Children's Literature

NEW POETRY BOOK

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

Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson is divided into five parts.  The first part, "I Am Born," is Jacqueline’s life from the day she was born in Columbus, Ohio, on February 12, 1963, to the day her mother left her father and took the family to South Carolina.  This section describes her father and his family in Ohio, their home, and the confused memories of her birth.  In the poem, “other people’s memory,” Woodson’s grandmother, mother, and father all remember her birth differently.  The sensory images are vivid and set the readers down right in the middle.  “Blue jays squawking,” “phone ringing,” and “static and squawking,” are all phrases used so readers can imagine they might have been there when the story unfolded.

The title of the second section, “the stories of south carolina run like rivers,” is a simile on its own.  This section includes the stories from her time in South Carolina as a child.  She describes the relationship she had with her grandparents, the ways they entertained themselves, and the way African Americans were treated in many situations. 

In the third part, “followed the sky’s mirrored constellation to freedom,” Jacqueline’s mother moved them to New York, the place where “money is falling from the sky, diamonds speckling the sidewalks.” 

‘Deep in my heart, i do believe” is section four.  Woodson writes of her difficulties learning to read and write, struggling to read books, trying to get words on paper.  She talks of her trips to the library, and the moment she found a book with people who looked like her:

            “If someone had taken

            that book out of my hand

            said, You’re too old for this

            maybe

            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.

Sad and, at the same time, magical.  This seems to be the point when Jacqueline realizes she can be the writer she has dreamed of, when her sister doesn’t believe she made up a song because “it’s too good.”  It makes her heart sing when she realizes the “stuff I make up is too good.”

In the last section, “ready to change the world,” Woodson describes the time when she learned of the Black Panther movement and the fight for equality, when she hears her teacher tell her, “You’re a writer,” and figures out what she believes.  In “what i believe,” she uses repetition to make a statement:

            “I believe in God and evolution.

            I believe in the Bible and the Qur’an.

            … I believe in my mother on a bus and Black people

            refusing to ride…”

Each of the poems in Brown Girl Dreaming could stand alone, but they have much more impact as a whole.  The rhythmic words of Woodson’s experiences make this story an easy read, feeling almost like walking along the timeline of Jacqueline’s life. The emotional and sentimental qualities of the poetry help readers empathize with Jacqueline during her childhood years.  Throughout the book, Jacqueline included an assortment of haikus.  These short, simple poems provide a resting place for the readers’ eyes as they move through the chapters of Jacqueline’s life. 

“what if…”

by Jacqueline Woodson

Maria’s mother never left Bayamón, Puerto Rico,

and my mother never left Greenville.

What if no one had ever walked the grassy fields

that are now Madison Street and said,

Let’s put some houses here.

What if the people in Maria’s building didn’t sell

1279 Madison Street

to Maria’s parents

and our landlord told my mom that he couldn’t rent

1283

to someone who already had four children.

What if the park with the swings wasn’t right across

Knickerbocker Avenue?

What if Maria hadn’t walked out of her building

one day and said,

My name is Maria but my mom calls me Googoo.

What if I had laughed instead of saying,

You’re lucky. I wish I had a nickname, too.

You want to go to the park sometime?

What if she didn’t have a sister and two brothers

and I didn’t have a sister and two brothers

and her dad didn’t teach us to box

and her mother didn’t cook such good food?

I can’t even imagine any of it, Maria says.

Nope, I say.  Neither can I.

Before reading this book:

            Ask:

Have you ever kept a journal or diary?

Explain that this is a journal in verse.

Have you ever written poetry in your journal?

Have you ever looked at your family tree?  Share Jacqueline’s family tree from the beginning of the book.

            Share:

“Hold Fast to Dreams” by Langston Hughes from the beginning of the book.  What does it mean to you?

Follow-up:

            Have students write their own “What if…?” poems.

Suggest:

One Crazy Summer – A book by Rita Williams-Garcia that shares the life of three girls during the same time frame as Jacqueline Woodson’s story.  This story has the girls living with their father and grandmother, leaving home to visit there mother, and experiencing the Black Panther movement.

CITATIONS

Williams-Garcia, Rita. One Crazy Summer. New York: Amistad, 2010.