poetry flowed, and how the imagery brought the various settings to vivid life. Brown Girl Dreaming is most definitely one of the best books of 2014, and I look forward to whatever Jacqueline Woodson delivers next.
