Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson

This young adult book takes readers on a journey back in time as author Jacqueline Woodson recalls her own life as an African American child growing up in the United States during the Civil Rights movement. Written in verse, the book connects the reader to young Jackie as she recalls her family life, her church life, her school experiences, and her own story told by the one who knows it best.

As the book begins, readers learn about the story of how Jacqueline Woodson was named when she was born. Names are important when we begin to tell the story of who we are. In this story it lays the foundation for sharing not only about the author, but about the family that was woven in to the tapestry of her life. Brown Girl Dreaming is an autobiography written in verse. The words are pieced together delicately, elegantly, simply.

She writes about her place in her family, how she looked like her sister but was so very different. She writes about her choice to write Jackie instead of Jacqueline, because of her struggle with the cursive Q. She writes of the separation from her mother while she went to New York, and the days and night she spent waiting for her mother to come get her from her Grandmother’s home. She writes about the rules of society, that people keeping to their own kind was both a source of friction and the accepted norm. She writes about what she thought she knew as a child, and how writing allowed her to find what she really knew.

Telling her story she shares how her teacher told her, “You are a writer” and she believed her.

Brown Girl Dreaming is not a fairy tale. It is about a real girl with a real family with real experiences and real dreams. The author does not inflate or diminish her story to create a more appealing version for the reader. What she does do is recall her own memories and story by retelling her story in her own words in her own way.

I purchased this book as an audio book and listened to the author read her story as though I was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Jacqueline Woodson is a remarkable story teller, but not in the fantastically superficial way that I have come to expect when describing a story teller. I enjoyed the simplicity of this book, and all the ways I was able to find myself connecting to her story even though culture and society screams that I should not be able to because she and I are different. We are different. Yet, I found over and over again bits and pieces of her story that I could and can relate to as I listened.

As a teacher, I can absolutely see using this book in the classroom and recommending it to my students and colleagues. So often we teach and learn about the famous people involved in pivotal moments of the civil rights movement without hearing the deeply personal impact in the everyday life of so many. Jacqueline Woodson brings her culture, her history, and her story to the talking table with this book. I believe that students would find her style of writing intriguing as she writes as though she were speaking to a friend. The connections written about in this book could extend beyond English Language Arts and Reading to history and social studies. This book opens up many possibilities for students to explore writing their own story in their own way.

We all have a story to tell. Brown Girl Dreaming is the story of Jacqueline Woodson in her own words written in her own way. And, it is beautiful!

Ideas for Classroom Incorporation of Brown Girl Dreaming:

• ELA – genre, autobiography, writing style, poetry, personal narrative, text to self connections, story mapping

• HISTORY – the Civil Rights Movement, Langston Hughes, Jesse Jackson, Ruby Bridges, Rosa Parks, Greenville, NC
• GEOGRAPHY – 50 states, New York City, North Carolina, Ohio, map skills, city map of New York City and it’s districts

• MATH – figuring distance between two places, budget, cost of living