Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

1.     Bibliography

Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown girl dreaming. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company, 2017.
ISBN: 978-0147515827

2.     Plot Summary

In Brown Girl Dreaming Jacqueline Woodson gives the reader an intimate look into her childhood and her life and experiences growing up in Ohio, South Carolina, and New York. These beautiful stories are crafted and told eloquently through verse.

3.     Critical Analysis


 Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming is a novel in verse told entirely from the perspective of the author as a young child. Woodson has done a phenomenal job of entering her mindset from the past, and she conveys her memories, emotions, and experiences as a small child. Some of Woodson's poems are quite long, and some are quite short. Regardless, each poem is an incredibly vital piece of her life puzzle. Some of her poems are written in four-line stanzas, some are free verse, and a haiku even makes an appearance.   

Woodson uses several techniques that clue the reader into the childlike perspective of the author. Woodson gives each title of her poems a name. Occasionally the name is eloquently tied to the poem, and other times it is cleverly matched up with a poem conveying childlike humor. For example, in the poem, "Genetics" Woodson shares how everyone in her family has the "same space connecting [them]" between their two front teeth. On the street, people see Woodson and her baby brother, and they question who her brother belongs to as he has different colored lighter skin. Woodson proudly shares that he is her brother. "...the people wear doubt thick as a cape until we smile and the cape falls." Woodson's use of metaphors and personification throughout (like the cape of doubt falling) bring to life young Jackie's childhood innocence. 
Young Jakie shares her trials, triumphs, troubles, lessons, and love of her family through her beautiful poetry. The powerful emotions she conveys brings the experiences of the sixties to life. Because of Woodson's use of emotional language, the reader appreciates Jackie's love of her "Daddy Gunnar," and they will undoubtedly experience the pain right along with Jackie as he passes away. One does feel as if they are lifting the blanket on the Irby Woodson family and seeing first-hand intimate and extremely personal experiences of racism in a recovering North America. To conclude, Brown Girl Dreaming is an emotional look into the family, hopes, love, and dreams of a young African American girl as she grows up into the award-winning writer she is today. 

 4.     Review Excerpts

 Newbery Honor Book 2015
From GoodReads: “Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world.”
From Publishers Weekly: “The writer’s passion for stories and storytelling permeates the memoir, explicitly addressed in her early attempts to write books and implicitly conveyed through her sharp images and poignant observations seen through the eyes of a child. Woodson’s ability to listen and glean meaning from what she hears lead to an astute understanding of her surroundings, friends, and family.”

From Kirkus Review: “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.”

5.     Connections
Other Stories Featuring Female Leads During the 1960s
One Crazy Summer
By Rita Williams Garcia
ISBN: 978-0060760908
This is the Rope
By Jacqueline Woodson
ISBN: 978-0425288948
The Other Side
By Jacqueline Woodson
ISBN: 978-0399231162
These stories and Woodson’s stories would make wonderfully powerful additions to a unit on the Civil Rights Movement. Her poems could be read alone or as a whole collection.

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